still alive
Dec. 5th, 2014 08:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silentwatersI realized after that last entry it might have sounded like I was off to kill myself. Nope. Sorry, betches, I'm still here.
It has been raining and foggy here for 3 days and nights, very uncharacteristically, but much to all our precipitation-starved delight.
The air has been soothingly full of petrichor and by the time we arrived home from the office around 2:30 am (we keep late hours), it smelled amazing outside, but inside my head I was burning and writhing with a depth of anxiety and depression like I haven't felt in almost 2 years, and trying to hold it all in. I kept burping, and though I hadn't eaten or drank anything but water in over 6 hours, it was all sour and burning bile coming up out of my throat, and a layer of nausea beneath that wouldn't go away. My heart was pounding and it was hard to breathe.
I could only think, as I stepped out of the car, that I really should go for a walk to clear my head. That I desperately just wanted to walk into the night forever somehow, smelling only rain and fog, and maybe my sadness would naturally dissipate into the quiet black air.
But my sweet boyfriend, sensing that everything was not alright, would not let me go for a walk alone. So he insisted he would come with me, and put his shoes back on, even though he had to get to sleep soon because he had to get up early to go visit his kids today. I felt really bad because I didn't want to inconvenience him like that, and I certainly didn't need him to prove himself or whatever, this was just poison in my own head that I needed to get out and I knew I would never sleep if I just laid down in the state I was in.
I had to go walk, with him or without him, and kind of would have preferred to be alone. But he wouldn't hear of it, and said he liked the rain smell too and had sort of thought of going for a walk too so… off we went.
I kind of lost my shit at first… not at him, mind you, but just that it had already all be building up inside and as soon as we stepped outside, I just couldn't hold it in anymore. I was not even to the end of our street before the memory of me standing there trembling, knees locked to keep from falling down, in that very spot, watching my ex-husband ride away into the night on his motorcycle, red tail lights disappearing with tracers because the whole of reality seemed to be slowly melting at that very moment, me hollow and sick with disbelief, the whole scene- just imprinted itself before my eyes onto reality now, in stark detail. I remembered everything- How my brain felt curiously numb but there was a ringing in my ears. How I wandered the streets for an hour, chain smoking an entire pack of cigarettes, just so I wouldn't have to go back inside that house, which was suddenly nothing at all resembling "home". How I couldn't feel anything enough to cry but my cheeks kept getting my cigarettes wet for some reason. How I didn't understand anything anymore and felt like a newborn calf because this whole world was completely alien to me all of a sudden and I had trouble standing and I literally felt like I couldn't be sure of which way was up; gravity didn't seem to be functioning like I expected and in retrospect I don't know how I didn't pass out, but I felt like I was in the state of "almost just before you pass out", but for hours. I felt like I had been hit by a train and had amnesia, I didn't know who I was without him, what I should do now, what my own name was, or if I should kill myself because there was nothing left to live for. I strangely didn't even feel alive anyway, because over half of me just went missing. Would I ever see him again? Would he die without me knowing? Everything seemed small and far away and underwater and in slow motion, like a dream. It was like lighting a cigarette and puffing on it was the only task I could remember how to do. I didn't know who to call or what to do. I guess textbooks would call this state of being "shock", but I don't know if people in shock ever know they're in shock, or remember it afterwards, but… I remember. It is like remembering being high, in that it was a completely altered state.
Sort of akin to the state I found myself in when I asked the doctor, "Is It Cancer?" and he bluntly (thank god) just replied, "Yes." But this time was worse. Reality was irreparably broken and warped somehow. Nothing made sense at all.
Fast forward 2 years- I'm much healthier now, and I have a lot of nice thick scars where there used to be just bleeding gashes in my psyche. I clearly don't live my life in a state of shock on a daily basis. But last night- it all hit me again in a big wave, welling up from within me from… I don't know where. Most of the time I assume so much time has passed that on the average I'm "OK" now. And I'm certainly a lot "better". But I guess I'll never really *be* "OK". Really. I didn't think I could feel so intensely about all this shit anymore.
But it was like being right back there, front row seat, all up close.
Fuck, man.
Boyfriend patiently let me rail and cry and freak the fuck out. And he let me put my arm in his, to steady me. And we walked for like, a mile, instead of just around the neighborhood. He held my arm linked in his the *entire* time.
And he was very calming and astute in his observations.
Eventually we made it back home and I felt physically exhausted, but not full of bitter bile and nausea anymore, and not crying anymore. My heart rate was only higher because of the aerobic exercise but had come back down from wildly palpitating.
He snuggled me up, and I fell asleep with my head on his chest and his arm around my shoulders.
You know sometimes, I don't know what to make of this relationship, and I question it, and I question his devotion to me or love for me but… I really cannot express how grateful I am that he was there for me last night when I really needed someone. That's huge to me. I know my grief is terrible and ugly to watch, that's why I sequestered myself for months after things fell apart in my life.
But he was stoic and steadfast. I try not to lean hard on anyone about my own shit, but it was very kind of him to not let me completely fall, either.
In the end I was glad he came with me on the walk.
Today I feel… better, but I look like hell. I'm completely exhausted and feeling empty. Thoughts are sluggish. I have no motivation. There are large purple bags under my eyes and I haven't felt "awake" all day, but hollow and drifty and hungover with a vague headache and the urge to cry hovering beneath the surface like some pathetic ghost.
I'm better, but I'm not okay, really. But that's okay.
It's friday night and I have deadlines and work to do but really all I kind of want to do is go back to bed and stay there for another 14 hours.
