9:20 p.m. - 11/24/02
~time can bend your knees.))
I miss you, and what's more I'm scared...
I saw what happened on the tenth. What happened to me on the anniversary of losing people who are still safe in a world I know will love them. What happened to me on the anniversary of a separation so less unexpected than this was. And I think, God, there is less than one month now until It's here, and I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do; I hadn't even heard of "anniversary grief" before. Yes, anniversaries are had, and holidays are hard, and anniversaries that take place during holidays are wretched, but *no one told me* that all of a sudden the day before I left, all my anxiety and loss and fear and trauma symptoms might reappear. And having just experienced it there, can I really pretend or even hope that I might not implode completely on the 21st?
If I could keep from imploding, would I want to? I don't think I'd really want to, not really, not knowing that all I have to offer her now is grief and my continued life. Not knowing how wrong it was to lose her, and how much that needs to be known. I want so badly to have a way to stay with it and feel safe and not hurt anyone, but I don't know what to do. My brother the journalist cannot be home on Christmas, so there is talk of moving the festivities to the weekend before, early this evening they had all but decided on the twenty-first. Mom changed the plans after realizing that my father couldn't be home, she would have to get out of work, and I would in all likelihood be an absolute mess. That required me telling her, of course, something I had put off doing, despite the fact that she's planning this huge gala at her work that night, and I was very much afraid of being home alone. (Or out, actually. God, how I wish the distances between me and those who know were not so vast...)
I know it sounds kind of ridiculous, but if I could, I think I'd spend the whole day with the Superdoc. I think that would be really nice. I could talk with Sara on the phone perhaps, but with him, I wouldn't have to worry so much about whether he was also in pain. I wouldn't have to talk about it all day; we could do little things, you know? Draw pictures and be generally laid back and I could just relish the fact that I was in a safe place, and whatever came up, I could feel. I don't know what to do. Maybe I can find a way to see him that day; maybe I can just carry him in my head and try to treat myself as kindly as he does. I'm supposed to see Tammy; that much I know, but I can't decide if it will help or hurt. Most of my family will already be in for the early-Christmas, and I don't know what to do with that reality. I have such terrible guilt for all the holidays- the school breaks, the celebrations- that I ruined with my illness. I feel so awful about it, and the greatest part of that guilt is with my brother who we are moving this holiday to the weekend for. Mom says he understands my illness much better than he did before, and things have been so good between us the last few times we were together, but I'm still really scared. I don't want to screw this up for him, and I want it to be a good thing, too...it's not like I'm *glad* that the worst time of my life and what used to be my favorite holiday (Christmas Eve actually, not Christmas) overlap. I just feel like my head is crashing in with all the things I didn't do right at the time, all the things I can't do right now, and all the pain of how real a year seems to make it.
I read an article that says to celebrate my own survival along with the life of the person and feeling the pain. I want to do that, you know; I want to be good to me and keep myself safe the way I deserve to be safe...but I'd also rather not become a complete wreck just to ruin someone else's holiday.
Talk about not knowing how to be me in the presence of others. What do I do? When I feel incapable of giving them the right Christmas, her the right acknowledgement, and myself anything at all? and...how is it that people die every day and I still feel so alone in this? I feel bad talking with people who understand because it means they're in pain, too, and I feel bad talking with those who don't because how could they understand? and I don't want to upset them.
I have a bone to pick with (the Christian) God. Why the hell didn't Tracy come back after three days, huh? She was a child, too, and honestly, I don't really give a shit about Jesus. It isn't fair that he's the one God chose.
None of this is fair, and none of it can be real without making me hurt in places I don't want to feel. But if it isn't real, I feel guilty for not feeling it. I have to find out how to get through this, but suddenly I just want to hide through all the months. I can't believe how well my unconscious mind remembers. I realize without even knowing what month it is that I am revisiting the same feelings I went through last year. And the time between the loss of Rogers and the loss of Her...knowing now that I am heading into another blow...it's totally disarming. Why couldn't I have known last year? Why couldn't I have *done* something?
She didn't deserve this. It was the last thing she would have wanted. Let the years go by; it won't ever make sense. It won't ever make sense that a girl more alive than I can hope to be stopped living. No, she didn't stop living, she died. People say those like they're different, people with faith in something more. And I want, I so desperately want, to believe that she is still here somewhere but maybe it can't be enough. Because maybe even with her here, I can't find her, and part of what I want is not just that she be ok. Part of what I want is that she be with me, the way I want all of them here. Or at least, the way that I have them now, in hope, in fantasy, in thought...
How do you hope in a darkness thick as this?
chord
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