love & being alone

…and generational trauma (plus the mind fuck of your parents getting older)

You know when people say “life has been life-ing” well I’m going to give you the perfect fucking storm of where an amazing accomplishment for me (i.e. a life long dream coming true) doesn’t stop the life of other people around you and in this case, my mom, who is the closest thing to me…my personal superwoman.

I was struggling to write this month’s newsletter (hence the very delay) because it was all jumbled in my head & I couldn’t quite articulate it into words. I actually wrote it and deleted it because it didn’t make sense to me. Until I was driving, talking to myself out loud and obviously, that’s when I have the best conversations… just me? Lol

Anyway, if you follow me on social media, then you might have seen me post about being home for two weeks in October while my mom recovered from hip replacement surgery. Now, I will say, both me and my mom didn’t expect the severity of the recovery because it’s different for everyone. So many people said “oh she will be up and running in no time” but they don’t really talk about the mental state of it all…and everyone involved. Also, because my mom is very active for a 72 year old woman, I thought it would be a breeze….I think the fuck NOT!

So, the plan was for me to be home for two weeks, a couple of days before surgery then basically two weeks after surgery. So me & Grey (my fur son) packed our bags and headed home to Maryland. Let me tell you, I was very anxious leading up just because I didn’t know what to expect with this surgery but we push through, right?!

A little intel, I’m 1 of 3 children but between my mom & my dad, it’s me and my older brother. For reasons beyond our control, my brother wasn’t able to be there the day of the surgery but he was taking over while I was going to go to NYC the next day to do Good Morning America for Spice Spice Baby, my new cooking show on Tastemade!!! (honestly, still processing that)

So, story time…

It’s the day of surgery. I walk and feed Grey around 4am then me and my mom are out the door at 4:45am since she has to be there at 5:30am for pre-op, etc. The doctors & nurses go through everything with us and tell me the surgery is two hours then she will spend an hour in recovery before I can see her. So I go get coffee, FaceTime Loni (like I do multiple times a week lol) and by 10am I get an automated text that says “the patient is out of surgery and doing well”. They let me know that I would need to wait for about another hour to see her, so around 11:30am I got the OK that I could see my mom. I see her and she’s pretty alert so I let her know I’m going to let Grey out because at that point he’s been in his crate going on 6-7 hours and I’ll be back before the Physical therapist sees her.

Now, with hip replacement surgery it is VERY IMPERATIVE that you walk after. Like, they make your ass walk, kinda wild lol but hey, I’m no doctor….now, remember this part!

Anyway, I drive about 20 minutes to my mom’s house to let Grey out and head back to the hospital. All while giving lots of updates to my aunts, family, friends and brother…this is where I start to feel overwhelmed. I’m pulling into the garage of the hospital and the surgeon calls me and is like “oh I’ve been out to the waiting area three times but you weren’t there” so of course, flustered, I’m like “I’m so sorry, I had to go back and let my dog out”. He basically just wanted to give me an update that all went well with surgery.

So I’m back at the hospital with my mom and the physical therapist comes and is like “ok, Ms. Hill let’s see how you do with walking so you can go home!” She takes a couple of steps, starts breathing heavily and passes out…can you imagine my fucking face?! I’m like what is happening!?! The physical therapist lets me know that it’s super common after surgery and tells me we will try again when her blood pressure regulates. So they told me to let her rest and go to the waiting area. So I jokingly text my two best friends who are married (Loni & Taylor) and I’m like “OMG where is my f*cking husband! Doing this shit solo is tough! lol” So an hour goes by, we try to get my mom to walk again and no good, the physical therapist immediately says she’s staying overnight and will be discharged tomorrow. So at this point, it’s 6pm and I’ve been at the hospital for 12 hours….alone. Can you imagine the spiral that is starting to happen in my head!? Lol

My mom tells me to go home & get some rest because at this point my anxiety is through the roof. One, because she’s staying overnight and I have to head to New York the next day for GMA and seeing how tough it was for her to walk, I’m worried about getting her into the house just being us two.

I get in the car and start crying. At this point I felt ALONE. Reasons beyond my control, my brother wasn’t able to be there and then the being “single” of it all really hit me so, that text I sent to my friends wasn’t really a joke after all. I texted my therapist to say I need to reschedule tomorrows session because my mom is still in the hospital but luckily and thank God my therapist texted me back saying, “I have a slot open tonight if you want it”. I immediately said YES!

I got onto the zoom and burst into tears, explaining my feelings and she let me talk and said very sternly “Alex, you need to communicate what you need, what do you need for you to feel comfortable tomorrow with your mom?”

Now a little back story. I have trouble asking for help because I am stubbornly independent and I learned that from my mom. It’s not all bad but in times of need, we need to communicate but lots of times, I’ve been let down and especially in romantic relationships so I just say “fuck it, I’ll do it”. My mom, being a single mom, did the same and in turn raised a daughter to be the same way…do you see where I’m going here?

What I needed was just an extra hand to help get my mom from the car and into her home. I saw how it was a task just getting her to the bathroom so my anxiety was insane thinking of doing it by myself.

So the next day, I got to the hospital, picked up her prescriptions and mentioned to her that it would be great to have someone else with us when she goes home and she goes “Al, you know it’s hard for me to ask people for help because everyone has stuff going on in their own lives”. I had to excuse myself because it was like a light bulb went off and I started crying like oh sh*t, this is why I’m like that and I don’t want to be.

Y’allllll when I tell you the triggers & childhood trauma that came out within the last 36 hours! I said what the entire fuck! Lol

I left the room and went outside for a second and it’s at those times the universe/God/whoever you pray to swoops in and gives you what you need in that moment. I got a text from one of my best friend’s Taylor that literally just said “checking on you ❤️” I called her hyperventilating crying and she just listened and that’s exactly what I needed. In that moment I just needed to cry and I said to her “Tay I want to be able to communicate & ask people for help or even rely on a partner without having to think twice”. That’s when I was like I want to break through this generational trauma & work on my communication, not only for myself but for my eventual partner.

MIND YOU… this was all in the midst of announcing my new cooking show & going on GMA for my first ever live morning show segment…but life doesn’t stop. When I tell you, I blacked the fuck out & had no idea what I said on GMA lol because I had so much going on the day before with my mom, I’m just glad I got through it! The segment turned out pretty good from what I heard! Lol

Anyway, after alllll of the madness, me & my mom ended up having a great talk about life, communication, being a single mom, dating, motherhood & all the in between. Those two weeks home ended up being just what I needed & taking care of my mom is something I will never forget and it’s only 1% of what she has done for me so I would do it all over again…maybe next hip, I’ll have a man that can help lol.

…and while two things can exist at once, I am a strong, stubborn af, independent woman who was raised by a strong, resilient, independent single mom and I still desire a partnership and a love to ease all life’s ups & downs with.

Until next newsletter.

Xo,

Alex