This is Not Okay

How do you say you're not okay without worrying people? How do you make everyone understand how profoundly sick and wrong you feel, without them feeling like they have to rally and do something? I'm exhausted. I'm not okay, and I'm exhausted. I keep considering the profound unfairness, the heaviness of being empty, and sadness. Nothing deep or wondering there. I'm just plain ole fucking sad.

Friday night I got the news that a good friend of my mom's and some one I cared about was killed in a car accident. Some stupid girl was texting and hit her head on. The week before that, another friend's father was murdered. And it makes me want to vomit up all my hurt and anger. It makes me feel so sick. I don't know how to explain it, except that it feels like there is something profoundly wrong going on right now. I feel like the universe is snatching up my family and my friends, or the loved ones of my family or friends. I have heard or experienced or read about so much loss in the few months since K died. And there's that phenomenon of being more aware of something once it applies directly to you, but I don't think that's what it is. I think something malicious is out in the world, no matter what you believe in or don't believe in. It feels haunted and creeping, and disturbed. Dark and undetermined. I wrote this on Facebook, but I think it bears repeating: love hard and leave nothing unspoken. 

Death is a fact of life. I get that. We all have some expiration date, and we don't get to know when it is. I get all of that. What I don't get is why it feels like this. Why it hurts so much in so many different ways. Why loss feels like just that, like this tremendous absence. It makes me confused and my mind contorts around trying to understand it. So I keep writing, because some part of me feels like these words will straighten it all out. But I don't think they will. I keep hearing that my story is helping other people. I would like to understand that better, because all I am seeing now is a few feet at a time. I can't see down the road I'm walking, or even what road I'm on. I feel like I could walk to the ends of the earth and just keep going, and hope that maybe I'll walk right off. All I'm feeling is tired of all of this, and wanting. And it all feels desperate and terrifying. It feels depressed and low and hard. 

Tonight I had a bad dream about a friend's dog. I've been spending a lot of time with this friend, and I generally worry about wearing out my welcome, because I know how intense I am right now. And I appreciate the people who love and care for me, who go out of their way to spend time with me, but I'm still pretty checked out and I don't know what it's like to be around me. I imagine it's difficult and annoying and I try to be aware of that as much as I can. So she has this amazing dog who she loves (and I know how she feels because I had a dog like that growing up), who also loves me (how lucky am I). And I was asleep on her couch, having this dream where I was walking him and he got sick and I was terrified. And I woke up to said dog barking at the delivery man, which startled me, and then suddenly I was just kind of in Panic and felt like I had to leave her house. And then it felt like I should leave her life, like I had committed some horrible betrayal by having this dream. 

I don't know how to explain it, but it felt like the embodiment of everything I've been feeling. Like something had gone wrong for someone innocent and beautiful and hopeful and wonderful. It felt wrong. So I kind of tried to tell her about this dream, and felt horrible, and left her house--fled her house, really. It feels like I don't belong anywhere. It feels like I need someone I don't have, the one person I never worried about burdening or asking to just hold me without question of why. I miss being held by someone who loves me. I hadn't realized how much I missed that, but I really do. Or just having someone to listen who gets you and how you see the world, without you worrying about offending them or whatever. Without you worrying about how it might hurt your friendship. I don't have the energy to worry about these things, but I do. 

I am so overwhelmed by all of this. I want to be anywhere but where I am. But that is not a choice I get, so here I am. I am not okay, but left without choice to be anything but. 

Dear K, Part 2 of Many

Dear K,

I felt you near me tonight. I could tell it was you because of the sudden warmth on my skin, like the way you used to come up behind me and wrap your arms around me. The way your presence enveloped mine, and how you were slightly, perfectly taller than me. And I could very nearly smell you, and there was a smile there for a moment carried by a memory: us in Whole Foods, smelling all the natural deodorants until we found the perfect one (because you were so careful with what you put on and in your body). You know I have been in Whole Foods exactly once since you died? And how I still hate those words that go stabbing through me every time I write them? And that my disbelief still roars so loud I rush to cover my ears before I realize it's all coming from inside me?

