What is it that I miss?
I miss everything. I miss all of it.
I miss every good morning and every good night. Silly little things we take for granted.
We never realize how important they are till they disappear from our lives.
It’s almost a year now.
A year since hearing someone say goodnight, or give me a hug.
You can not imagine the depth of pain I feel.
A year, without a hug, without a goodnight, without a good morning… those things that made the simplicity of life exquisitely beautiful.
A year since I got a kiss on the cheek, or an eager smile wanting to just go for a drive, anywhere, never mattered. Just doing anything.
A year without a genuine smile or feeling joy.
A year without watching tv, or a movie, or just anything… because to do so alone is so wickedly painful.
A year without music in my home, a year without hearing the piano or listening to sounds. God I miss that.
I miss all of it. I knew I would. I never imagined being left behind would be any fun. I knew this was coming since I was a kid.
It would always end like this.
I remember everything, every fucking detail. I can still hear the machines, still feel the heat where they were, still remember looking out the window waiting for the hospice nurse to come. I remember everything.
I will never forget it, even if I want to.
It’s not some trauma, it’s my last moments, the last time I got to hold your hand, when it was still warm.
You died so I could live. I know how this works. I’m not ignorant to why things happened in this order, it’s easy to connect all the dots about why now.
I have no doubts.
I know where I am getting directed to, and I am grateful for everything…. I actually am.
You picked well. I will be happy. I just wish it didn’t come with this cost.
I gave my entire life to take care of everyone. I’m tired. I’ve seen enough death, I just want to remember how to live.
Jan would tell me all about what’s wrong, all about how I need to do ‘this or that’ to get over my complex grief.
For fucks sake, you would think its some sin to just fucking say: I’m sad, my heart was ripped out and I am just trying to put myself back together again.
I’m not broken in some horrific irreparable mess, I’m simply sad. It will come and go, and it will last a lifetime…. But it’s just my own way of dealing with it.
My life is not impeded by it, but I will always bear the scars of it, those will always be there. I just add them to the collections.
So I sit here, I can’t sleep. I hate the quiet. I used to love it, miss it, enjoy the moments of silence, but now they just pierce through me, reminding me of the tortuous solitude.
And I write this- knowing full fucking well it serves no purpose.
Resenting the fact that I need to even sit here and write it out. Resenting the fact that I can’t just hold a conversation.
I hate the fact that everyone important in my life, from this point on, will never know you.
The most important person in my life, wherever he is, will never know the only person that mattered to me….
The children I will never be gifted with, would never know their family, all wasted, just fading memories, fading hopes, fading dreams.
Just a voice on a voicemail that I can’t delete.
The last time I will ever hear my nickname said out loud.
I want to leave this place. I look at every room and see the faces of everyone who is gone.
Every room is another death.
I sleep in the room Uncle Ed died in.
I eat my meals in the room my Mom died in.
I work in the room where my family would sit and talk- the rocking chair my grandmother used now sits in the basement reminding me she is dead too.
My art supplies sit in the toolbox my grandfather used before he died.
I could go back further, but those family members I don’t know, even though I feel their deaths here too.
My dresser belonged to Aunt Etta, my tools great-grandpa…. Lives I never knew, but who died in this house too.
Actually there is nothing here of me. Nothing is really mine, except an old broken sofa. That is the only thing that was ever mine. Broken, seems fitting enough.
Every room is another missing piece of me. I have nothing more to give.
I listen to talk of celebrating your successes, envisioning your perfect future version…. And I think why?
Nothing matters if the people who would have celebrated those wins are all under the dirt. I mean who celebrates for me? No one. Not one soul.
Only I can celebrate for me, and that is a hollow victory. But it is a victory nonetheless, so I will graciously accept it.
This all sounds so fucking depressing, and on some level it is.
But I don’t see it that way. I’m not depressed, I am not dealing with some enmeshment trauma, or some complex bullshit of some DSM classification…. I am simply sad, and tired.
I am sad to face a life moving forward where I will always feel the sting of wanting to share something important and being reminded that I can’t.
I am sad to know that my future, should it be happy and beautiful, will always have the reminder that I am waiting for my time to go home.
I promised that I would live, I would thrive, and I would pursue everything I wanted. And I shall.
I believe with unshakable conviction that you have already laid out a path for me, and I am eager to be on my way.
I look forward to finding home, wherever it may be.
I look forward to finding my love, wherever he may find me.
I will alway remember all the wonderful moments, they are the glue that bound all the broken pieces of me together over a lifetime of hurt.
I wish I could have been a better person, done more, no matter how much I did, I always wanted to do more.
But all I can do is write these pathetic words, hidden in a place never to be seen or found.
Just like another piece of me, a trail of breadcrumbs, leading to a soul best forgotten.
I will just keep walking my path.
I have rebuilt myself more times than I can count. And this will be no different.
Start over again.
But this time there is no one to call, no one to talk to, to tell about my day, or to remind me to eat…
I don’t need someone to be whole.
I need someone to remind me I exist.