The only way out is through, right? So I’m going to go through this. I’m going to be brave even when it doesn’t feel like that is enough anymore. I want to feel like I can be a rock now for people, and maybe I’m doing a better job at that, but I also am constantly having to watch as the table legs get taken out from underneath me. I am not as steady as I used to be.
I’ve been known to indulge in some melancholy, and I also am a prisoner of the moment. Everything feels fine until it isn’t, and then it becomes so unbearably uncomfortable that the only way out is a meltdown (which never helps like I hope it will). There’s nothing I can do to wrangle these feelings; simply allowing them space seems like the best I can do. They aren’t pleasant tenants, though.
It was late last year, and I got a phone call, and they said in so many words what I was anticipating hearing for quite a while. You were now gone, and that was about the whole of it, and then it was back to the regularly scheduled programming. Okay, sounds good. I can certainly move on. I am completely lying in those last two sentences.
We keep losing the good ones.
No one is going to fill your place, and you can’t say that about just anybody. I have plenty of relationships that can be replaced, maybe not 1 for 1, but close enough that the difference is imperceptible. That wasn’t the case with you, and that feeling is more than hurt. Maybe there is a German word for the feeling.
I haven’t even figured out how to process my other grief yet either, so you’re gonna have to get to the back of the line, buddy. You’ll have to wait your turn.
It is vulnerable to say all of these things here, but I have also been toiling with how to put this into words for 6 months now. This specific loss caved me in with such unique ferocity that I couldn’t even comprehend how to engage with it. Especially when I felt like I saw it coming. What could I have done differently?
I don’t blame anybody here. And I don’t blame anybody if they decide it isn’t worth it. But I know I can keep going, so I will.
I know what I’m not going to do, and that is stop doing the things we bonded over. I won’t stop making music, or watching our insufferable sports teams, or listening to insufferable sports radio, or laughing at this insufferable life. I’m not gonna stop doing the things we bonded over, because if I allow the pain of loss to stop me, then I lose what it was to be connected to you, which means I am giving up on an essential part of being human. And I refuse to give away that part of myself, no matter how much pain I have to endure.
This day and age is determined to strip away everything that it means to be human. They want to remove our friction, take away our pain, and tell us that it’s for our benefit. But when you do that, you start to chip away at your story, and I refuse to let anyone dictate that. I’m not going to give away pieces of myself willingly, including the pain I’ve endured. It is mine to decide what to do with.
This life can be unbearable, and I need everyone I’ve lost to line up behind me and give me a push. If you all do that, then I think I can keep at it. Sometimes, if it hits just right, I can feel the weight of their hands behind my back telling me that I can keep going.
Thanks for reading, talk soon.
Beautifully said, my friend. Raw and real