I walk side by side with grief, carrying life’s remains under a darkened sky. I’ve come to realise recently that I’m not only grieving a loss but parts that I’ve lost within myself. I sometimes ask grief when it will leave, and when the sun will decide to brightly encompass me again, but there never seems to be an answer.
Nobody told me how often I would see your face then blink, and see another instead. Nobody told me how I would catch glimpses of my old self before retracting in to the shell I have become. Nobody told me that remembering the feeling of your hands around my throat would make me gasp for breath or remembering the sound of your voice would keep me awake at night. Nobody told me that my nightmares would become an unforgiving reality.
Navigating this minefield of unpredictability whilst being in a state of hyper-vigilance always leads to prolonged suffering. In turn, I am bound to a profound state of isolation and loneliness. There are days where I feel like this weight is one I cannot release, enveloped in thick fog, unable to see any light in the distance. This loneliness is different to any other, its a hollowness that echoes within the absence of hope.
How is it possible to put into words the difficulty of rediscovering the person you once were before the broken parts took over? Am I just being lazy? Unmotivated? Stuck in a continuous loop of healing just to wake up at rock bottom again? Or have I just been living life in survival mode for so long that it’s become my exhausting normality.
How does someone measure bravery? In medals and titles? In tales of heroes and villains? Is it braver to shed tears in the silence or admit that you’re falling apart? I think the bravest thing i ever did was choosing to continue living, when everything inside me wanted to stop.
I have come to understand why people take flight from bridges, why bottles become places of worship, why people don’t dare put words to their struggles. Because trying to put everything into one sentence, one conversation, seems so small and insignificant, whilst all the while, everything on the inside is an entire sea of confusion and pain.
Being so self aware is so emotionally exhausting, as is being a witness to my own demise.
Papersmiles 