Yeah? What would you done if you had known? Would you have
reached out and helped in any real way? Calmed me down. Talked. Held.
Connected. Nothing can help. Nothing can fix. Somethings just are. Maybe some
people are just permanently broken. Maybe all. Maybe some people just handle it
better than others. It feels like a tearing, and a downpour, and a void. A
cosmic ring toss, a gravity pull, an intangible shithouse. What’s it do to cry
over what cannot be mended? A broken bone can heal. Can a broken heart…? Truly?
I want the truth now. Not a Hallmark card, or an Instagram caption, or a
reply-all work email. Give it to me straight. God, give me something to trust.
Something with weight, with meaning, an anchor, security, an embrace, a friend,
a lover, a mother, a law, a god, a knowing. Anything. Something as secure as
the how the sun runs laps around our planet. Intrinsic. Scientific. Something
that Is. I have never felt more alone – I have said that every time. But how
can people reach out when I don’t let them know I need to be reached out to?
Maybe it doesn’t matter as much as I think. Maybe I live my life half-deaf,
half-immune, half-numb. Why do I feel like I’m only a half…? Is that possible?
Do I have the vocabulary to express what I’m truly feeling..? Or do I feel this
way because my half, my mother, is gone. Has been for 11 years and 10 months.
Was she my half? Because I very vividly remember resenting her for many years.
And then she had to go and die. No two ways about it. Just the one, the
imminent one. It's wild how much grief a person can carry around for over a
decade. Who would I be without it? Maybe better. Maybe also worse. There is
much I miss. Much I don’t, but I don’t tend to dwell on that stuff. Much easier
to digest missing out on the good, than missing the bad. Tonight I envisioned
something I hadn’t before. I thought about pretending to call my mom up (she
was alive and living in Massachusetts with her friends) and venting to her
about love and heartbreak. Just telling her I was feeling down. What would she
say? Do I know? Did I know her well enough, even when I hated her? Perhaps that
is when you know someone best. Love and hate are a surprisingly, alarmingly
fine line. It makes me feel better, at least. Knowing that I could hate her and
love her at the same time. Maybe I will never be fully healed. Maybe that’s
okay. And you know.. Maybe it’s not pretending that’s the problem. Maybe the
problem is that I’m so worried about it being a problem. Life is always a game
of pointing fingers at yourself. It’s quite nauseating. Maybe one day my brain
will quiet down, and I won’t feel so tense, and I won’t feel so torn. It’s the
tearing, you know. How it feels like tearing.
