And then suddenly, I returned.
I can hardly believe that it's been about 7 months since the last time I wrote on here. If anyone is reading this at all, I'm really sorry about the long absence. Stuff happened, a lot of it, which is actually what I was going to talk about today.
Something I've been struggling with recently is how to describe exactly what happened and more so, how I've been feeling these past few months. I don't know how to express it without it sounding kind of bad or possibly worrying those who love me. But I'm finally able to write something. So I kind of have to. For my own sanity.
In truth, everything started before the tumultuous event and then exploded.
I've been feeling kind of....hopeless for awhile. Since my job changed really. And I've been stuck in retail since October. It's draining and frustrating and somehow my creativity just dried up.
However I still had random bursts of writing. I still had my friends and my boyfriend, (who I'll call Flynn) to spend time with. I hung out with my family when it was possible. But I missed them terribly and I hated my job.
But things were still fine such as they were. Until the end of January. Until the end of my grandmother.
I tried to write about it because that's how I've always coped with everything in the past. I'd had my heart broken before and had been blocked in writing but half sentences and phrases or thoughts still escaped here and there.
This time....after a desperate stream of conscious poem during a vague night at work and a paragraph that ended before the fateful words I couldn't say or write.....other than those things, I wrote nothing. I was done.
There were no more words inside of me. They'd all dried up. And what's more it hurt too damn much to say them. To say anything really.
I couldn't even speak them out loud. I said words, everything other than what I needed to talk about because I was afraid of tears. I said everything but what was important, anything but what truly mattered. Nothing about what was going through my head and heart. I'm going to try to write it all down again, in order, because I need to get it out. But for now.....the aftermath.
I went through the days after I was dropped back off in my life. Every day felt the same. I got up and went to work. Or I slept in later and dragged myself to errands. I made myself go to stores, the bank, the laundromat, the RMV. I made phone calls, hands twitching on the table. I hung out with everyone but that felt like an effort. It was so hard to keep up some kind of happiness, a front so no one would worry.
Work was almost unbearable. I had to be cheerful all the damn time, so at the end of the day all I wanted to do was disappear into fiction, into someone else's life. So I watched movies and TV. I binged on NCIS, NCIS:LA, and Bones. I avoided certain shows my gram and I used to watch together or talk about.
My roomate, Dash, started a new job an hour away and it took up the majority of her time. So she mostly moved in with her boyfriend and his friends. My despair deepened over that time. I was alone except for work and the weekends. Flynn's family had me down once a week for dinner. My doppelganger hung out now and again but sometimes I wanted to be alone. It made it easier to not have to fake emotions. However it was stll difficult to sleep at night.
The point is that the days all drifted together. This deep sadness had an unshakable hold on me. I'd think maybe I was okay but then why was I still sad-- and then I'd remember and it would continue. I slept with all of the lights on, fearful of the world outside, the possible spirits in the apartment, and my own imagination. I stopped caring about cleaning things, looking as presentable for work, getting out of bed before 2 pm.
At some point I became aware that I was not happy, As in, I had not, in fact. been happy for a long time. At first, because I'm a twitchy paranoid person, I thought that it had something to do with my relationship. Oh no....was something wrong and I yet again took forever to notice? But that was stupid. Its' not Flynn's fault if I'm not happy 24/7 just like it's not my fault if he's not. So I felt back over the web of time and my vague emotions and realized that the last time I had been happy was about 2 minutes before my Dad told me what had happened, what had changed for all of us.
So in fact this was still grief working it's way through my system. Which only made me feel slightly better.
I didn't know how to talk about this. I hid my tears because I didn't want to bother anyone. You know how society is about grief. Cry up until the funeral and then you should have some closure. But you better damn well be your usual cheery self the day after.
So that's what I faked.
It was not that I didn't feel emotions. I did. It was just....all I felt were the negative, bad one. Sadness, anger, hatred, annoyance. Joy, laughter and happiness were just out of reach. They touched me lightly, like the way a warm spring breeze brushes your face. And then they were gone.