Oh Lovey, it's been weeks since you have visited me. Why is that? I imagine because it has to be, because there are some great laws of God or metaphysics or the universe (we still aren't on speaking terms, the universe and I) governing all of this in something like a pattern. Something like reason and sensibleness.  I imagine it's because I have to figure out some way to  go on, and how can I go on if all I'm doing is holding on? You had this thing for honesty and integrity so let me tell you true: my mind is rarely on anything but you. All day, every day. All the things I want to tell you. All the things you would find funny or ridiculous or sad. All the times I want to ask you a legal question because I was so impressed at all the knowledge you had from law school. Simple things. Artifacts of our life.

I like to imagine you would be touched by all the things I've written. You were always my primary subject, all the little poems that popped into my head during the day because of how I loved you. How you loved me. The time I stood up in an nearly empty basement in the Student Union and recited the slam poem I wrote for you, about how you were my Adonis and how beautiful you are. How beautiful you were. You are. Past tense is wrong. I don't care. I don't care if I can't hold your hand or kiss you or see your eyes or wear your hats. I don't care if the only way I can hear your voice is an accidental voicemail not even meant for me, or if I'll never get to buy you shoes or hats again. I don't care about any of that because you are not past tense to me. You are here. I feel you and you are here.

I didn't set out for this to be sad. I didn't set out to be crying yet again, or to have my heart to be humming with the way a bird trying to break a cage might. I just wanted to write you a letter because I felt you and I wanted to say hello. Just that simple thing so many take for granted. Hi. Hello. How are you? I still love you. And so I'll sign off with a little missing poem for you, that you might see these words in whatever way you see things now and hold them with you where ever you are.

I'm remembering all the little ways you loved me tonight.
I'm remembering things easy simple,
the smells and soundtracks of our lives,
the imprint of your person on my couch from years
of existing right along side me,
the way you used to flick my fingernails--
drove me crazy but felt like some tangible part of me for you,
before you realized that you had all of me--
and how hard was never nearly hard when you made me laugh,
and when didn't you make me laugh?
and things that are so tiny they aren't even memories
but shy glimmers and shadowy sparks,
and how I never knew I was beautiful
until I was beautiful in your eyes,
and all the ways you made me feel fearless.
All these tiny things I hold now,
and offer back up to keep you
warm and comforted in forever.

Always,

Your Leppy


Music: Ed Sheeran – Give Me Love

The Scratchiest Broken Record Alive

An apology for last night: I couldn't find my words, couldn't get my feet back under me. I wrote it after walking home from a good weekend with a friend, after talking to K's parents because it was Easter and it's been longer than it should be since I called them last, after passing under the Williamsburg Bridge with tears streaming down behind my new sunglasses, after sharing with K's mom the fact that I have his voice on a voicemail in my phone, after thinking about how sad it makes me that I have so much of the man he was and they only have memories of the child. So much After.

And I felt lost again friends, in this new place and new world I am in. I felt dizzyed up in confusion and eagerly afraid all together at once. I felt my heart and lungs and stomach contracting into themselves, dehydrating from this pain that I can hardly describe let alone touch or treat or heal. And I was thinking about how these themes are so damn reoccurring. The lost and lonely. The isolation. The confusion about how I am here and why and what to do. Always what to do with nothing to do at all. I feel like a broken record. I feel like the scratchiest fucking broken record in the world. Sometimes I wonder if these words are nails on a chalkboard to you. It's so easy for friends to forget the place I am in. It's so easy for them to treat me like the Sara they used to know. And I feel bad for them but worse for me, because I can't just remind them all the time, and sometimes I have to play along and it hurts. It fucking hurts to pretend that hard. Who knew Grief had so many kinds of pain? Who knew there were this many ways to feel sick?

I'm feeling vintage tonight. I feel older than I should again, like I'm posted up on someone's shelf, once loved now left behind. I feel dusty and dry, bitterish like tannins and tightened up like a short finish. It's important to write this all down I think, how I feel when I'm feeling at all. I don't think people really get what it's like not to feel because who does that, truly? Psychos and Socios who are out torturing animals before they work up the nerve to try it on a human? That's not me. But truly, I feel nothing. People say they're dead inside, but I wonder if that's just the numbness talking. My nothing is more like absent, some indeterminate hiatus from this plane of being. I guess the fact that I don't know how to get anyone to understand is why I keep trying. And that fact that people say all this is helping them. I can't begin to guess why or how me rambling on about how angry or sad or frustrated I am is helpful to anyone else, but so be it. I don't question anything anymore.

