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.

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.