Well, today wasn’t very happy for me. There was nothing inherently wrong with it, but I am sad and lonely. I have much, and have some degree of gratitude for it. I have a good husband who I love dearly and have since the day we met. I have a nice home, clothes and food, a car, and a job. I have friends – and I will include acquaintances because so many people have been kind to me, that who cares how well I know them they are friends. I have friends who have been wonderful, some of them old friends who have been there for me to such a degree I am forever thankful. I have on in particular who asked if I wanted to come over tonight while Shaun was gone, so that I didn’t have to be alone.
Which is what I want to whine about tonight. Yes, I feel like I’m whining. If you are saying “No you aren’t” then thank you but I am sort of at a point that when I observe myself cry, it makes me cringe. Do you ever find yourself as the Observer? I do. I am sure that there is some psychological term for that. Anyway, I am both the Participant and Observer sometimes, and it’s quite interesting and odd and can give me great insight if I use it. Now I have digressed…
The point is, I’m just damn sad. Yes I’ve been sad, but I have periods when I am sadder than usual, and one crept up on my beginning yesterday and it got worse today. It’s like being consumed by a fire, or even a wave. I suppose whether by fire or water, depends on how I am feeling. The low feeling in the pit of my stomach, that’s the wave. Then the raging sadness, that’s the fire. I suppose it is both, in a strange mix that only the creator knows what it’s made of.
It has ravaged my body in ways that I never knew possible. For awhile I couldn’t eat because it made me feel sick. Now I’m used to not eating, and some foods that I used to love still make me sick. Hey, I lost 20 lbs within a month so why complain. The thing is, I tried at first to become active to make myself feel better, but realized that you can’t exercise when you have barely eaten. Tends to make you pass out.
I had begun down a path of gray hair and wrinkles in 2007 , the year that my stepdad died and left my mother destitute and on a beginning path to mental illness (later diagnosed as dementia). I’m an only child and there was no other thing to do but help her (read: Take care of her and her business). That said, here we were in 2012 and not only did Mom move in with us, making our lives a living hell, but then shortly afterward it seemed, Erin got sick. I’m surprised that I am not in the hospital.
I thought about a physical after Erin died, but the truth is I don’t care. My only criteria is no more suffering, please. Make it clean and easy if I die. This has broken me inside and out. Also, I can assure you that I don’t have the luck to die soon. I will live for years, and be healthy. That is how things go for me and while it may sound odd to you, you can take this one to the bank. For whatever reason, I chose the path less traveled in this life. That means the hard one if you didn’t get that right off.
I have had some of the best experiences, and some of the worst. Most of you probably don’t know about the worst ones. Suffice it to say, it’s been a lifetime of heartache. I wonder, often, why in the hell me? I don’t know. I wonder if anyone else has the same type of life experience that I do? I would still choose this journey I suppose, but it has been nothing but heartache. Some part of me must have thought I was up for this experience. Sounds like me, because I jump in with both feet. But I wasn’t up for it. I did OK until this. It broke me. I am broken, both inside and out.
As I said, I have much to be thankful for. It’s not Shaun’s fault that I carry this pain (Erin) without talking about it. It’s like it’s too personal to discuss. I would be happy to share if, like in the movies, he could just touch me and know. Putting it into words seems like an insurmountable task, though. Crying doesn’t seem fair to him or to anyone else who wants to sit with me. And the thought that I somehow have to find a way around or through this sadness, seems preposterous.
It has been around 4 months now since I have been able to talk with my daughter. She was unconscious for 12 days before she died. That was harder than anything. I just want to go back to the moment when we said “We will see you when you’re finished” and instead, give her a hug and kiss and tell her how much I love her. But I didn’t know that would be the last time she would hear me as a conscious human. I know people in comas hear you, but it’s not the same, and they can’t talk back to you. The few minutes they woke her on the second day in, I didn’t know that would be the last time she would open her eyes. I didn’t know. And any healing that happens, when I remember these things it breaks the wound open again and again.
Tonight, wish me peace. #missingerin