So let's see...how about some lessons making themselves recursive as of recent? I learn so much these days, like not seeking action where there is none. Like letting us be as still as we want without telling us to be gentle with ourselves (that's a repeat from last night, but it's my current source of irksomeness) or to feel the feelings we are trying to find again. It doesn't matter if it's anger or depression or joy, anything that will make us something like tangible and here and accounted for is welcomed. And knowing the only wrong thing to say is to say nothing at all, because then we don't know if you're uncomfortable or uncaring due to the equilibrium of our social queues being off, understandably. That just being with us is so important, that no matter how okay or normal we seem, or how little or much we cry we are still going through something horrible. How important it is to know and remember and do the best as best can be with any of us at all, the way we are so tiresome in our sadness. And the thing is, we know this. But it is not to be helped for some time. And that just sucks.

And realizing the converse of all that is all the people who want us to listen. Maybe because we've become so still, we seem like a receptacle for other people's stories/problems/existence? Maybe because we are empty, others desire to fill us up, selfishly or not, I don't know. And no matter how we react or don't, we are not ungrateful. We are incapable. It's different, you see, because it is surviving, or maybe living once in a while if the day is especially bright. So here I am, your favorite broken record played on repeat. But it bears repeating. It bears trying to fill in our gaps and blanks, understanding and compassion that cannot be returned just now, and so many other things. Just being with us in time and space, grounding us back to this earth and this reality. Keeping us here because the locale we desire is (must be, so important) unobtainable to us. Because holy fuck we just can't believe this our life, and how are we still breathing or existing at all? Don't talk about strength or anything else. We aren't strong, we are just here. We just exist and that is not strength but a bar set low for living, and that is okay. It's okay to not be encouraged or uplifted. It's okay to just be.

I spend a lot of time figuring out what is okay. I hope you haven't minded so much that I decided to share.

Love.

When I Slip

It's funny the way music works, how a simple melody or someone's voice can catapult us into an emotional extreme. And maybe the lyrics don't quite match up with how you're feeling, but somehow they still do. Today I was having brunch with a new friend and this song came on: Miike Snow – Animal  and it's not new and I've heard it before, but then the chorus hits and I hear

I change shapes just to hide in this place
But I'm still, I'm still an animal
Nobody knows it but me when I slip
Yeah I slip, I'm still an animal

and it's got me thinking about slipping. And what happens when we slip back towards darkness and low points and things that are scarier than they should be. These past few weeks have been hard for me, and I've been worried that I'm coming out of some sort of shock I didn't know I was experiencing (not that I think I'm fine, but just that I've been moving along in some capacity). I'm feeling a little at a loss for words tonight, but my heart is aching hard and I feel like writing something, anything at all, might ease my pain. So that's a disclaimer against what may end up as a stream of consciousness.

K's Law School is throwing a fundraiser for him this week. He used to wear brightly colored socks--amongst other sartorial choices that I always liked--and so they're asking everyone to wear bright socks on Tuesday to raise funds for a scholarship. So maybe if you think of it, and you own some bright socks, wear them on Tuesday and think of K, even if you didn't know him. 

So let's talk about that. Knowing K. Because many people thought they did, and they didn't. He was intensely private, although kind and attentive and a good listener. He was guarded about himself and his goals and his life. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person in the world who really knew him at this stage in his life, because he told me things he didn't tell anyone else. The way you get so comfortable with someone you don't sugar coat, you can just be candid and honest and open and know they get it. Even when I didn't get it, I got it because I got him and how he saw the world. I was lucky to have known him like that, to be trusted so much by someone who didn't trust very easily at all. 

I'm feeling lost. None of this is helping my heartache tonight, but I still want to write it. Sometimes I just want to talk about K for hours and move in and out of crying and memories. I want to show whoever is listening pictures and tell them stories. I want to play the single voicemail I have so they can hear his voice and try to create an image of the whole person I knew.  And I don't want them to say anything. I don't want to be told it will be okay eventually, or to see a therapist, or to be gentle with myself, or to let myself feel the anger and sadness. I appreciate it, the kindness and the good intent, but I don't want to hear it anymore. I just want to be able to talk forever about someone who doesn't exist anymore. And how fucked up it is that it's so easy to stop existing (yes he's still with me, etc etc didn't we just talk about not saying those things anymore?) and how unfair.

