The Third Month

“Grief is a tidal wave that over takes you, smashes down upon you with unimaginable force, sweeps you up into its darkness, where you tumble and crash against unidentifiable surfaces, only to be thrown out on an unknown beach, bruised, reshaped.  Grief will make a new person out of you if it doesn’t kill you in the making.” ~~ Stephanie Ericsson

 Zach,

I’m having to backdate this one as I haven’t had internet at the house….. yet another one of those disasters you should be here helping me with because you know how overwhelmed I get when dealing with idiots who cause me stress.  All in all I just haven’t had much time to write but I am finally ready to sit down and put this into words.

The third month.  I somehow can hardly believe it.  I know this is a continuous theme I keep reflecting on but it blows my mind that sometimes it feels like you were just here five seconds ago but then the rest of the time it feels like you have been gone a lifetime.  I think I will always feel this way. 

January 9^th came in with a bang though…. actually it started getting bad on Friday and has culminated itself today into a horrible day which I feel the need to ramble about in order to get the chaos out of my head.  Friday, when I flew back from Canada after Gramps’ funeral, my car broke down as I stopped at the ONE red light there in Eastman which has left me without a vehicle.  Saturday your mom and I were supposed to leave early morning to move me back to Valdosta and back into our empty house but we were insanely delayed from having to meet up with the mechanic (stupid brakeline again same as in July when the car broke down on us before we roadtripped to Canada) so we didn’t leave Eastman until around lunch.  Well that would have been fine but your mom came as my guest to Jess and Dan’s wedding which you and I were supposed to go to so we had to be dressed for that by 3; this meant we only had time to unpack the car with the mountains of stuff I had moved to your parents over the last three months before the wedding.  The wedding was beautiful and they were both so sad that you were not there to celebrate their marriage with them.  I somehow managed to hold it together until they said their vows and then I lost it; thinking of the vows we would have taken to pledge our lives to each other was like a stab to the heart with a rusty knife…it hurt. Sunday your mom would have helped me unpack and clean the house after being shut up for three months but we had plans to meet up with the Bellinger’s for the first time since the accident (which I’ll talk about later) and then your parents left in the afternoon to get back to Eastman. 

What was the point of all that rambling?  Today, January 9^th, is the first morning I have woken up in our house alone.  The house is in shambles: luggage everywhere, clothes not hung up, three months worth of dust covering every surface, no internet due it being disconnected as I clearly fail at taking over the bills, not one piece of food in the house with the exception of some ketchup, and overwhelmingly empty.  You’re not here.  I feel like a stranger in my own home, disconnected, transparent, foreign.  This weekend was meant to be more organized so it would be a smoother transition for me of joining the real world again but it has been a state of chaos.  Well realistically the chaos began October 9^th but with the added sadness of Gramps’ passing last week it has been especially hectic.  I knew getting back to the real world would be insanely hard but now I feel like I’ve been tossed into the deep end with a swirling vortex in the middle trying to drag me down.

Today, January 9^th, I have had to go back to work, go back to classes, go back to facing people.  For the last three months I have been hiding in your parents house only showing my face when absolutely necessary.  For the last three months your parents have been my life raft as I have been theirs.  Now the loneliness is so obvious it is staring me in the face unavoidably.  Now this anxiety I have been feeling over the last three months is magnified a thousand times as I try to keep this mask firmly in place and appear OK, appear to be functioning.  I feel as though when I walk around, sit at my desk, talk to co-workers people can see the emptiness behind my eyes and wonder what the hell is wrong with this girl.  I feel overwhelming lost, blindsided, vacant.  I knew this day was coming and yet it has shocked the hell out of me and I feel like I’m drowning.

Zach, I thought this quote was fitting because it is a tidal wave.  Your parents and I have been using the wave analogy since the beginning of all of this but now it definitely feels like a tidal wave.  Sometimes you can see the waves coming before they hit you so you can find something to hold on to, take a breath, prepare; but other times it comes from nowhere and crushes you. I feel battered, bruised, weak, and am ready to give up. 

Send me your strength, some love, some help…. anything.  Because today not only marks the third month without you.  It marks the first day of the rest of my life, my return to society.  The rest of my life without you.  And its horrifying and scary.  I hate it.