Monthly Archives: January 2017

I’m writing this while I lay in a bed that’s not mine, within a house that is not my home.

Yesterday, as I was driving to work I saw a horrific sight. A dreadfully gruesome sight. There were two dogs just feet apart, lifeless, on the side of the road. One looked like a husky and the other a lab. There was no blood, no tire marks, no presence of an accident whatsoever.

My mind goes straight to, “Should I go to all these houses that are spread out and tell them? Maybe it’s their dogs? Should I check and see if they really are gone?” Then, my mind goes, they are Josh and Adam.

My heart faded into black. I felt a cold rush start from my feet and shoot up into my head. Both of my brother’s must have felt like they just ran right out into traffic. I know they were scared and froze in times when they needed to run back to safety. Sometimes that is exactly how I feel. I’m paralyzed with all these bulky, hasty masses speeding past me and I’m unresponsive. I can’t blink, breath, talk…I’m confined to this space.

This space which has no restfulness, no compassion, no pity, no encouragement. It’s desolate. It has no warmth. When I try to move it’s as if I’ve grown roots from my calcaneus and they extend straight from my heel into this pit of ash. I can’t fight to pull any harder because I’m so tired.

All this is so tiring. My emotions, my thoughts, the way something can trigger ideas that seem so out of whack.

 

It’s hard to have to go about your days, your life when their lives just…STOPPED.

I’ve had these feelings since my Bubba (my Dad) passed almost five years ago now. That seems so unreal that it’s been that long. I remember holding his hand as he took his last breathes and it felt like an eternity as he fought for every single one he took for that last hour. I stayed by his side for days. He told me he loved me and then he didn’t speak again. He stopped getting up, he stopped eating, he stopped opening his eyes. Six months before all that we were talking on the phone and laughing. I see it like it’s a movie in my head. The camera is angled down hovering above us, rotating side to side. The reel now has added footage, it’s longer. This movie that plays on repeat in my head has added moments of my brothers.

In the recent months I’d been struggling with guilt for feeling happiness. I’ve been doing well in my career and it felt unfair to my brother Adam. He had a drive in him that was powerful. He knew what he wanted to do and he did those things. It was so great to see him succeed. I was always so proud when he achieved new heights. We would celebrate together when we could or cheer together over the phone. I miss his random voicemails to say nothing but “I love you” and “Get it gurl!”.

And Josh, he was doing so well. He was making positive strides and we could all see the man he use to be. The man HE was proud of. I wonder if he was having this “survivor’s guilt”? He had to of felt it. To get clean, to overcome the poison that had destroyed so much of our lives. He wasn’t sharing everything he was feeling but I know he was battling a lot of pain. Pain from the past, pain of the present, pain bubbling up in that rearview mirror. I wish I could have done more, been more. He deserved happiness.

Both of my brothers deserved pure, true happiness. Now I’m afraid of happiness. How can I have it when they couldn’t? How am I suppose to continue on when they can’t? I know how crazy this must sound. I know I should do things for them, because of them, through them but it’s much easier said than done.

I want to continue to succeed because I have to. I still have my two beautiful nieces who mean the world to me. Everything I do is for them. It’s so they can see that you can break the cycle, you don’t have become a product of your environment. I wish I could absorb all their pain, sorrow, anguish, fears. I would hold all that for them if I could. But now I have to try and survive. Survive for my two true loves. My nieces. They are my world. My breath. I want them to be able to look toward me and find strength because that’s what I get from them.

We are the survivors. We will struggle with happiness. We will struggle when we succeed. Apparently, we have “Survivor’s Guilt”.

I find myself displaced in a world full of love. I’m bewildered by my whereabouts.

I have those I know and strangers inquire, “How are you?” and my genuine heart whispers, “Dejected.”

My lips lack a smile that upon a time was unending. A man declared to me, “Your gaze is so intense.”

“My apologizes.”

“No, your eyes are very beautiful and mesmerizing.”

I speculate whether these inhabitants surrounding me can see the truth in my gaze, in the haze of my eyes.

Am I on autopilot? Just navigating through my day, helping those who need it until I’m alone.

Introspection sets in and the glut of throbbing torture slithers in and the cold sweats emerge.

I’m petrified of what is.

My world was pulled from under me, I smack my face on the floor.

I’m bleeding out but there’s no tourniquet for my heart. I grasp to cover the holes that spew my being out onto the surface.

I get hit with fits of rage, uncontrollable misery.

My heart is beyond mutilated. My awareness is mangled, perception distorted.

I come to screaming through tears, “This isn’t my life. This isn’t how my life is.”

Skin feels bruised, shaking from constant tension.

Cheeks swollen, red, burn with each tear that drags downward; Gathering under my chin like a pool of emotion dripping down my neck, flowing over my weeping heart.

This heart that’s trying to rip through my flesh, into my hands where I can undoubtedly see it, hear it.

Yet I feel like a barren shell that once felt warmth and love. Now abandoned, numb.

I find myself asking why can’t I be enough, over and over again.

Why isn’t my love enough? Why isn’t my presence enough? Why isn’t my caring heart enough?

No one can seem to answer the question.

I’ve always had to be the good one. The one who made the right choices. Why aren’t they enough?

I’ve always had to be the one to hold you when you cried, when you were scared. Why isn’t my embrace enough?

I’ve always had to be the one everyone can come to, to count on fully and completely. Why isn’t that enough?

I’m always the understanding one. Holding everyone’s feeling so delicately, keeping them from falling apart. But why can’t I be enough?

How can I be so wise, so loving, so unselfish and still not be enough for anyone?

How do I become enough?

…enough of what…enough for who…enough where, when…

How much is it when enough is enough?

 

Her eyes scream out,

Sitting quietly her tears wash her pale cheeks. 

Desperate…her heart bleeds the truth, 

Pretend the past won’t relive. 

Death echoes through the falls, 

Speeding light slows the breathe. 

Beaten…tired…strained.

Smiles made easy with fake love.

Walking the trail of rolling hills, 

Fantasy can hurt more than surreal life,

The domain breaks softly, 

While Mondays keep coming. 

The state of being drifts endlessly. 

Combinations of color decorate her skin, 

Hands grip tightly, 

These lines just seem to be filled. 

She’s nothing, only me, blue and lonely.