Sunday, March 19, 2017

one step

I miss my blog.  I think about it often!  But I also have a life of crazy to deal with... and so my blog has been reduced to notes in my phone or on a scratch sheet of paper.  I'll be honest.  I struggle to sleep.  I have spent many nights laying awake in the bed, on the couch, pacing the floor and sometimes taking a few xanax in hopes that I can close my eyes and maybe function a few hours later.  Life doesn't wait.  grief doesn't wait either.  

May I?  May I tell you a story?  A story about the girl who is grieving?  A story about how no-one  wants to sit with the girl who is grieving.  It's not a sad story.  It's a true story.  A story about life and about experience....potentially the one you will never hear.  It's masked by life and by the perception of the "un-greived".  It's a story about 2 elephants.  2 big, huge, pink, dead elephants sitting in a room!  And then theres me....sitting on top of them.  I'm the girl whose parents died!  Hi...I'm Me...Teresa! I'm not weird or scary but my folks died...simultaneously...boom boom.  Yep, I said it....one died and then the other!  It's odd...it's uncomfortable.  You don't know what to say.  I get it!  I have no idea what to say either....but the looks, the avoidance, the people who see me out and turn the other way..,I get it!  
You can ignore me, you can move on, you can encourage me to resume my past life....to show up...to answer your call, your text...by God Teresa what happened to you???  I wish I knew.  
I've changed...and so have you.... you see me differently.  Dare I say "mom" or "dad" and you are instantly uncomfortable.  But that is exactly what I want to talk about....both mom and dad....2 people who loved me, believed in me, and gave me their all.  If you have ever liquidated your best friends life then please tell me...but...NO....I am not the same.  I never will be!  I have changed....I have a broader perspective.  I will never be the same...never!!!  I don't feel the need to explain.
  Are you back? they ask... No, and I never will be back.  I am different.  I am changed.  I am the girl in the middle of the room, trying her best not to draw attention to herself but the one who is sitting on 2 pink dead elephants in the room... Guess what??? they aren't going anywhere.  There are dead....they are huge...there is no way around them....Ya'll it happened!  Life continues for each and every one of you...my life is now defined by before and after.  Yet they sit there...dead!  It's not going to change and you will never know what to say!  
So, may I answer your questions???  NO....No, I am not ok.  No, I am not back.  I have no idea what i will feel in the next 15 seconds so I can assure you that I have no idea what I will feel tomorrow. 
Let me re-introduce myself....I'm Teresa!!!  Hi....the girl that no-one wants to talk to....the girl who is grieving and that is awkward.  I promise you that grief isn't contagious...if you bring them up, I won't self combust and guess what???  you won't die either!!!  But they will still exist...or at least their memory will...if I say their name, I promise you won't die too....you won't "catch it".
I have minimized myself to a liar.  Yes, I said it.  I am a huge liar.  "how are you?"  I will lie to your face...why?? well because the bottom line is that you really don't care.   That's a pleasantry....How am I????  I'm awful.  I'm struggling.  I wish it was me!!!...but let's be real...that's not what you want to hear...that's weird and uncomfortable.  The truth is silencing....it's a big fat pink elephant...it's obvious!  How could it not be?  But no one wants to talk about it.
Mom and Dad will sit here with me...I talk to them often!  I cry for them often!  I've changed!  I'll never be the same!  Some days my change is shocking and somedays I realize that life is a mold...it shapes you!  Without it....without real life, we are left to perception.  That can be scary...Perception isn't reality...it's what you make it.  Right now perception is experience and that's not mine to make!!  But I will ride...I'll take it!  I'll trust that GOD is leading me somewhere!  With my elephants...in one piece!!!