Griefaries: Four

 April 20, 2022 - A sad night, out of the blue.

Very suddenly just fully considered what it may mean to someday grow old.  To be 90, and probably have some genetic vision and hearing loss.  So at 90, my children and grandchildren, God willing, will have to do the chaperoning thing.  I will be picked up, driven to my own mothers grave, and reminisce.  Reminisce, as a 90 year old that spent 78 years without her mother, but holding dearly the memories from the 22 that we were gifted.  I will reminisce, as a 90 year old whose own mother probably didn't even think she would live to see that age, only to see 52.  And I will wonder how I got there, to be 90 at the head of my moms grave, chatting with her or with my children and grandchildren, the same way my grandma used to.  My hand being guided along the old headstone, though after all the years of visiting I need no help.  A soul-deep sadness that grips me at every drive out of the cemetery, similar to the one I felt as a girl leaving our family cabin every summer and winter.  Only this one really could kill me, I'm afraid, both now and as a 90 year old.

They say time heals all wounds, but I have only found time to deepen mine.  They have become infected, irritated things.  I want to itch at my heartbreak.  I want to rip the entire limb off and start fresh, without one at all.  It is impossible for something to break that we do not have.  And if I simply just don't have a heart, then what else could destroy me?  I have not and will never know a pain like my mothers loss.  It weighs on me in a way that I never want to escape, because surely that would mean I am over her death.  Surely that would mean I have stopped grieving her.  Surely that mean I did not love her.  But all those are simply untrue.

My eyes are heavy with general exhaustion and grief, filled to the brim then overflowing with tears every so often as I type.  They roll down my cheeks as I lay in bed, staring at this screen.  It is the one place I really seem to escape my mine.  Writing it out helps me a little; not immensely, but enough.  Enough for the next hour - to be able to shut down my brain and find rest.  And that rest is enough to recharge me for work, and the preparation for work, and to do the work.  But then the work gets exhausting, and my brain gets exhausted, and my heart gets exhausted from being exhausted.  Then I yearn for my mothers hug, a hug I will never feel again.  And then I cry.  Either internally, or to myself on the way home.  And maybe I write on instagram stories how I say to mom "how dare you leave me" in my head, but make the words so small that no one can read them.  For fear of judgement, or fear of being perceived as seeking attention, or fear of fear itself.

I am afraid to be known and seen and accepted and loved.  I am afraid to be.  Because those things come from people, and people can so easily leave.  Both by choice and not.  My mother did not choose to go, I know this in my soul, but it does not stop me from feeling abandoned in some way.  Maybe by God, or the universe, and maybe even by mom in a way.  I'm not sure.  Maybe I feel abandoned by myself.  By the life that I knew, and maybe still pretend to live now.

I may not even live to see 90.  I'm not sure why I take up so much precious time considering what if's.

*Originally notes on my phone, screenshot and posted to instagram stories.  I figured they were honest enough thoughts and emotions to make permanent.  I also thought, for those of you that use this blog as the main way to keep up, it was only fair that I shared it here as well.  Both to you and to me.  My instagram stories will disappear after 24 hours, and though the note will surely live in my phone until that thing dies, I figured it had a much better outlook here.*