BadMormon

One More Thought

Things go banging around my skull and until I find a way to get it out I can’t cope so good. Don’t get me wrong 39 years on planet Fuck Me Over has given me the ability to get through my craziest moments, because I HAVE to, but to really function at my highest motion level of AWESOMENESS I have to spill my guts somewhere, somehow.

The thoughts can take a while to roll into the ball of emotional vomit forcing it’s way out though. They keep coming back, nagging me to think about it again and insisting I explain somewhere what goes on in the very center of me.

So a few weeks ago the ex was very drunk. We have been feeling kindly towards each other after the last bout of fighting and the next round hadn’t happened yet. He was outside thinking about another friend of ours who is very sick. The emotional truth of losing someone in your life who matters hit him in his gut. He stood leaning against a door weeping at the idea of it, at the pain that flared with knowing someone he cared about could die, imagining that death, that loss. His head hung down in that bubble of drunken narcissism where the outside world doesn’t even exist except as props to the pain in your own mind.

We all gathered around him. Drunk and crying we know about. I stood and held his arm. He looked up at me, again with those brimming blue eyes and said “How do you do it? I’ve never lost anyone close to me. How do you do it?”

I had no answer, no one had an answer really, those of us who had lost immediate family murmured something about you just do it, and as he ducked his head back down, still crying folks slipped back inside unable to touch him through his bubble of self. I stayed, of course, they left him to me knowing I would do what ever was needed.

And as it continued too long for the imaginary death of a sick friend, a drunken cry becoming self-sustaining, I murmured, “But you have to put it away for now. Time to put it away and go inside.” And he immediately sniffed and breathed and broke the sobs in half and said “yeah.”

“It’s easier when you’re not so drunk too.”

Again his affable self appeared and he smiled and snorted a little, “you’re right.” And he headed into the door for the bathroom, fell down a bit as I caught him enough to keep it from hurting and that was that. Our moment done. I wonder if he remembers it.

I didn’t get the significance of what I said to him though probably until this morning. That moment has played itself out in my head over and over and this morning I figured out why.

“You have to put it away for now.”

Now I’m no poster child for grief recovery, mostly the opposite. I mean the question he asked has HAUNTED me. How do I live with it? How do I live with any of it? As horribly as the thought of death hurt that man he can’t imagine how deep the reality it. How do I live with it? I just do. Every damn day of my life there is a place in me that feels that bad, that misses my dad so much, that is 11 and still waiting for him to walk in the door after work because he always has for your entire life. But to function you put it away.

You work out your psyche hideyholes. Some are healthier than others. You tell yourself you will think about it tomorrow. You live your life knowing death is shadowing you and make your choices accordingly, towards safety or risk depending on personality. If you don’t realize you’ve simply slapped some cheap plaster over the gaping wound you tend to run around looking for things to keep stuffing in there, to block up the whistling holes on the edges and that poke through the middle, if you’re lucky enough to have the plaster in the first place.

You just put it away and laugh at something and feel guilty later and keep going and time makes it easier to forget what’s in that closet and self honesty makes it easier to negotiate the mini-pits. If you are managing the caging of the grief you know it’s gonna come out sometimes, you will spend weeks on your couch if needed, you can let the pain flow for a while and then, when you realize it’s settled back down once again you put it away. Eat some ice cream. Decide how to leave a mark on this world once you’re gone. Remember to live because otherwise death is pointless.