Thought Process

Just read...just listen

So I’m sitting here thinking…I should stop doing that. It only makes me cry, but eventually I’ll run out of tears, right? Maybe. Maybe not…probably not. It’s a bodily function. I’m thinking about all of things I can’t change. There aren’t many. And now I’m thinking of all of the things I can change. There are a lot. But ultimately there’s only one. Only one that really, honestly, and truly matters in the long run because if I make this one change, everything else changes, too.

            People try to tell me to think about how I feel now and how making that change would make me feel. I don’t know. I just don’t. I have no idea how I feel at this exact second. I am in that uncomfortable numbing stage where every touch feels fuzzy and you get that pain in your nerves when it’s trying to fight for its right for sensation. I don’t even know if I want it anymore. Not feeling anything irritates me, but when I think about what I would feel if I could feel it, I’d much rather live in perpetual irritation than perpetual sorrow.

            There are a lot of times during the day when I do feel things. When I’m washing the dishes. When I’m laying in my bed. When I’m listening to that one song that rips my heart apart every time, but I can never just skip it. I have to sit and listen in paralysis the whole way through. Our song"the one that used to make me smile and blush. I can’t sleep anymore"at least not unless I pretend that he’s right there next to me. I do it every night. I can feel his arms around me, holding me. I can hear him breathing. I can smell him. I want it to be real so badly that it is. At least in my head. And then I feel happy and serene and relaxed. And then I sleep. And when I wake, I’m cold. So, so, cold and I don’t know why because he’s supposed to be right there, keeping me warm. I reach out a hand beneath the covers and feel an icy mattress and it hits me that he isn’t there"that he never was. And then it hurts. Everything hurts. I take in a breath and it shatters in my chest and little pieces of that glassy air lodge inside my heart. I can feel myself bleeding internally. I keep feeling that empty space beside me and it’s like someone or something really is there, but nothing that I’d want to share my bed with. It is black and cold and metallic and I want to shove it out of my bed but as hard as I try it’s too heavy and slippery and won’t even budge.

            I walk around with those icy splinters in my chest and that fuzzy pain in my joints and that big, shadowy, mass following me around. Every step, every breath, every word hurts. It just hurts. Every day, I wake to that same disappointment and then at around twelve or so, when I’m done trying to sob him back into my life, I get up. I’ll debate showering. Maybe I will. Maybe I won’t. At some point I’ll land in front of  my closet staring up at all those colors and patterns and letting their memories fall over me. When I wore that top we did this…When I wore that skirt we went there…I try to get dressed but sometimes it’s just too much and I reason that I got dressed the day before and deserve a PJ day, even though I don’t even remember if that’s true or not. Sometimes, I’ll have the common sense to check my dirty clothes basket for verification, but most of the time I just don’t care enough for all that. Most of the time, I just change my pajama pants and throw on a sweatshirt, wishing that it was his and cursing myself for feeling empowered that one day and giving it back.

            I try to tell myself that I’m doing this for him"that this is what he wants. It’s a fact that’s absolutely true. Because he thinks that I deserve a family. Because he thinks that I deserve all the things that he couldn’t give me and people who love me in ways that he can’t. Because he thinks that I deserve everything that he’s never had. Because he thinks I deserve better than just him. Because he doesn’t understand why I’d let all that go, and the honest truth is that I don’t either. All I know is that if I can’t have him, I don’t want it. Not any of it.

             I want to kick and scream and yell and shout and tell everyone in my life to accept him, and to accept me loving him. I had to. I had to let go and realize that he wasn’t going anywhere and that I probably wasn’t either. I can’t live without him. Every day when I wake up, after the morning disappointments and that fruitless fight with my shadowy stalker, I wonder how I’m still alive. And then I wonder why. I think about all of the plans that we had. About my yellow house that had somehow become ours and how I saw myself being happy making our rounds tucking in kids at the end of the night with him. And being old and gray and sitting in rocking chairs telling our grandchildren how we met.

But now I don’t see anything at all. It’s just this big empty space in front of me and that dark, cold, entity behind me. I’m sitting here thinking about how to fill it, but that just brings me back to that one change that changes everything else, too.

Author's Note

anything goes. i wanna know what you're thinking

Reviews

[J.M. Walker]

"So I’m sitting here thinking…I should stop doing that. It only makes me cry, but eventually I’ll run out of tears, right? Maybe. Maybe not…probably not."

I’ve had that thought, almost every day... since I’ve lost someone.

my dad says "don't think too hard, it will start to hurt"
And he's right, but at the same time stopping is impossible.

people try to "clear their minds"... but thats not possible either. i wrote of this and im going to post it , so u can read it

[Victorious]

Dear Anonymous Me,

I read this and it was like a reflection of what just happened. Everything was absolute and exactly as I felt. I connected with this from top to bottom. There's so much diction and imagery that portrayed the ache I feel. The only difference is that I am not as sad for some reason. It's strange how I'm not even crying right now. What is keeping me so strong I wonder. My only question is that how do you get over something like this. Does life just move on? Did you just move on? Did that make it better? Did that fill the hole? And this change. Oh, this change I hate it so. I wish I didn't have to endure it, but I suppose it's a must.

Lol, instead of a yellow house, ours would have probably been bricked and we planned a son named Nicolas. I feel nostalgic, but goodness why am I not sobbing?

Sincerely Livana Lowell (LL)

God bless

[Marcie]

OMG I love this I am a new member but I wrote a piece amost identical to this
which I only shared with friends. Love it keep writing, looks to me that your an emotional writer like me.

God bless u

[Daniela May]

This is stunning, really. I really felt everything you were saying and even though I'm only young and this hasn't ever
Happened to me I could almost feel your pain. I have to admit
It made me cry too when you said you could feel him next to
You and then he wasn't x very sweet and upsetting at the same time xx

[Deandra Dawn]

I love it...such honesty. Very well written.

[Popble]

Wow, that's both very deep, and very relateable. I really liked this, both for its simplistic idea, and its complex way of delving into it. The discriptions were perfect, and i didn't even spot any errors. Very well done.