Going Through the Motions

I’ve been doing that: going through the motions. Putting on a facade so that people will stop looking at me with that look of “you poor thing”. It has been hard. 

I decided to go back to work last Monday. I decided that it was time. That if I was going to start moving forward, this had to be an important step in that process. So Monday happened. I made my calls. Got my appointments. Then Tuesday, a kid I have claimed as my son called me and needed my help immediately. So I had to call clients and try to reschedule (no one picked up the phone). Funny thing about that timing, is that I was trying to find a way out of doing my day. 

Because in all honesty, I didn’t feel ready. But I have a phone bill and car insurance and a headstone all needing to be handled, like now. Life waits for no one and it isn’t going to wait for me to get over the fact that he is gone. 

So I attempt to move forward. The aftermath of the two days that I scheduled is that those days sucked very bad. And the person I wanted to call and talk to about it, wasn’t there because he is dead. So Wednesday I cried the hour home, begging him to just talk to me. Telling the universe I was wrong, that I wasn’t ready for any of this. The moving on. Him being gone. Working. Living without him. Living. 

I’m trying very hard to want to be present (I made a contract with a friend and the kids that I wouldn’t end my life because of some of the things they were hearing from me) when I just want to curl up and wait for death so I can be with him again. I’m pretending at life right now. I don’t mean that to come out the way it does, but it is true. I’m pretending. And I’m getting numb again. Going through these motions have made me numb. 

In between all of this, someone I follow on the FB was talking about their experiences with grieving her mother. The gist was that in paying attention to the fact that the person isn’t here anymore, hinders you from feeling that being. And when I read that, something clicked and I whispered “you are here” and in that moment felt warmth and goosebumps. The downside is that the person who wrote about that has been dealing with that grief for 11 years and I have been dealing with mine for less than a month. So reminding myself everyday that he is here, is very hard because of how bad I want him here in the corporeal aspect. 

I’m not okay. I don’t feel like I’ll ever be okay. I feel like there is a bullet wound that I am letting heal without medical attention. That I will bump it and feel the searing pain from it. That it will fester and remind me when I need it not to and that there will be days when I don’t notice it at all. But right now. In this moment, I’m going through the motions. And that is all I can do.