My heart is too heavy to write the way I want, or say the things I want to say. So I'm just going to stop. Sometimes I wish time and world and everything would just stop. Sometimes I wish I didn't bounce between extremes and confusion and feelings of nothings and everythings. I wish I wasn't vulnerable and that I didn't trust so easily. I wish I was more like K, who was good at so very many things that I am not good at...and I am good at things he wasn't good at---that's why we worked so well. 

I just really, really miss him right now. I want the person who completed me to be here to hold me. He is the only person who I want to tell me it will be alright. He is the only person I want to make me laugh, or to keep me company so I don't feel lonely. He is the only person who could truly keep me from feeling lost. Good night friends, in all this confusion and odd ramblings of tonight. The next one will be more coherent. The next one will have a point. I think I said inspirational on Facebook? The next one will be...something. Hopefully inspired. Hopefully better.

This is Anger

I am unpredictable. Not my emotions, but me. I have no baseline for any response, and offense happens easy. Too easy and it makes me uncomfortable, my own pendulum of happysadangryemptynumb, my own foreignness. I feel xenophobic about myself. Is that even possible? Maybe in some irony. As much so as the fact that there is comfort and familiarity in the way I start hyperventilating rage and yet there remains a grave concern in myself for my inability to tamp down that same anger. This whole bit, this is anger. It's going to be as rough to read as it is to admit, and I wouldn't blame you for stopping now. Just don't judge me too harsh tonight, friends.

Here is something that makes me very angry as of late: anyone trying to identify with my situation. I'm an asshole tonight. Empathy and sympathy such close bedfellows, but the mere suggestion shoots off exploding shiny spots of anger in my brain. The parent of someone they cared about, a friend of a friend, someone they were tangentially close to. Fuck outta here. The anger is so loud then, because how dare they? What gives them the right? I'm an asshole for that too. Everyone is different, and death touches us all. And we react differently. I know this. There is rationality and caring in there too, but I just feel so raw. And so few people have lost their partner the way I have, with the jolting suddenness. With the lack of expectation or preparation. And to be frank, with youth. So don't suggest you get it. You don't. This is Anger talking now. Forgive me. Forgive how I am all metallic and right angles, glass frozen in ice, shards of quick to furry and unforgiving of your trespass. Forgive me when I cannot forgive you. It is unfair to ask, but nothing about any of this is fair.

All this anger rolls over me, rolls me over; themes of oceans and tides maybe, or a strong wind. Color it with something violent underneath, make it ugly. Make it hurt. Let's hurt something beautiful today. Utterly obliterate the innocent. I want scalding water dripped slowly on skin, I want stoning. Give me buried alive, something slow and murderous. Let's get horrific. Let's make it abominable. Oh but Sara, this isn't you. This isn't who we know. I'm sorry, but welcome to me, in After. Welcome to I don't know myself anymore, welcome to when will the space behind my eyes stop being empty. Welcome to when will I be present, when will I care? Welcome to how anger simmers just below my surface, and you'll never know because control. Because smiles. Because easy going. Because I can't let it consume me. Because anger is not me, not forever. Because something more sinister: I am a very good liar now.

I don't want to post this. I don't want you to know this truth, whoever you are right now, reading this. I hate the anger. I hate how easy it is to go to that place, that royal injustice so deep it is a splinter ten miles long through every inch of my body. I'm toying with deleting this. But I got so angry writing it, I have to believe it wants release. I've said I was ugly before, and here is the ugliest. Here is the most pathetic, the most embarrassing. And maybe the most honest, all laid out and spread before you. Judge me. Or don't. Sympathize. Or don't. Know it's not desire that is this anger, but consumption. It is disgusting, but delicious. It is satisfying, because it is feeling. It's the heady smokiness, crowded like a room, where otherwise there is absence. Where otherwise it is empty. And who wouldn't take the fulfillment of fullness over standing in the biggest, emptiest canyon and echoing against yourself forever, mired in solitude. Alone.

