I Grieve & I Become the Grief
I sit in the centre of the room and think about nothing because I’ve trained myself not to think about anything when I’m listening to music. It’s like getting into a dark room and sitting cross-legged, but blank because you expect the demons to come so you can face them. The memories, flashes, and scenes that never stop playing in your face, reminding you again and again that you’re forever going to go through life with bits and pieces of you missing.
The musicals remind me of a time I thought all I had was my life and the fear I lived with then. Believing this would be it. That my reality at that point was going to be all that would be of my life, and I believe that’s what drove me to seek control. The desire to know that I would always be able to take care of myself because I got out. I got out of that life and saw a life I didn’t know existed. That means there is more out there. I want to get there.
Grief changes people.
I think of everything and nothing now. The unsaid goodbyes and the continuous wonder of what could have been. I think of how I felt in every scenario, the stability, the safety... the person. I think of the lonely, cold nights away from family, trying to carve a life where I am sustainable for myself. I think of the struggles on the thoughts of if life was worth it and days I struggled to keep going. Nights I had to drug myself to black out so I did not have to deal with the nightmare that was my life.
The thoughts come faster now. I think of walking with all my belongings under the rain that night and how my heart broke with each step until there was nothing left. I think of how I cried the day I heard the news of your death and how I prayed like I had never prayed before. I hope my prayers would bring you back—that was when I first realized that prayers weren’t powerful.
The first night I spent in the psych ward, I couldn’t stop crying. I was drugged and get the tears would stream down my cheeks, the feeling of intense hopelessness in my chest. Not knowing what life holds for me, but most of all, feeling lonely. Everyone else was at home and cosy and loved or doing whatever, and I was there. Alone. In a hospital that I didn’t want to get admitted in. And that night, I begged to be let go. To not be groped. Begging that my humanity be respected.
I can remember that call in late August and how I slipped in the kitchen with the knife I was using to peel knife for dinner. The sun had just begun to make its descent, and I planned on calling you later. I would never forget how my heart fell from my chest and into my stomach, and I had to try your number every day for 415 days before I stopped. I still have your number saved on my phone.
Sighs. Grief changes people.
I never want to be seen or heard by strangers now. I hide. I cower. I stutter. I hide behind words to shroud the reality that the world scares me and that living without parts of me makes me vulnerable. In the middle of the room, there is a candle and a number of beads for everyone I’ve grieved. But the truth is that one can never account for the entire impact of grief. Or what has been grieved.
I grieve who I was before the person sitting in the middle of the room. I grieve the innocence. I grieve the me I never got the chance to meet. I grieve the little girl who is now the woman with a thousand and one demons, pulling from every corner. I grieve the person who was betrayed and wrong. I grieve her, but then, grief changes people. And now all I do is write and sit in the middle of the room, so I don’t have to deal with people. I try to live, but I try more to die. Who am I kidding? I know 300 ways to die but fewer ways to live.
I grieve & I become the grief. Grief changes you.
