Instead, I was trying to figure out where Silas had gone to hide. After I found him and cuddled with him for a bit, I came back down to my bedroom, lay on the bed, and sobbed, quietly, painfully. The hurt was - no is - physical. I want my life back.
Wednesday, as I wrote, was really difficult. Thursday was even worse. I realized that I was getting a work-project with a Tuesday deadline, and that many bits had not been talked about, and that even though it's supposed to be a long weekend, I'll have to work all weekend. I spent the day sneaking off to the bathroom to cry, wash my face, and hope that no one really noticed. I wanted to hide under my desk, a la Silas.
Then, Thursday night, I had a vivid dream about my mom. We were hanging out, talking. I knew that she'd died, and I was supposed to die that night as well. In my dream, I was terminally ill and, though I felt fine at the moment, I'd planned my suicide and was planning to carry it out. I asked my mom what she thought about the plan, and she didn't really respond, at least not that I remember. I remember that she got tears in her eyes as she talked about my grandmother's death. Then, in the dream, it was morning and I decided I could wait a little while longer before ending my life - I couldn't kill myself in the sunlight.
I hesitated telling the dream to ana because of worry it might cause. I've had real suicidal ideation before, but not for about 6 years. This was different, and had no basis in real life. I actually woke up feeling better after having talked to my mom. It was vivid and real - or, at least, it felt real. Dreams with dead relatives have a different quality than do my ordinary dreams. They're more linear and less symbolic, or something. The colors are more realistic and less comic-book-like. They are always comforting.
Still, it's been harder the last few days than it was right after my mom's death. I'm having flashbacks of her last hours. Not just memories that return unbidden, but flashbacks that feel like I'm reliving those moments. I know I'm not, but I feel the papery texture of her face as she leans back against my chest. I feel the green-black fluid as it leaks from her mouth and onto my fingers and the cool yellow washcloth. I smell the Diet Sundrop and the urine and the vomit. I feel her muscles go rigid again and again as I hold her. I hear her talking and counting and trying to clean invisible messes. I see her grabbing a tub of lotion, taking the lid off and trying to eat what was inside. These are the moments I didn't write about before, but there the ones I'm living now. Every time I close my eyes, and often when I'm not.
And it's not just those moments I'm reliving. It's every horrific moment throughout my life. The smell of the perfume she was wearing mixed with menthol cigarettes the day she told me she'd read my journal. The look on her face as she spanked me for the last time. The feel of hot tears on my neck as she hugged me the day my youngest brother graduated from kindergarten, and I teased her about that and she became angry and defensive. I was 13 and an insensitive asshole. I want to take back all those hurts, the big ones and the small ones, but instead, I keep living them, interspersed with the sound of her trying to breathe as her lungs filled with bile and blood and lymphatic fluids.
And then there are the flashbacks of my father, who I rarely think about in my ordinary life. But when my mom died, there were the questions from lots of people -- "Has anyone told your dad?" and "Where is your dad now, anyway?" and "When was the last time you talked to your dad?" And all I can say is that there are good reasons why none of us have called him. He's not a part of our lives anymore, I say, and we don't want to have to deal with him. Now, he shows up in flashbacks, and they aren't pretty. I smell the cheap booze. I feel the roughness of his five o'clock shadow. I hear his drawl as he tells his children they'll amount to nothing. I feel the fear and the vomit and the shame. I thought I was done with all of that, years ago, after I did my therapy and wrote what I needed to write and talked about what needed talking about.
But no. Instead, I curl into a ball on my bed, my partner curled behind me, holding me so incredibly gently, and I cry and I feel guilty and I worry about my brothers and their families. I distract myself by thinking about work, and the knot in my stomach grows. I'm inefficient. I'm easily distractible. The work seems trivial, and I have trouble drowning out the other voices in my head so I can pay attention to what I should be doing.
Finally, today, I rolled out of bed, my eyes burning and my sinuses raw, and joined ana in the kitchen. I'm sitting on the couch with the two dogs and missing my cat. I'll finish the work I need to do sometime this afternoon. I'll try to find the time to take the dogs for a long walk. I'll try to coax the cat from the attic, and I'll try to find space for the memorabilia I brought home from North Carolina. One foot in front of the other, for another day, and then another, and then another. Eventually, I pray, the callouses will build.
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