So I just breathed out friends. This whole time, holding my breath, writing this. All clenched up and mean. And scared. Because anger is fear. And I have told you and will tell you more, it is terrifying to be this empty. It is terrifying to be new and exposed. And I have no idea who I am. I have no idea who I will become. A friend said this was exciting, this development. This reinvention, this new persona that can be crafted as intentionally or as lazily as I might prefer. Maybe that's true, but I'm not there yet. I still feel like I can't touch bottom, so how can I learn to swim? I can't, just yet. Or won't. I don't know. I do know shock is wearing off and wearing me down. Days have been darker, my personal fog denser and more impenetrable. I imagine if you feel energy and color in the world the way I do (yes I am odd in more ways than just Grieving), I must be some indescribable mix of dirty hues and shades of shadows and tones that exist in nightmares. I said let's get horrific, didn't I?

At work, someone decided my project managers needed to be made aware of "what was going on with me." What is going on with me, actually? Let's have that conversation, please. Let's have the conversation that you have so little idea of what is going on with me, you couldn't define it if it was happening to you. I am an asshole tonight. You all reading this sputter, but maybe they were concerned, possibly caring, possibly trying to help. Possibly some bullshit I won't buy. Tell me when you are eggshells and krazy glue and misery, and you still show up. Tell me when you are still there when by all rights, you should be anywhere else. Fuck it all. Tonight is so angry, friends. Days are angry too, but good sunlight and better company tempers that. I just can't stand that kind of judgement, that kind of false help. It's already hard, it already takes so much trying.

I hope you understand that sometimes it's best just to get it out. It's some kind of tapeworm, this anger, breaking up into little pieces and retreating back parasitic from prying and digging, from the impending excavation. I cannot wait for Somehow. I cannot wait to be myself again, whoever that person becomes. The road is long and uncertain, but I walk, and walk. I love to walk these days.

So much anger put out here, but mixed in to the way I love you for the support, the comments, the reaching out to connect. I am still the Sara you know, I promise (as much to myself as to you).

The Emptiness of Survival

In the week between the accident and the funeral, I experienced a profound shift in self. This is probably not a surprise; frankly I was in shock. I probably still am, to some extent. I hardly ate or slept that week. I was surviving, and in many ways not very well. I think you have no choice, in this place where you have become unrecognizable to yourself.

I was surprised by the weeks spent unable to look at myself in the mirror. In Judaism we cover mirrors for a period of time in mourning; I asked my dad why, but he didn't remember and I never got around to looking it up. I didn't cover any mirrors, but I wondered if perhaps that had something to do with it. I should probably just Google it. I do know that every time I would look at my reflection, I would start to cry. I think it was because I recognized I wasn't really there, and there is something intrinsically horrifying about seeing the absence of yourself. I've written about the experience of emptiness and I suppose that's what I mean. My body is present, my mind is on autopilot and capable but my heart and soul have dug deep and buried themselves. I would like to say they are protecting me from this, but I think they have abandoned me. They are cowards, hiding away so far from the surface. We are, I think, tumbling through life a ball of confused emotions unified by heart and purpose. So when heart and purpose are missing, what are we then? I'd rather like to know.

So I believe in zombies. You might laugh at me for that, but honestly, how else can I describe myself during this time? A human robot, serving base needs. Surviving. How is that different than a zombie? Next time you see someone in Grief, look closely. Look for the plateau in our eyes, the dull sheen of exhaustion and profound weariness brought by having to exist another day, broken. I think there is a certain mutedness, a stillness that floats about us like a cloud. So the question then, how to go from surviving to living?

I think I currently bounce between surviving and living, but more on the living side of the line. From my experience, these are the things I know to be true:

Those who are Grieving lack nourishment. We need to eat richly, we need the sustenance of companionship and caring that comes from a real meal. The kind where you sit and lose hours in conversation and memories, where you start thinking, it doesn't feel like it takes a village, more like a whole fucking army to push us the tiniest bit back towards ourselves. If you find us, the Grieving, know our selves are gangly and sprawled, so gather us up and hold us in your presence, feed us as much or as little as we can eat, but do it over and over again. We cannot take care, and so you must, if you hope to help us heal.

