A word I have come to hate. What does this word even mean? This word can mean so many different things to so many different people. And people just throw it around like it means the same for everybody.
I get asked if things are “better” or if I’m/we’re doing “better”. The answer is usually “not really.” And some will object to my answer, saying that I am doing “better” than I think I am, or that we’ve made progress. What does that even mean? Maybe it looks like that on the outside somedays. Maybe people think we’re handling things ok. But we’re not. I am not “better” inside. I might even be worse by my standards, but I have to believe that is partly because I feel this push from the outside world (not necessarly friends or family, just a general push) saying “Get over it, move on. You can no longer use this as the reason you can’t always do things. You don’t deserve the flexiblity you are still using sometimes. You can’t even get off the couch long enough to do anything productive. Get moving.”
I hate this voice, because I hear it often. It makes me feel worthless and that I’m not normal. My logic in my head knows that I can do whatever the heck I want, whenever I want, and I shouldn’t feel bad about it. I logically know that is it ok. I logically know it’s only been almost 9 months since Evan died, and even if it was 9 years, it would still be ok. I logically know that anything and everything I do is ok, even if it doesn’t feel right. But, I don’t know how to hear my logic and not the voices. I lost my son. My son. My first and only child. The fact that I am still breathing and haven’t offed myself yet is pretty impressive in and of itself. The fact that I am still working is pretty amazing. Maybe I’m not doing it so well, but I am doing it nonetheless. I get up every morning. I should be checking off boxes when I do that. “I got up today, accomplishment!”, or “I breathed today, go me!” But it doesn’t feel like that.
Mornings like this morning make me want to give up. Waking up to turn off my alarm, and the first thing I do is cry. I can’t get out of bed. I just can’t. It would seem simple enough – sit up and put your feet on the floor. But, something stops me, paralyzes me. I just cannot move. I call for Grant and he comes up and makes me feel a little better, just by being there and letting my know I’m not alone. After a while, I finally got up. I got up at the time I was supposed to already be at work. Oh well, these mornings happen. I can’t stop them. It just has to be like that.
I have noticed that I stop in my tracks a lot recently. Like not being able to get out of bed. Literally feeling like I physcially cannot. Like yesterday after the grocery store – I pulled into the driveway and just sat in my car. Frozen things thawing. I just didn’t feel like I could get up. I was just so exhausted, emotionally and physically. It sounds stupid or silly I’m sure. How hard is it just do it, right? I do it eventually, but for a little while, I really feel like I can’t. Like my mind trys to talk my body into doing it, and somehow no one gets the message, so I just sit and stare.
But, I guess the good thing is that I do eventually move when I feel like I can’t. I may have been late to work, but I went in. I showed up. I got the groceries to the kitchen well before they would have gone bad. I have been on the verge of tears all day, as I am a lot of days, but I just wipe them away and keep going. I’m not sure why I do, but I do. For Evan? For Grant? For everyone who’s had our backs and has been there for us?
I get this a lot: “I couldn’t do what you do. I wouldn’t be able to do it. You’re so strong.” I must put on a really good front then. No one thinks they would be able to go through something like we went through, and survive, but most would. It seems unbearable, and it is, but we somehow continue to wake up everyday, even though some nights I go to bed not really caring if I wake up in the morning. I couldn’t say how or why we do it, we just do. We do it for each other.
And when we’re both home, sitting on the couch not doing anything, it’s ok. I apologize everyday for not doing the dishes, or cleaning at all, and letting things pile up to where I’m afraid if this goes on for years, we could apply to the show “Hoarders”. He offers to do things, but I just can’t let him, so I say “I’ll do it later”. I fear that one day, my wonderful husband will wake up, miles ahead of me, and realize that I am someone who he doesn’t want to put up with anymore. One day it will not be ok that the house is a disaster (seriously, you have no idea), or that I say I don’t want anymore kids, or that I don’t do anything besides work and come home and sit on my butt, or that I eat all of the worst crap that you can imagine and I am so unhealthy. I can feel my body deteiorating from the inside out. And one day, I fear that will no longer be ok. One day, it will hit him like a ton of bricks. I just hope that day is not anytime soon. I know it isn’t, but I still worry that this day will exist.
So, maybe we are “better” in the sense that we just do our routines now – work, home, sit, sleep (sometimes). It’s more a part of what we do everday. We’ve gotten used to the alarm going off every morning. It’s not this new routine we’re being forced back into, although sometimes it feels that way. I still struggle every day with something(s). So maybe we look as if we are doing “better” on the outside. And maybe we are. But it definitely doesn’t feel like it to us. I have had this mistaken for the fact that I don’t want to get better. This isn’t true, because I know I will lose everything if I don’t. But, I am just being right now. I don’t have it in me to fight really hard. To me, getting up everyday, breathing, going to work, living, is enough of a fight. I am utterly exhausted from just these things. I can’t possibly add anything else. And that’s ok (or at least I try to tell myself that it is). I just have this feeling that things will happen when they happen. Like I said, I am just focusing on keeping it all together each day. That is plenty. I feel the rest will follow with time. Maybe. I don’t know how that works. I know we will never “get over it” or “move on”. As bereaved parents, we don’t. But, I have heard that it gets easier to cope with over time, to live with it. It just does. So, I continue to wake up everyday, and just think that this might be true. I wouldn’t think these people would lie to me. It doesn’t make me hopeful, but I feel I am just along for the ride. Just keep doing what I’m doing, and we’ll see. Hanging in there, I guess.
Missing my one and only Evan so very much today, and every day.