05/03/23

You can be happy one day, giddy almost, and screaming on the floor the next. 

This is what I’ve discovered about life after you – it’s violent and it’s unpredictable. The highs are dizzying, joy a precious gem that has become miraculous to excavate, and the lows knock me to my knees. Nothing causes them, nothing I can put my finger on.

Just you. Not being here. 

I’m shocked that’s not enough to keep me wailing forever.

I go from one dumb thing to the next – a training session, an episode of Succession, a podcast about Survivor – attaching significance to a delayed text because if I properly examine why my heart is racing and my vision is clouded by tears, I won’t make it through the day. 

I supposed that’s why the sharpest cuts dig their way into my chest at night, when I think I’ve made it through unscathed. When I’ve used up all my energy to play at some version of normal and can no longer fake it.

Why can I feel you so strongly, taste the very essence of you, but have no shoulder to lean on or mom to call? 

People call their moms. They talk about it like a chore, something they have to do, when not calling you always felt agonizingly difficult. I couldn’t manage a day without hearing your voice.

Sometimes I pretend, on my walk home. My AirPods in, I say “Hi Mom”, and it comforts me that at least these strangers on the street think I have a mom to call.

When I’m alone, when no one can hear me, I scream those words, over and over again, because I miss saying Hi Mom. I miss the way my voice sounds when I talk to you.

I want someone to run over and hold me, the way I did on the most traumatic nights of my life, but breathing is traumatic now. 

I have fun mom. I do. And it’s so very hard. I write these letters and I even post them online but I rarely share how deep my pain goes because who will understand? Who can help?

You. You helped with everything. I need your advice and I’m tired of that advice being a gut feeling because I can’t have a conversation with a feeling, can I?

Hunger is gnawing at my stomach but it also hurts to breathe so how could I possibly eat? How can I move from this spot on the floor?

I baked cookies today and you weren’t there to eat them. To comment on how good they smelled. To scold me for torturing you as you inhaled three in one go.

The microwave is beeping at me and you hated microwaves, avoided them like you avoided every vice, determined to take care of your body, your organs that would come to be ravaged regardless.

I’ve already cried tonight, more than I used to think a person could. Now, I just want to scream. To throw things and break everything I own, but what good would that do?

Help me move, momma. Lift my feet. Stir the spoon. Bring the strawberry to my mouth. Make my phone chime. Distract me. Please.

Sometimes I feel like simply breathing is killing me.