Those who are Grieving do not sleep. We may lay down and close our eyes, but it is only hours in which we can retreat from the world and further into ourselves. We need to sleep deeply, and remember how to dream. When K died, I lost my dreams and that is how I knew I was truly lost. I think I dream maybe 45% of the time now, just over 2 months later. Before, I used to remember every dream I had. Every single one. I used to dream lucidly, controlling my subconscious state and moving from one dream to the next. It was pretty cool, and provided a source of inspiration. So the cutting off of my dreams has been like cutting off my oxygen, and I am left breathing shallow. And to be honest, I don't think I know how to really sleep anymore. And for those of us who are not sleeping, well,  I don't know how to tell you how to help. I hope that one day I will find true rest again, and that I will dream. 

And then there are the things you may do that we cannot: listen to music, watch TV or movies, lose yourself in the ease of conversation and the carelessness of good humor. K had a deep relationship with music, and many of the musicians I came to know and love were introduced to me by him. So these days I listen to artists he would not have, or music that speaks to where I find myself. It's the same things on repeat, over and over. There's a kind of the routine to listening to the same songs on repeat and it gives me one thing I can rely on, unlike my arc of emotions.  K and I watched a lot of TV, so I don't really watch much anymore. It just doesn't matter to me. So many things just do not matter.

To the Grieving: there is a way to stop surviving and start living again. This is a truth because it has to be, because we remain and because we owe it to those we have lost to do what they cannot. And more so, we owe it to ourselves and those who stand by us in this most difficult of times. And mostly, because the other choice, the choice to merely survive, is no choice at all.

To those trying to help: I say what I have said before and will continue to say. Forgive my repetition, but I have heard of people being cruel and impatient (not to me, but to friends who have lost loved ones). And maybe you don't even realize you are, but things are hard enough. So, please be present for us because it is likely we are truly absent. And if we choose to share, listen. Do not lecture, do not judge, and perhaps do not even offer advice. Know that we try, as much as we can, and that each day will be a different kind of hard or easy. 

But mostly, love us. Love us in all ways minor and obvious, in ways that are familiar and new and maybe a little uncomfortable at times. Love us more than we are currently capable of loving ourselves. 

Fuck 2014

I'm done with this year ya'll. I'm done with the universe picking off all our loved ones. People keep telling me it's the dying season. Fuck the dying season. Fuck reading a new status message every few days about yet another young person dying. Or someone's parent. Or someone's partner. I just...I can't.

Yesterday was the 2nd month anniversary of K's death. I still have a hard time typing that. Because every time I do, it makes it real. I don't know when I'll be able to type that, or say it, without feeling like if only I didn't say it, it wouldn't be true. I remember when we first started dating, I made us celebrate all of our month anniversaries. We'd been dating for a few weeks at the time, but made things official Nov 30th, 2004. So it was always the 30th of the month, until we hit one year. Now I wonder if I'm going to keep counting the months, until they become years. The 18th. The fucking 18th of every month for the next year. And then January 18th. November 30th. October 16th, his birthday. Those are the days that matter. Birth, love, death. All it boils down to in the end, made up out of 3 days each year my heart will catch a little.

I spend a lot of time wandering between remembering and forgetting. Forgetting the why and the how, but trying not to lose this beautiful person who I made so many memories with. For some reason, I remembered the first time K took me around people he knew as his girlfriend. It was this dance in his dorm, and he invited me. He wore a blue checked flannel shirt, black slacks and shiny black shoes. I remember how shiny his shoes were because of how well he danced. He was a great dancer. And I wore this spanish influenced black dress with red roses. And I remember at one point, he was spinning me, and salsa dancing, and all this other stuff while everyone else did the awkward two step with stiff arms on hips and shoulders. It was like a middle school dance where everyone was a little taller. K and I never two-stepped though, we always dance danced. And at one point, the Destiny's Child song Solider came on. And the whole room made a circle around us, dancing as we were. And every time the chorus would come on, they'd point at K. He was a little embarrassed, but also proud I think. It wasn't far into our relationship, but after that, I knew I loved him.

Through our relationship, I always felt that way, like he was my solider. Always there to protect me. And somehow, I couldn't return it. The only time it every actually mattered, I couldn't protect him.

Here's a poem I wrote, about how I've been feeling. About time and some other things. I'm trying to document these a little better, because sometimes poetry just feels so right.

I've been wondering about how time passes,
about long lines of possibility,
and the choices we make.
And how months feel like years and seconds
all at once somehow blurring by, 
tenuously. Everything so damn tenuous. 

