I think the title of this post is pretty self-explanatory. Earlier this week, I was sobbing in my car because I was on the phone with my dear friend who lost her mom two years ago (she’s been my grief guru since my grandmother died), and she was telling me how she recently realized that now that her mom is gone, she’s lost her biggest cheerleader. She was the one “thing” her mother was most concerned about and she mourned the loss of that and that, in her words, she’ll never have that again.

I started sobbing because I realized I’ve lost my biggest cheerleader too. I lost the person who always fought for me, no matter what. The person who always made sure I saw her stand up for me.

One of the most painful parts of this experience is that I feel so alone. I don’t have a boyfriend or any close friends who live in the same city, and it’s really, really hard.

My friend also realized something else. She realized her mother has prepared her for everything she’s going to face in life. I know my grandmother has prepared me as well. I said so at her funeral. She gave me everything she had to give: her love, her attention, her wisdom, her money. EVERYTHING. And I couldn’t be more grateful to her. Without my grandmother, who knows where I’d be. I could be dead, in jail, addicted to drugs. My grandmother, and my grandfather, truly saved my life.

I’ve also started feeling exhausted and angsty/annoyed/angry a lot of the time again. When I fall asleep, it’s a heavy, dreamless sleep. Even if I get eight hours, when I wake up, it feels like I’ve barely slept at all.

Everything my co-workers do annoys me: from talking too loudly, to the way one of my co-worker laughs, to their personalities. I know it’s just grief angst, so I try to keep to myself,  keep my headphones in and not interact with anyone.

In my therapy session, my therapist said, “It’s like all of your nerve endings are exposed.” I said, “That’s exactly it.” Every slight against me is now a major offense. Things that were once trifling annoyances now make me furious. I was already an extremely sensitive person but now my reactions to things are on a whole other level.

I cannot wait to see my therapist next week and pour all of this out into her lap. Also, I think I’m going to get a massage this weekend and see if that helps ease some of the tension in my body.

I’m also annoyed because my ambition has been reinvigorated since my grandmother passed but I’m still trying to figure out how to make my dreams happen.

I want to have a television show on HBO that’s about a Black woman’s life, the entirety of her life: her sex life/sexuality (there’s going to be a lot of sex on the show, just a heads up), her feminism, her Black consciousness, her spirituality, her friendships/relationships, her work, everything. I want it to be a beautifully directed and produced show that shows Black women the beauty in themselves. I have some idea how to make this happen but that entails writing a book and hoping it gets optioned for a television show. That takes too long. One of the main things death teaches you is life is short. I don’t feel like waiting that long to see my dream come to fruition.

My other dream is I want to create, write, direct and produce a scripted erotic podcast. I’m an erotic short story writer and I want to turn my stories into a podcast. (In case you’re interested, I use the pen name Monique Washington and sell my short stories on Amazon. You can find my most popular story here.)

I’m going to do some research this weekend and see if I can figure out a faster way to get my show on HBO. If anyone has any ideas on who I can contact to get my HBO show or get my podcast off the ground, please let me know using the Contact Me page. Thank you in advance for your help!!