I couldn't write. Reading was an effort. Crowds made me grumpy and panicky. Traveling caused irrational rage. Almost everything I had enjoyed before was not fun anymore.
All I could do was continue on this long, dimly lit path, holding onto some kind of half-hearted hope that things would change. But all the while, I doubted that they would.
Slowly though, something did change. Allie Brosh, of my favorite blog ever Hyperbole and a Half, came back. And her new entry reverberated within me. I had not been to those same depths as her....but I understood what she talked about. To some extent. And suddenly, I had a positive emotion: Relief.
I was relieved that she was okay. As much as she is at this point. That she was still alive.
I was relieved that she was making it.
That she had written again.
And suddenly, I had hope that I would be able to write again.
That maybe my creativity was not an old well that had been sealed out of tragedy.
That maybe I did deserve to be happy again even though my grandmother was gone, even though I had regrets, even though.......everything.
That maybe I could feel happiness again. Someday.
I expressed how I felt to Doppelganger finally. I knew that besides my family, (who I couldn't let myself talk to about it because FEELINGS), she was the one person who could understand the level of grief that I was still wading through. And she did.
I gathered courage over a month ago and made a spontaneous decision to go back home. Back to VT to visit. And everything had changed, just as I knew it had. Just as I had tried not to acknowledge it had. But I refused to get used to it. I refused. But something within me changed.
When I got back, suddenly there were feelings. Overwhelming ones. I was nearly knocked over by laughter. I vibrated with rage. I was pumped full of determination. I was full to bursting with love.
And slowly, the anxiety came back as well. That was the only thing I had not missed over the dark period.
But that is a tale for another day.
For now, I am full of feelings, both good and bad. Sometimes it's a confusing swirl of them. Some days it's still hard to move or do anything resembling productivity or any kind of activity. But things are getting better.
And I've got the writing itch again, with words and poems bursting out of me in what looks like an endless sea. Months of feelings I couldn't express are just falling out faster than I can write them. And I'm full of an emerging drive to make life better. One word at a time.
I can hardly believe that it's been about 7 months since the last time I wrote on here. If anyone is reading this at all, I'm really sorry about the long absence. Stuff happened, a lot of it, which is actually what I was going to talk about today.
Something I've been struggling with recently is how to describe exactly what happened and more so, how I've been feeling these past few months. I don't know how to express it without it sounding kind of bad or possibly worrying those who love me. But I'm finally able to write something. So I kind of have to. For my own sanity.
In truth, everything started before the tumultuous event and then exploded.
I've been feeling kind of....hopeless for awhile. Since my job changed really. And I've been stuck in retail since October. It's draining and frustrating and somehow my creativity just dried up.
However I still had random bursts of writing. I still had my friends and my boyfriend, (who I'll call Flynn) to spend time with. I hung out with my family when it was possible. But I missed them terribly and I hated my job.
But things were still fine such as they were. Until the end of January. Until the end of my grandmother.
I tried to write about it because that's how I've always coped with everything in the past. I'd had my heart broken before and had been blocked in writing but half sentences and phrases or thoughts still escaped here and there.
This time....after a desperate stream of conscious poem during a vague night at work and a paragraph that ended before the fateful words I couldn't say or write.....other than those things, I wrote nothing. I was done.
There were no more words inside of me. They'd all dried up. And what's more it hurt too damn much to say them. To say anything really.
I couldn't even speak them out loud. I said words, everything other than what I needed to talk about because I was afraid of tears. I said everything but what was important, anything but what truly mattered. Nothing about what was going through my head and heart. I'm going to try to write it all down again, in order, because I need to get it out. But for now.....the aftermath.
I went through the days after I was dropped back off in my life. Every day felt the same. I got up and went to work. Or I slept in later and dragged myself to errands. I made myself go to stores, the bank, the laundromat, the RMV. I made phone calls, hands twitching on the table. I hung out with everyone but that felt like an effort. It was so hard to keep up some kind of happiness, a front so no one would worry.
