In Love and Death

In my last blog, I talked about my freeze state around the emotion of anger. Writing that unlocked so many things for me and the things that have been processing since then have been so eye opening. 

Love and Death have always been my two of my greatest challenges. When I love, I love so fully that it overwhelms me. I lose myself in it and I wasn’t great at taking care of myself because all I wanted to do was take care of the people that I love. I am also terrified of losing them. 

I recognize that fear the moment I realize just how much I love them and want them around forever. I understand so deeply in that moment that every single minute could be our very last, and it paralyzes me. It makes me say yes when I really want to say no, because, what if? It makes me back-burner myself because, what if? It makes me not want to be separated from anyone because, what if? 

I have learned how to mask it pretty well. I called it healing and genuinely thought that was what I was doing. It wasn’t until I set out on my own that I was able to get to this space that brought me to being able to write that blog on anger. That allowed me to break things wide open and put me in a deeper, more vulnerable state so that I was able to see things more clearly. 

Last night, I closed my eyes and was drifting off to sleep when I realized that I was clenching my jaw. I relaxed my jaw and allowed my body language to come to my thoughts. I didn’t try to push it off with positive thinking, or tell myself that everything was going to be okay. 

I didn’t understand what was wrong. 

I needed to ask questions. I needed curiosity to help me here. This isn’t a new sign. It’s one I can’t seem to let go of. That tells me that it’s something deep that I am not allowing to surface. 

Immediately, I felt the overwhelming, cement like, dark feeling creeping its way through my entire body. I started thinking about all of my favorite people, thinking about how far away I am from everyone, thinking what if, what if, what if? I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. I wanted to go home. 

That was when it hit me. No matter where I am, this feeling exists. This isn’t something that has a fix to it. This is something that needs more truth to feel calm. 

Every single soul that I love, will die. 

And so many of them have. 

I am no stranger to death and have known it for longer than most people that I know. This has sat with me since I can remember. In fact, I have three core memories that are some of the first ones that I can remember vividly around death. My very first memory is of me almost drowning. My second core memory is my grandma telling my mom about a girl that was my age that was murdered. My third core memory feels like I blinked and my grandma was gone. My brain sealed in the moments just before, during and after all of these moments and has visited them frequently. 

Almost dying didn’t bother me. What bothered me was the two after it. What bothered me was everyone I lost after that. What bothered me was that I knew nobody was safe. No moment was safe. Nothing was truly safe. 

I used to have panic attacks that would creep up on me, seemingly out of nowhere. I would hyperventilate and feel like I was going to pass out. I was on edge. I didn’t really understand why until I dealt with death on a level that I never wanted to experience. One of my very best friends had moved home and we ran into each other and started dating. 

I was a few months out of a really bad relationship and seeing him felt like the black cloud had lifted. The sunshine and the rainbows came out. The colors were brighter and every single second of every single day felt alive and exciting. I was so happy. 

I didn’t know the other side to him though, the side he hid away behind his laugh, behind his smile. He had so much sadness on him and so many things that he struggled with. I wanted to help him and nothing that I did seemed to actually do that. It seemed like it just made him want to hide the hard times from me. He told me how much he loved being with me, how happy he was when we were together, how he was working on healing all of these things from his past- but we both knew this wasn’t an overnight process. What we didn’t know was that he didn’t have the time. 

One morning he woke up and didn’t feel good and he went back to sleep and that was it. He was gone. I was absolutely devastated. For four years I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. I felt so far away from everything that I had ever known. I have truly never felt loss on that level and I honestly didn’t think that I was going to make it out. We weren’t even in our thirties. This didn’t happen. I thought for sure someone messed up and I begged and pleaded with life to please bring him back. Just fix this. No matter how hard I begged, cried, pleaded, dug my heels in and resisted living my life until they fixed this, it didn’t matter. Nobody could undo this. 

I had to accept that this was my new reality. The hole inside my chest was something that I was going to have to learn to live with. 

Learning to live with the fear of losing the ones I love has never been easy. Dying feels easier than living most days because I carry it with me everywhere and I have for so long. While it made me stronger and able to carry more, it’s exhausting to never set it down. 

Last night I greeted it. Hello my old friend. I remembered being small and terrified every single night I went to sleep. Not knowing what bad thing I would wake up to. Not knowing what life would be like. Never wanting moments to end because I wasn’t sure that I would get them back. 

I was so little and I had no way to voice all of these overwhelming, terrifying feelings that were consuming me, but last night I cried. I understood. I validated these feelings.

It is true. I could wake up and everything could be different. Someone could be gone. Something very sad could happen. No matter what though, I will keep moving. I will feel all the feels and I will find some way to feel close and connected to them. Yes, unexpected things will catch me off guard. Yes I will miss them. Yes it will hurt like hell, but remember all the good times. Remember why it hurts like hell.

To love and be loved so deeply is a gift. My focus belongs on how lucky I am to be so blessed to have so much love in my life that I feel and understand these things. To have had these people that taught me so much in life and continuously teach me in death, to be so connected that I can still feel them and draw them near, to feel so lucky to teeter so closely to both sides of the living and beyond, is beautiful. I am blessed. Breathe it in. 

Then I remembered something else. 

Just as quickly as things can change into hard times, things can blossom into absolutely wonderful times. 

The night that we locked eyes in the bar was an exceptional feeling. I had gone from fear to an elated sense of peace and freedom, and just like that – in one moment – I was home again. I felt so far away from myself and all it took was one glance from the right person and life was re-energized. I had no idea what was coming, but everything leading up to it had so many life changing pieces. 

Up until that moment I had never been loved like that. He changed my whole world. He changed the way I viewed relationships. He made me understand just how much I was worth, and how I saw myself. He made me happy. He made me feel safe, and while I know that safety is an illusion, it still feels so nice to be able to believe in the illusion for a while. To feel so connected, so loved, so free – that’s the kind of thing that changes your whole world. 

I picture all of the people I love, living – somewhere else. I picture them happy and peaceful. I talk to them often. I feel them all around me. I let them guide me. I stay close with them. I remember that some things are just bigger than what we are able to understand and that not everything we think is necessarily true. And, multiple things can be true at once. While I miss them deeply and wish they were here, I must trust that this is the way it must be, because it is what it is.  I hope that one day, I understand. I hope one day we reconnect. I hope that none of us are ever truly lost. 

In love and death, there is peace when you find the path that allows you to feel it.