Give Up

I’m going to come out right away and say that this is not going to be encouraging. I’m not going to wrap up this post with some summary of things I’ve learned from my experience, or how I believe everything will be okay. But, I want to write this down. I think it’s important for me more than anything. It’s sort of my recipe for grief. I want to get down all of the details before it just becomes one big mass of depression and I can’t point how how I got there.

I am 32 now. I turned 32 in April. There have been ups and downs. If you asked what one of the best times of my life has been, I would say it was when I stayed with my brother when he was in college. For the first time, I felt like I was where I was supposed to be. I remember he introduced me to people as his “cool little sister” and I was never more proud of myself. I experienced a freedom that is impossible to gain in a small town environment. We walked to the comic store and played video games with his friends and saw fireworks over the lake. I think I was 14 or 15, but I felt like I was 25 and I could do anything.

One of the worst times of my life was a long period during college. I had met my husband, and I knew that, but the time between us being friends and being married was long and hopeless. There seemed to be an impossible barrier that we couldn’t overcome. I spent so much time alone, crying, and so helpless. It wasn’t just that getting to the end of the tunnel was too hard, it was the very real possibility that there wasn’t an end at all. When I realized I needed him in my life forever, I also realized that it was impossible. I couldn’t do anything to make that happen. It wasn’t until several years of crying, countless phone calls, and multiple heartbreaks that we made it through the other side. Somehow, we held on through it all and are now where we’re supposed to be. Together, forever. It was so hard to get here and I could never survive that again.

I feel pretty strong these days. Or, felt pretty strong until recently. I have a solid relationship with my husband, centered on love and communication. I’ve worked with my counselor and doctor to get my depressed and ADHD under control to a point where I can actually function like a human most of the time. Especially after we bought our house, I felt so content. I had everything. There was so much open space for us to grow. No, things aren’t perfect, but I was content with that. I’ve worked hard to learn how to make repairs and I’ve pushed myself to be better and do better. I’m weirdly proud of a hole I dug in the garden. I’ve never dug a giant hole like that and moved so many rocks.

I don’t have a ton that I’m good at, I mean really good at. I dabble with a lot of hobbies, but I wouldn’t say I’m the best at any of it. It’s made me wonder before what I’m here for. I began to think I’m here to lift up people like me, if there are any. I imagine sometimes that there’s a girl out there in the world who is the same as me. She writes and feels and hurts the same ways that I do. She feels intensely and feels so small in this world. If I can be happy and stable, I think she can to, and I want to help her. I wouldn’t want anyone to have to cry all the time and feel empty like I have before. If I can share my feelings and thoughts and techniques for overcoming these things, maybe it will all have been worth it.

What I’m getting at, is that I’ve gained some kind of wisdom, I think, throughout my life. I’ve learned how to handle the hard stuff, and I’ve learned how my experiences are important for myself and others. I can really help other people in this world.

But, something happened recently that has really changed everything for me. None of it matters to me anymore. Whatever has happened in the past is too far away, and I can’t see the future as something that I can look forward to or prepare for. Before anyone calls a helpline, I’m not suicidal. Maybe I was at one point, but it was more like I wanted to disappear, to just stop being, because floating forward with time wasn’t right. I don’t know if those are suicidal thoughts or not. I didn’t feel like I needed to do anything it took to be gone. It was more like, I was content to melt away and disconnect from everything I’ve ever known. I feel this less now that some time has passed, but I still feel like, anything that is to come doesn’t matter.

These are things you aren’t supposed to say as a Christian. I remember feeling so much guilt when I was a teenager and so intensely depressed. I thought God was supposed to fill a hole in your heart and give you purpose. That’s a serious oversimplification though, and just made things worse. I guess depression wasn’t as much of an “illness” back then. You were supposed to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and “Choose Happiness”. So, I thought I was just too weak and deserved to feel this way if I couldn’t just fix it myself.

Obviously, we know better now and thankfully mental illness isn’t such a naughty word anymore. But, even with that insight, I’m not sure how to carry on with this new thing called grief.

Grief isn’t an illness. I don’t really know what it is. I’ve never had to know. I have been to a handful of funerals here and there. Some harder than others. Some skipped because of fucking covid. Sorry, I shouldn’t be so sweary. But who cares? I’ve experienced loss. Sorrow. Emptiness.

I have never felt this before.

I don’t know what to do with it. I know what helps me when I’m depressed. I know the routine. I am absolutely in the dark on what to do now.

It’s hard to relate to anything anymore. I don’t care about success, or love. There’s so much music out there about pointless things. Breakup songs. Who cares. No one feels this low that I do. No one knows. It makes me angry that I ever cared about anything at all. None of it mattered. You’d think it would make me feel like I need to spend more time with my family, the things that actually matter. But even that feels pointless. Nothing fixes this. It just will very eventually get slightly less horrible. But we will never be okay. Nothing will even be okay.

When you lose someone, you can never have them back. It isn’t a breakup that you can talk yourself through and try to forget, or get better. It isn’t a long-distance relationship that is just too hard to keep up. I have never felt anything so permanent.

I lost my best friend. My soulmate. My baby boy.

I’m not trying to deceive anyone by not coming out and saying, “my cat”, because I am not about to now, or ever, argue about why my grief is more or less important than anyone else’s. I have had pets before. I have lost them too. He wasn’t my pet. He was my boy. He was my everything. He was on my lap for nearly all of my adult life. He had been there for our entire marriage. Through getting my first job. He slept with me when I was sick. We learned the birds’ routine together. He was always there. I also knew what he wanted, how he felt, what he needed.

Then, out of nowhere, he collapsed. Two days later, we packed up his things.

It was such an interruption. We were in the middle of things. We had to cancel tests that he was supposed to get that week. We had to cancel subscriptions and give away his things.