Work was almost unbearable. I had to be cheerful all the damn time, so at the end of the day all I wanted to do was disappear into fiction, into someone else's life. So I watched movies and TV. I binged on NCIS, NCIS:LA, and Bones. I avoided certain shows my gram and I used to watch together or talk about.
My roomate, Dash, started a new job an hour away and it took up the majority of her time. So she mostly moved in with her boyfriend and his friends. My despair deepened over that time. I was alone except for work and the weekends. Flynn's family had me down once a week for dinner. My doppelganger hung out now and again but sometimes I wanted to be alone. It made it easier to not have to fake emotions. However it was stll difficult to sleep at night.
The point is that the days all drifted together. This deep sadness had an unshakable hold on me. I'd think maybe I was okay but then why was I still sad-- and then I'd remember and it would continue. I slept with all of the lights on, fearful of the world outside, the possible spirits in the apartment, and my own imagination. I stopped caring about cleaning things, looking as presentable for work, getting out of bed before 2 pm.
At some point I became aware that I was not happy, As in, I had not, in fact. been happy for a long time. At first, because I'm a twitchy paranoid person, I thought that it had something to do with my relationship. Oh no....was something wrong and I yet again took forever to notice? But that was stupid. Its' not Flynn's fault if I'm not happy 24/7 just like it's not my fault if he's not. So I felt back over the web of time and my vague emotions and realized that the last time I had been happy was about 2 minutes before my Dad told me what had happened, what had changed for all of us.
So in fact this was still grief working it's way through my system. Which only made me feel slightly better.
I didn't know how to talk about this. I hid my tears because I didn't want to bother anyone. You know how society is about grief. Cry up until the funeral and then you should have some closure. But you better damn well be your usual cheery self the day after.
So that's what I faked.
It was not that I didn't feel emotions. I did. It was just....all I felt were the negative, bad one. Sadness, anger, hatred, annoyance. Joy, laughter and happiness were just out of reach. They touched me lightly, like the way a warm spring breeze brushes your face. And then they were gone.
I couldn't write. Reading was an effort. Crowds made me grumpy and panicky. Traveling caused irrational rage. Almost everything I had enjoyed before was not fun anymore.
All I could do was continue on this long, dimly lit path, holding onto some kind of half-hearted hope that things would change. But all the while, I doubted that they would.
Slowly though, something did change. Allie Brosh, of my favorite blog ever Hyperbole and a Half, came back. And her new entry reverberated within me. I had not been to those same depths as her....but I understood what she talked about. To some extent. And suddenly, I had a positive emotion: Relief.
I was relieved that she was okay. As much as she is at this point. That she was still alive.
I was relieved that she was making it.
That she had written again.
And suddenly, I had hope that I would be able to write again.
That maybe my creativity was not an old well that had been sealed out of tragedy.
That maybe I did deserve to be happy again even though my grandmother was gone, even though I had regrets, even though.......everything.
That maybe I could feel happiness again. Someday.
I expressed how I felt to Doppelganger finally. I knew that besides my family, (who I couldn't let myself talk to about it because FEELINGS), she was the one person who could understand the level of grief that I was still wading through. And she did.
I gathered courage over a month ago and made a spontaneous decision to go back home. Back to VT to visit. And everything had changed, just as I knew it had. Just as I had tried not to acknowledge it had. But I refused to get used to it. I refused. But something within me changed.
When I got back, suddenly there were feelings. Overwhelming ones. I was nearly knocked over by laughter. I vibrated with rage. I was pumped full of determination. I was full to bursting with love.
And slowly, the anxiety came back as well. That was the only thing I had not missed over the dark period.
But that is a tale for another day.
For now, I am full of feelings, both good and bad. Sometimes it's a confusing swirl of them. Some days it's still hard to move or do anything resembling productivity or any kind of activity. But things are getting better.
And I've got the writing itch again, with words and poems bursting out of me in what looks like an endless sea. Months of feelings I couldn't express are just falling out faster than I can write them. And I'm full of an emerging drive to make life better. One word at a time.
