Where I Am Now

I don't know whether it is appropriate to share these thoughts. It is my response to the entire (for me) delusional idea of "moving on." I appreciate that the vocabulary around grief is limited and that there is no easy way of describing the particulars of such individual devastation. So often it feels, because of linguistic limitations, that the failure of words to capture the depth of emotion, forces us to believe that grieving is an all or nothing process. Either one "moves on," bucks up, behaves appropriately, finds "hope," or one becomes a burden, a drain, a sloppy, self-pitying, self-indulgent mess. How disgusting. How like a pathetic emotional woman. A woman with no guts. A leech, a drain. Kicked to the curb. Cut from the herd.

But I think it is much more complex than that. I believe that we can be broken, destroyed, gutted and strong enough to accept our half-lives simultaneously.

So, here goes.......

The difference for me is that I am not "moving on." There is no "on" to move to. Yes, I live. That does not mean there is substance to, or meaning in my life.



I will say it. There is no real reason to live my life. This is not about suicide. Nothing so final. Losing Maxx ended my existence in the only way I knew I could be alive--as his mom. He completed the circle and it is now irreparably broken. Some people do not make it out of this disaster "alive" in the way we know and expect life to be (or become again), and I believe I am one of those.

I have not come to this lightly. I do not expect others to understand. My own particular reasons for why and how I have developed this way are unique to me, as are any of the forces that shape our lives, and they do not allow for any external or internal reality other than the stark loss that envelopes me. This is not a popular, or even tolerated stance. Everything, everyone, pushes us mercilessly without exception, or a second breath, to rejoin the flow. I am not capable of doing this. I am, on the other hand, very strong and extremely capable at surviving. That is my habit and it is as powerful as my refusal to pretend that anything will ever be OK again. Ever. So, I am Sysyphus. I cannot live, nor can I give up.

I ruminate, I read, I watch films, I write the same things over and over carefully crafting descriptions of the same event--the end of my life. I obsessively examine what has become of my life both while awake and in my dreams. I stare at others in dismay and often through tears. I am drawn to the energy of the living, but I hold myself apart. Maxx was my bridge. And he is gone. Though, unfortunately, while I am strong enough to remain erect most of the time, I am not strong enough to build another bridge. Nor do I want to.

I have tried to be someone other than who I am for my daughter and to some degree, my husband. They are all I have left and I have no wish to hurt them. My feeling is that they will (and have) gone forward without me. And that is as it should be, but I can no longer live for them in a way that perverts my own authenticity so that they might have an easier time of it. I have my battle and they have theirs.Though I have wished desperately that my daughter could be a comfort to me (and I to her), this has not happened. I am as lost to her in the storm of my anguish as she is to me in the winds of her own. Steve stands by me. He is as ruined as I am.

All threads were broken, connections unraveled, and unraveling still. Here and there I am able to knot a few loose strands together strong enough to withstand the drag from one day to the next. But, I am alone in my efforts. There is no family. There are no friends. There is not now, nor has there ever been any safety net. I am one who put all her hope for a life well-lived in the hands of one beautiful child. And that beautiful child died. I was mistaken. I see that now. I made him responsible for my happiness and it is likely he felt that burden even as I denied it was happening. I loved him to distraction. How could he not have known? And this alone probably caused him additional pain, understanding that he was dying and that his passing would likely destroy me. What that must have done to him is a thought I can sustain only in short bursts, for the knowledge that I might have caused him more pain is unendurable. But it is what happened and there is no way, or reason to change, deny, reconstruct, or resolve any of it.

So, while I acknowledge the new realities that others choose and are able to build for themselves, I know this is not my path. At the same time, though everything conspires to keep those of us who have sunk below eye level from giving contours or voice to this pain, this is all I can do. The rest---all the various activity that defines a life is just so much badly hammered together scaffolding--precarious, unstable, destined to be blown away in the first fierce gust. When that happens, and it does and will for all of us, we have only ourselves.

Perhaps then, my choice, if one can call it that, not so much about where I won't go, as it is about facing down the demons where I stand now and from whom I choose not to run.