I know the sun will come out eventually. It can't rain all the time.
It has been raining and foggy here for 3 days and nights, very uncharacteristically, but much to all our precipitation-starved delight.
The air has been soothingly full of petrichor and by the time we arrived home from the office around 2:30 am (we keep late hours), it smelled amazing outside, but inside my head I was burning and writhing with a depth of anxiety and depression like I haven't felt in almost 2 years, and trying to hold it all in. I kept burping, and though I hadn't eaten or drank anything but water in over 6 hours, it was all sour and burning bile coming up out of my throat, and a layer of nausea beneath that wouldn't go away. My heart was pounding and it was hard to breathe.
I could only think, as I stepped out of the car, that I really should go for a walk to clear my head. That I desperately just wanted to walk into the night forever somehow, smelling only rain and fog, and maybe my sadness would naturally dissipate into the quiet black air.
But my sweet boyfriend, sensing that everything was not alright, would not let me go for a walk alone. So he insisted he would come with me, and put his shoes back on, even though he had to get to sleep soon because he had to get up early to go visit his kids today. I felt really bad because I didn't want to inconvenience him like that, and I certainly didn't need him to prove himself or whatever, this was just poison in my own head that I needed to get out and I knew I would never sleep if I just laid down in the state I was in.
I had to go walk, with him or without him, and kind of would have preferred to be alone. But he wouldn't hear of it, and said he liked the rain smell too and had sort of thought of going for a walk too so… off we went.
I kind of lost my shit at first… not at him, mind you, but just that it had already all be building up inside and as soon as we stepped outside, I just couldn't hold it in anymore. I was not even to the end of our street before the memory of me standing there trembling, knees locked to keep from falling down, in that very spot, watching my ex-husband ride away into the night on his motorcycle, red tail lights disappearing with tracers because the whole of reality seemed to be slowly melting at that very moment, me hollow and sick with disbelief, the whole scene- just imprinted itself before my eyes onto reality now, in stark detail. I remembered everything- How my brain felt curiously numb but there was a ringing in my ears. How I wandered the streets for an hour, chain smoking an entire pack of cigarettes, just so I wouldn't have to go back inside that house, which was suddenly nothing at all resembling "home". How I couldn't feel anything enough to cry but my cheeks kept getting my cigarettes wet for some reason. How I didn't understand anything anymore and felt like a newborn calf because this whole world was completely alien to me all of a sudden and I had trouble standing and I literally felt like I couldn't be sure of which way was up; gravity didn't seem to be functioning like I expected and in retrospect I don't know how I didn't pass out, but I felt like I was in the state of "almost just before you pass out", but for hours. I felt like I had been hit by a train and had amnesia, I didn't know who I was without him, what I should do now, what my own name was, or if I should kill myself because there was nothing left to live for. I strangely didn't even feel alive anyway, because over half of me just went missing. Would I ever see him again? Would he die without me knowing? Everything seemed small and far away and underwater and in slow motion, like a dream. It was like lighting a cigarette and puffing on it was the only task I could remember how to do. I didn't know who to call or what to do. I guess textbooks would call this state of being "shock", but I don't know if people in shock ever know they're in shock, or remember it afterwards, but… I remember. It is like remembering being high, in that it was a completely altered state.
Sort of akin to the state I found myself in when I asked the doctor, "Is It Cancer?" and he bluntly (thank god) just replied, "Yes." But this time was worse. Reality was irreparably broken and warped somehow. Nothing made sense at all.
Fast forward 2 years- I'm much healthier now, and I have a lot of nice thick scars where there used to be just bleeding gashes in my psyche. I clearly don't live my life in a state of shock on a daily basis. But last night- it all hit me again in a big wave, welling up from within me from… I don't know where. Most of the time I assume so much time has passed that on the average I'm "OK" now. And I'm certainly a lot "better". But I guess I'll never really *be* "OK". Really. I didn't think I could feel so intensely about all this shit anymore.
But it was like being right back there, front row seat, all up close.
Fuck, man.
Boyfriend patiently let me rail and cry and freak the fuck out. And he let me put my arm in his, to steady me. And we walked for like, a mile, instead of just around the neighborhood. He held my arm linked in his the *entire* time.
And he was very calming and astute in his observations.
Eventually we made it back home and I felt physically exhausted, but not full of bitter bile and nausea anymore, and not crying anymore. My heart rate was only higher because of the aerobic exercise but had come back down from wildly palpitating.
He snuggled me up, and I fell asleep with my head on his chest and his arm around my shoulders.
You know sometimes, I don't know what to make of this relationship, and I question it, and I question his devotion to me or love for me but… I really cannot express how grateful I am that he was there for me last night when I really needed someone. That's huge to me. I know my grief is terrible and ugly to watch, that's why I sequestered myself for months after things fell apart in my life.
But he was stoic and steadfast. I try not to lean hard on anyone about my own shit, but it was very kind of him to not let me completely fall, either.
In the end I was glad he came with me on the walk.
Today I feel… better, but I look like hell. I'm completely exhausted and feeling empty. Thoughts are sluggish. I have no motivation. There are large purple bags under my eyes and I haven't felt "awake" all day, but hollow and drifty and hungover with a vague headache and the urge to cry hovering beneath the surface like some pathetic ghost.
I'm better, but I'm not okay, really. But that's okay.
It's friday night and I have deadlines and work to do but really all I kind of want to do is go back to bed and stay there for another 14 hours.
I know the sun will come out eventually. It can't rain all the time.
