Speaking of my dead mom...

[conuly]

all my practice finally paid off.

I spent a lot of time saying the words "Unfortunately, my mother passed away in September" in preparation for somebody whom I haven't already told asking after her health, and when it finally happened that somebody said "How's your mom?" I was able to say that instead of "Oh, she's dead, how's yours?"

The latter, believe me, was my very first instinct, and the words were right behind my teeth when my rehearsed script asserted itself.

Most of my neighbors, I must assume, are used to me by now, and probably the rest would think something like "Poor thing, she must be out of her mind with grief and has no idea what she's saying", but I'd rather not dump that level of awkward on them, not unsuspecting like that.

Comments

[conuly]

I mostly don't mention that my dad is dead because I'm not sure how I'll react to it. I don't think I'll say it and burst into tears (but what if I did???)

That's actually one of the reasons I went out and told as many people as possible as soon as possible - I wanted to get used to saying it, with whatever wording, very quickly so I could at least talk about it without sobbing.

I really hate crying. It makes my eyes and throat itchy, and also my glasses get gunky. Plus, the sound of crying is just annoying to me. I rarely say that, because it's such an asshole thing to say when other people are crying, and not much less of an asshole thing to say when it's *me*, but I do not like it.

[greenwoodside]

I'm okay with it physically, but I do find it really really embarrassing to cry in front of people. I think I've only done it once as an adult, and that was when I was about twenty and was very stressed about essay-writing for university.

That's actually one of the reasons I went out and told as many people as possible as soon as possible - I wanted to get used to saying it, with whatever wording, very quickly so I could at least talk about it without sobbing.

I'm glad it's working for you.