Finding peace in this violence…

She’s lost her empathy. 

These days her reactions to the things I say are stoic and unsentimental, or almost as if what I say goes in one ear and out the other. We live in this alternate universe with one another, where she is this impassive person that I don’t recognize and I’m totally great and living this amazing life.

Lies.

Talking with her these days produces a sort of disorienting agitation, an inability to focus, wrapped in some deep and intrusive sadness that comes for me as if to abduct me — not to torture me per-say…and yet I feel tortured.

This is what emotional torture feels like. The next step in severing our bond. That’s what this is: I am being severed from her. Violently. 

There are times in my own private apocalypse where the hurt comes pouring out of me. Sometimes in the bathroom at work. Sometimes in the darkness of my apartment. Sometimes on the subway. Sometimes on a bike ride. The sounds are muffled, but my shirt becomes stained with my tears, my head pounding from crying, and I beg my inner-self for it to stop.

Sew up the broken openness.

I feel increasingly wobbly, unsure of my next step, literally and figuratively. In an unknown and strange land, or dragged into a dark urban alley, or lost in a deep forest.

I mean, really lost.

I start to wonder if I am losing my mind too. I’m told that my energy and vibrancy is ever-present, but I would be remiss if I said I felt it. I do not. I feel like a shadow of my former self.

In my own private apocalypse. 

In the throes of soul-rending loss like this, I am confronted constantly by the reality that we won’t ever have one of our hours-long conversations again.  Our rhythms, our beats, our chords…our music is being silenced. I never needed her for much, but when I felt like the walls were closing in on me or when I was being severed from others that I loved or cared about, she was my call. That’s the thing about having someone in your life who loves you universally- they can’t necessarily fix your problems but they stand strong in their belief in you, and their hopes for you. You can love the wrong people and she will still love you. You can make stupid decisions and she will still love you. You can have money trouble and she will still love you. You can feel lost in your life or job and she will still love you. And she’ll listen to you. For hours. And she’ll tell you she’s here…and you’re not doing this alone.

And today, like so many days lately, I find myself saying; “I want my mom.”

I try to be kind to myself. Soothe my wounds. I seek out real, empathetic support from others who have the capacity to be with me in my grief, and who aren’t frightened or uncomfortable when I let the grief wash over me. But that isn’t always readily available to me. I take what I can get.

Be wildly human.

I don’t allow that often. At least not that part. No time. No space. And it seems unnecessary to wallow. Because the journey is long from over. If I can’t cope now, what will happen when we are truly severed? But I know I must be careful. That I shouldn’t cut my mourning short or distract myself, or run away. It’s harder than you think, but I know that the grief and loss will continue to chase me and travel with me like a dark bag I can never check in — not until I open it and go through what’s in there.

I must practice leaning into loss, into grief, into the disorientation, with this severed tie and a few others…

Because after all : grief is the doorway to love.

Onward.

P.S. Special thanks to Melissa La Flamme at Rebelle Society for helping me to articulate my feelings.