It was all just wrong. It is all wrong. This is not where we are supposed to be right now. I knew he wouldn’t always be here, but this wasn’t right. It was still at the very least a couple years from now. I’d be sad about his slow decline and have to prepare. But this was completely unfair. Cruel. And I am so bitter.

I feel utterly betrayed by time. He was there with me just the other day, and then he wasn’t and never would be with me again. Why did time move forward if that’s where we were headed? Why do I have a picture of him from that morning, and from that day a year ago, but he’s not here now? My mind is so scrambled. And suddenly, everything feels pointless.

Why do we care for each other when time is so cruel and takes it all away? I looked around the room and felt the pain of moving forward to the loss of each of them. Maybe some would be expected, but why should I think they won’t also leave suddenly and cruelly?

One of the major parts of grief that has hit me so hard, is that it is as permanent as the loss. It is endless. And it is a part of me now. It will fluctuate, like it has so far, and sometimes it is more in the front of my mind than the back. Sometimes I can talk about him without crying. Sometimes.

It took a long time before my brain caught up. I guess that’s the denial part. I knew he was gone. But when my mind wandered, my heart would sneakily start to feel an anxiousness, like something was coming. Like he was coming back. Which, when I say it, sounds totally stupid. But, when you are just feeling something, it’s so real right then. Then, I would actually have to tell myself he wasn’t, and I would cry. And then it would happen again.

I doted on him. I kept him safe. His happiness was my happiness. I loved him so much. I would have done anything for him. He was the absolute center of my whole world. I was a mom. And now, I’m not.

The love I had for him was pulled away when he left. It’s not like I have all this love and no one to give it to. I have nothing left. I gave it all to him, and I won’t get it back. I am just empty.

I can learn how to live without a pet, like I can learn how to live with one arm. But it will always be hard, and it will change everything. Still, I can do it. But without him, it’s hard to see a point in anything. Even the things he didn’t impact at all. What’s the point if I can’t share with him? Losing him is less like losing an arm and more like losing…everything. But remaining conscious. I can’t move or do anything. Even when I do, I don’t get anything out of it. No joy. My morning routine doesn’t make sense anymore. I couldn’t do the things we did for a long time. I finally started feeding the birds again. Going outside alone feels pointless though. I’m still too afraid to eat the foods he always begged for and I always shared.

Enough time has passed that I don’t usually get so startled anymore. For a while, I felt depressed, and would get a bit comfortable with it. I’ve done depression. I can handle it. Then, out of nowhere, I would remember why I was depressed. And it would all hit me so fast and all at once. This sort of thing happened multiple times a day, for weeks. Everyday, I would wake up and cry. It was exhausting. I would have my distractions throughout the day, and in the evening would try to wear myself out enough that I would fall asleep faster than I could cry. I played Don’t Starve since it was complex and brutal enough to keep my attention. Then, when I turned it off, I would close the blinds and go upstairs to bed. But in the moment I took to close the blinds, I would start to shake and sob, being hit by that reality, again.

The best I can do to “move on” is to forget. But, I refuse to forget. I could never do that to him or to me. It’s just a trick to survive. I don’t want to survive without him though. I wake up every morning thinking of him, and throughout the day I write down the things I’ve seen that bring him to my mind. In those passive moments where you space out and your mind floats towards random thoughts you could never quite pin down, my mind goes to him. Wondering where I go now. Wondering where he is, if he is anywhere. Sometimes it floats towards guilt. And shame. What if I could have saved him? I made a mistake. I made so many mistakes. And he must hate me for it.

So what do I do now for the rest of my life? Will I ever love again? I genuinely hope not. I don’t see how I could ever have this connection with anyone ever again. Even if I did, I can’t go through this again.

Will I always be sad? Will my heart always feel so heavy? What is my husband going to do with such an empty wreck? He has, and also is grieving. My boy and I had an intense connection though that has completely broken me. I think my husband will heal. I’m afraid of weighing him down. I’m afraid of feeling happy. I have had a couple lighter moments lately, and I always get a little uncomfortable. Guilty. Like, I am stealing. Or keeping a terrible secret.

What do people do after loss? How do they go on? Why do they go on? I want to go on for my husband, because I love him so much. And one day, I will lose him too, and I will be done then.

I know this is a lot of rambling, and I haven’t edited. I’m so shaken by all of this, I might never think straight. My faith has been challenged. My understanding of the afterlife. I’m not confident in anything I thought I once knew because I’ve never been asked this way. Like, when someone asks you a hypothetical, “Gun to your head, what would you do”, and you think you’d do the right thing, but this time, the gun is actually there, and the consequences are so much more real now. What would you do? I think I would just scream.

I don’t know where to go. I’m just letting time pass, because it doesn’t care what I want anyway. I sleep as much as I can. Maybe I’ll wake up one day and it will have been a bad dream. I don’t think anyone can really understand loss until they’ve been here. I’m sorry to those I tried to comfort during loss. It doesn’t help. Nothing helps. Nothing can change.

Low Roar has a song that feels right today.

I won't wake
A wealthy man someday
'Cause the sun don't follow me

I won't wake
Without a song to sing
Nothing to some
Everything to me

In my worst
I'll do my best
To make it seem
Like I am happy

'Cause I've grown numb
Dry as my tear ducts
Have grown dumb
And empty

But don't give up on me
Give up on me
Give up on me

I have no song to sing.

I think I will return to work. Here and there. I’m not prepared to take on clients though, I think. I can’t be okay. I can’t take care of someone else. But I think I can at least bake at some point. I don’t have to go out to do that. I don’t have to talk to anyone. I can be alone. I’m always alone now. That’s better I think. It’s easier here.

I miss you so much. I’m so sorry.