Day 341 - A Rip in the Space Time Continuum
From ashes to ashes...All nine pounds of what remains of my brother was delivered to my sister's doorstep today.
Christmas was mostly good, but also had some very not-so-good parts. The kids and I went home to be with family even though it turned out to be too soon for any real memorial plans. My aunt and cousins prepared a fabulous feast for us. And my sister generously shared her cozy home. But underneath everything, our holiday family traditions have always simmered with isolation, tension, and awkwardness. The week in Virginia stretched out longer than I imagined and by the time we were due to return, I was more than ready.
I wanted to write, but I couldn't even find enough head space to figure out what I was feeling. As soon as I was home, the kids went to spend time with their dad and I went into full work mode (a favorite coping mechanism).
As New Year's Eve approached, I felt the dread of being alone and also the desperation to not be alone. My emotions were incredibly edgy and although the kickoff night of San Antonio's tricentennial celebration turned out to be a fun memory with a good man, I felt the pull of love and belonging and loneliness surge dangerously.
It feels like falling in love when you know that you aren't wanted in return.
And it doesn't seem like it has anything to do with death or tragedy.
...except that today it started to dawn on me that I've done this before,
...this falling in love instead of grief....
* * * * *
Some of you already know...
I only call him "N" because it seems like a simple way to offer him a little discretion in this terribly one-sided story. But basically, N is a guy I fell in love with while at Bible college more than 15 years ago. And even though the notion of an undying love sounds awfully dreamy, I know exactly how unglamorous it really is. The beginning was nothing more than the usual fare of flirting, infatuation, and rose-colored everything. Not only that, but we only "dated" for three months which is hardly any time at all. So that certainly doesn't account for this decades-long obsession about a soulful connection. Besides we were only 20 years old. What the fuck did we know about anything? Seriously.
I was devastated when I broke it off, utterly destroyed. I was torn between this fantasy of God and this fantasy of love, and N was the first person who ever made me feel like my love fantasy could be true. But I was convinced that God was more than just a fantasy, so I ultimately went with Him instead of N. The pain at first was what most would call normal. I couldn't eat, I stumbled through classes, I forced myself to smile, I lost 15 pounds. I think only basketball helped me to stay pulled together - it was at least one way to exhaust my sorrow with physical aggression. I had a few dreams about N soon after and I would wake up bruised and tender under the crushing reminder that he was now only a dream and nothing more.
I was depressed.
I was depressed.
But totally normal, right?
I pushed on. This would pass. It would pass.
But it didn't pass.
Then, with a self-punishing logic, I reasoned that the pain must be worse because we had had sex. I was deeply emotionally connected because we had deeply physically connected. And of course, Christianity vehemently agreed with me with its righteous indignation. This agonizing withdrawal was my due consequence for my sins. I just had to wait out the healing process and learn from the mistake of going against God's design for sex and marriage and dating.
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| Amber and I both finished associate degrees the same year. |
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| Clayton, 11, adored his sisters and wanted to look like a graduate too. |
I think I only ever got two or three months into the vow before I would miss a day and have to start over. Even though the vow was the bullet that tore through my dreams for love, it became insignificant compared to the sucking chest wound that kept bleeding and hissing and frothing. The more time passed, the more I begged God to forgive me of this, to help me let go, to restore my hopes, to answer my desires, to bring back my joy.
A friend finally urged me to do something that I knew really, really well:
m o v e.
She generously offered her childhood home along with her family and I had a biblical "sign from God"...so, in the span of three days, I did what I do best: I packed up everything I owned, arranged for the storage of my apartment furniture in the garage of my basketball coach and I was gone girl...to Kansas.
Nothing like a good old-fashioned cross-country move to bring me back to my senses.In September, I left the Appalachian hills for a state so unlike my memories of N that surely it would wrench me out of my despondency.
Now that he was out of sight as well as out of my life, I hoped that he would also finally leave my mind.
Except it only got worse.
Amber and Clayton were in a horrific car accident only two months later, Amber died...and N came to me. He came when I needed someone so badly and he was there. Now my grief over N smashed into my grief for my sister.
Still, despite the soul-wrenching sobs for my heartache, I never wavered from my belief that God had to be bigger than all of this...and there had to be a reason. I returned to Kansas and eventually gave N his final eviction notice from my life. I cut off all communication. He never tried again after that. And how can I blame him? He was young too and he had already tried as much as his maturity allowed...but I was a resolute wall, with impenetrable gates of faith.
Still, despite the soul-wrenching sobs for my heartache, I never wavered from my belief that God had to be bigger than all of this...and there had to be a reason. I returned to Kansas and eventually gave N his final eviction notice from my life. I cut off all communication. He never tried again after that. And how can I blame him? He was young too and he had already tried as much as his maturity allowed...but I was a resolute wall, with impenetrable gates of faith.
He moved on with his life,
but I never could.
* * * * *
There's more to my story of N, but then Clayton's death this December was like a rip in the space time continuum. Everything all over again and yet none of it the same. It's a sick and twisted thing to say when the subject matter is death, but......nothing helps in observing oneself quite like a good repeatable pattern.
All of a sudden I found myself falling into another lovesick depression that logic could make no sense of. He's a good person...as far as I know, but the truth is, I really don't know him all that well. It's only been a few months so far and the kind of love that I'm desperate for needs more time than my grief can tolerate.
When he makes me laugh, I feel hope.
When he is kind, I feel forgiven.
And when his body holds mine, I feel safe.
It's never crossed my mind before today and I guess it's worth pondering...
Because this isn't the first time I've felt this incomprehensible need for love.
Nor is it the first time that I've confused desperate in-love-ness for desperate grief.
With Amber I couldn't feel my grief and I was often ashamed of my numbness, my lack of caring. What I didn't realize was that maybe our family grief had already been there for so long that I ignored it, trivialized it, even disdained its significance. Perhaps my heart had no choice but to transfer my sister grief into something I could feel as important - the grief of being rejected by love.
Right now I feel so terribly trapped in this love-loneliness that if I allow the thought to linger too long, a physical twinge of pain pulses through my jugular vein, shooting down into the sternomastoid muscle. I don't think I can endure this much longer. I want to feel safe and wanted and whole. I don't want to pick up any more pieces or be strong or hold myself together. I want to cry, but for healing and in the gratitude of togetherness that I can trust, not only this bottomless disappointment and betrayal. I don't know where to turn any more.
Somehow the key to life is locked inside me.
I suspect the power of love is already within my whole being.
Sometimes I wonder if this love vow is leading me to what I was always meant to find.
Maybe God was just a metaphor, the same as N, and every other man I have died for.
I really don't know what the answers are yet...
...but I do know that I can't survive another grief cycle of 15 years.