I can't stop remembering the last time I saw you,
every second larger than
the life you left,
all in perfectly painted detail on my memory,
because time stopped then
--and my heart started beating broken--
and here I am,
monthssecondsyears passing me by,
still trying to understand how this is truth,
and what kind of cruelty exists that
our world takes you and leaves me, empty
and searching.

I'd be alright, if I could just see you.
I'll be alright, when time stops passing
lonely and broken like this.


Because I'm so over  2014, I've decided to publish this blog. I've had it secret for a little while, not sure what I wanted to do with it. I wanted to add some more entries maybe, make it feel more complete before I offered it up to the world. Opened myself up to everyone. But how can I sit on everything I'm going through, when so many people are sharing my experience? I want us all to heal by the commonality of the human experiences of Grief and Sorrow, not sit seemingly placid and quiet to the world while we break down inside. And lord knows I've been breaking down inside more and more. The outside though, that porcelain facade is on lock. Don't worry about me though, it's not a bad thing. I don't know how else I would get through my day. 

Love.

The Many Faces of Guilt

There are so many things I want to write about. All these things that have been swirling around inside me for the past few weeks with no where to go. I realize I think all the time...not that I didn't before, but there is never that moment in time where things get silent. It's always some kind of chatter.

In the midst of all that noise, I've been thinking about guilt. The kind of guilt that keeps you stuck and the kind of guilt that keeps you going. I've been thinking about how guilt is the gate keeper. There's the stage of Grief that is bargaining, the what ifs, if only I hads, why didn't I justs. I've kept those pretty quiet. It'd be easy to say "why didn't I make him stay" or "why didn't I make him promise to wear his seat belt." All that bargaining just rips us wide open and lays us bare. And it makes us feel like we have control...but here's the thing: we don't.

Surprised? well, I'd imagine you're either Free Will or by God's grace, and neither philosophy has room for a third party and our concerns about whats ifs and if onlys. Did I mention I'm pretty tough love? Well, I am. More for myself, but hey, if it helps someone else, by all means. The idea that we have control is the basis for the kind of guilt that keeps us stuck, the kind where we believe we could have done something to stop our loved ones from dying. But in my reality, K could have gotten in that car any night and had that accident any night. The conditions were clear, and without knowing why it happened (only issues with the car having been ruled out), the factors could have combined themselves in that way any other day. Or never. Or it could have been some other event that claimed his life.

I mean, there's some tiny fraction of a percent that makes anything happen the way it does. You never think about how many times a day you could have died. It's probably really good we have no idea how close we all really are. I don't have any stats on this, but I'm just thinking about it. Random combinations of random factors that have random outcomes. Pushed a fraction one way, life. Pushed a fraction the other, death. So I don't dwell. In the beginning, I bargained like hell. As the last person to see or speak to K, to consider he drove my car from my house, late at night. I certainly felt a responsibility...I still do. But I don't feel at fault. I think we all just need to give up the notion that we control anything. We don't. Even with free will. You make decisions, sure, but you can't effect an outcome past the initial decision that started you down that path. I'm not a philosopher, so let me leave that all alone for now. But just think on it sometime, on a night when you're plagued with chatter.

Then there's the other type of guilt. It lights a fire under us. It's the kind where I ask what K would want me to do. Or what he would have done if it had been me instead of him (which makes my mom so distraught, but it's a fair question to pose). It's the type of guilt that makes me feel like I could be disappointing him somehow. It's the kind that makes me want to live life to the fullest, because he doesn't get to. Like if I don't, I'm dishonoring his memory. When K applied for law school, he wrote a lot about legacy. Neither of us could have ever imagined his legacy would be defined by what he did in 28 short years. So in a way, I feel a responsibility to help him create the legacy he didn't get to leave. I'm working on setting up a scholarship in his name at our alma mater, and his little brother, who is my little brother now, is someone I will always watch out for and take care of.

So if you're mired in guilt, my request to you is not to let it be the handicapping kind, but the kind that inspires you and pushes you on to really LIVE for the person you're grieving for. And don't wait to think about your legacy. You don't know if you have 28 or 78 years to create it, so don't wait. We all have such a short time here, no matter how many actual years we live, so don't wait to leave your mark, if you want to leave one at all. If there's something you want to do, do it. I know I will be.

Love.