Apathy
Yes, I just titled this entry “apathy”, it’s actually a former pet peeve that of mine that has become a favorite past time. When Abbey died nine months ago, I couldn’t stop writing, and now I find more difficulty making myself start. I’ve become apathetic and delusional. I kind of don’t give a shit about a lot of things anymore…and this Christmas season has been excruciating….putting it mildly.
It seems that in those first few months I spent so much time in her room, reading through her journals…and just looking for something that would say. “HERE IS THE ANSWER!”…congratulations! But now I spend more time pretending that it never happened and that eventually I’m going to come home from work and she will be looking up pictures of the lead singer of Tokio Hotel and telling me how hot he is.
And then….and then…we go Christmas shopping for the kids…and I’m surrounded by all the things she loves..especially the books, and I feel like I will die inside. Literally die. These things make this whole thing real…they rip me from that safe place that promises that she can come back, that this could all very well be a nightmare..and then the mania sets in. I find myself needing to run out to the car while shopping at a book store, because I don’t want to sob in front the world…and because that pain in my chest is no minor inconvenience. It has moved in with all of its belongings, and it intends to stay there for the long haul.
Now the mania…oh the mania….the craziness that inhabits my brain doesn’t scare me…it hurts me. It makes me sad. Not like a lost my puppy sad, but the kind of sad that you can feel in the marrow of your bones, and imagine infiltrating every cell in your body. It makes me imagine myself digging Abbey up because it is cold outside and I can’t stand the idea of her body being cold…it makes me imagine myself breaking every piece of glass in this house and screaming at the top of my lungs when I do so…it makes me want to hurt myself to feel pain…to feel anything…when the pretending become just as awful and suffocating as the realization.
And it isn’t even the end of year one.
You should never apologize for how you feel. Grief is unique and none can say how it should look for another. Layer upon layer comes off and still it remains that you have to mourn the unthinkable. Smash all the glass you would. I honor you and your grief.
Java, my heart goes out to you. I think Rita said it well, far better than I could, and that is that you are wise in allowing yourself to feel whatever it is you feel. Though I know mine are only words, and finding the right words is hard, I have one thing I wanted to tell you…
As I was looking at your new layout (and enjoying it), my eyes settled on your tag line, the one I remember often and always think of you when I do: “Savor every moment…” And it hit me that you do, and that is what makes you so wonderful, and such a treasure of a friend. You have so much love in your heart, and I see it in your words, and I can see that it consumes you. Know that I’m thinking of you and sending all my best!
You and Chris have been on my mind so much lately. There is nothing I can do to take away your pain…I wish there was.
I’m glad you found your writing again Catina, I for one have missed you.
I was thinking of you the other day, and how hard this time of year must be.
May you find some moments of peace.
Yup. What Rita says. What Phil says.
Personally, I really was taken — I mean my breath felt taken away — by the accuracy of the words you wrote to describe what grief and intense internal pain feels like. It is *just as you write*: “Not like a lost my puppy sad, but the kind of sad that you can feel in the marrow of your bones, and imagine infiltrating every cell in your body. …it makes me want to hurt myself to feel pain…to feel anything…when the pretending become just as awful and suffocating as the realization.”
I have not lost a daughter like you have lost Abbey, but I *have* felt the way you describe up there about losses and traumas in my life. You’re right — it is marrow-shaking and intense.
I have a kind of mantra for being in “that place” — the place of pain like what you describe. It is, “The only way out is through.” I’ve had to repeat that to myself over and over sometimes, just to keep calm and sane-feeling (sorta, lol).
It does and can and will get better, but the only way out is through, and Rita is right when she says the grief has to be honored. You are honoring it by writing it so honestly, so brutally here, and I am so glad that you have done so. Your writing it and putting it into words makes me know it is not nutball to have feelings like these! They are the result of the mind trying to assume trauma, and they are what we feel when we know pain.
IMHO, it is perfectly okay to not give a shit about some things anymore, too. Just so you know. There are those of us out here who get that, who know what that is, and why it is so. I know you are doing the best you can do. Really though? I don’t see this as apathy so much as the body and mind just trying to make sense of the incomprehensible. And, too, you obviously still do give a shit about your other kiddos and their Christmas, otherwise you would not have gone out and shopped at all. That’s big success points right there!! Good for you for even giving it a good Girl Scout try, eh?
Holidays, in grief, suck. There’s just no two ways about it, and is why it hurts so bad, especially now. The holidays, the “little anniversaries,” the big anniversaries… Oh, they hurt for months and sometimes years to come. But one day, it will be lighter, this load you carry. Just be patient with yourself, and know that I and obviously the others here are sending lots of love your way.
Hang in there, chica.