consistency & life goals

My mom has been traveling Italy with her friends this last week. During the day, she sends me some of the most breathtaking photos I have ever seen, and for brief moments, I feel this comforting sense of calm and normalcy. Like Mom has come back. Mom is strong. Mom is surviving. At night, though, reality sets in and the texting and late night crying begins. She's not sleeping. She is hopeless and lonely. She can't imagine ever being happy again. I can't be a replacement for dad. I remind her too much of dad. She is grieving. And it feels like there is no space for me to grieve. I tell her I am peddling the water everyday, choosing to stay afloat and choosing to believe that wave after wave will not pull me or her under. I tell her that she is doing so good already, that I am proud of how far she's come, that I'm amazed that she can even get out of bed everyday to put one foot in front of the other. I tell her all the cliches I know, that time heals all, all the fishies in the sea, that she is worthwhile. I beg her and I tell her I still need her to be my mom. Nothing ever feels enough though. I simply can't pull her out and I know that it's not even fair to ask her to do anything but grieve right now, in her own way.

Instead, I'm going through the motions. I'm doing all the right things. I'm working out, cooking in, practicing gratefulness. I've even started playing tricks on myself and running dialogue in my head: "Oh this is hard? Think about your [future, unborn] daughter! Be the role model you want to be for her now." "Oh this is hard? Well going after the hard things is worth it." I started making lists, or the same list I should say, on random days to remind myself of who I want to be and what is actually meaningful to excel at. My newest mantra is consistency. To make anything a permanent reality, it seems all you really need is consistency.

My list is as follows (in no particular order):
- Be a good doctor. To be a good doctor, I need consistency in studying, avoiding burnout, maintaining curiosity and steady patience/compassion.
- Be healthy. To be healthy, I need consistency in eating mostly non-processed nutritious foods and keeping up with 2-3x week exercise.
- Be a good partner in life. To be a good partner in life, I need to be kind. I need to be generous with my interpretation of things, and to practice fighting for resolution instead of to win.
- Be a good bachata dancer. I need to go to practice, value my dance community, and just dance.
- Be a good friend. I need to be consistently present, spend energy, and make time for people. I need to practice listening and being aware of the "righting reflex" instead of trying too hard to fix things that aren't mine to fix.
- Be a good daughter. This one I struggle with the most. What does it mean to be a good daughter? How can I ever replay my parents for what they have given me. It is not repayable. So I'll continue to call and check in every day, love them for who they are, take a break for myself when it's just too much, and do my best to live a life where they have zero worries or heartbreaks on my behalf.
- Be a good citizen. This one is up for interpretation, but to me it means practicing consistency with being open-minded, nonjudgmental, trying my best to avoid using straws, bringing a reusable grocery bag, recycling but not things you can't recycle, trying to avoid consumerism and buying less "stuff," cage free roam free eggs even if it's more expensive, being kind to other drivers aka avoiding road rage, remembering to acknowledge and thank all service workers, speaking up when in my gut it's the right thing to do...
- Being a good future mom. A novel to be written another day :)

Yes it's real! Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy 

- Photocredit to my amazing mom