It has been 22 years,
Asking the question "Why?"
Though, knowing the answer,
wouldn't make it right.
Wondering...
Who you would be,
What you would have made of your life.
Would you burn out, or continue to shine?
Would you be... a productive member
of society?
~~~Would you still love me?
Or would I have taught you how to hate...
what it is like to always have this nasty
distaste?
Would you choke upon it like I choked on my grief?
Would tears spring to your eyes,
at the most inopportune time?
Stealing your voice and the words you want to speak?
Did you drown in my grief, with me?
Or just sleep in sweet relief?
I hope for the latter to be true...
For the grief of all these passing years
would no doubt, paralyze you.
Resilience is your gift to me.
...Here's to enduring
another
22.
Twenty-two years ago, a young man I had been in a relationship with, chose to end his life. We had been separated for nearly 3 months when he made this deadly choice and it altered my life forever. It is hard to verbalize what this type of loss does to you. It is life-shattering.
At the time of his death, I was already in a bad mental place. I was recovering from a divorce that ended differently than I had expected and that was a trauma all its own. I was trying to live my life without being the primary caregiver to my children and that was veryyyyyyyyyyyy hard. That was not the outcome I wanted or expected. In fact, this was just as life-altering and shattering to my mental health, and my life as a whole. So I was trying to come to terms with the way life was because I so desperately wanted it to be different but had no control over changing it.
***
His death, his suicide, was a new type of grief. Compounded on top of the soul-crushing sadness of not having my babies… this was a (at first) terrifying and (forever) dangerous place to exist.
I lived and died every day in the space between life and death where the grim reaper makes his selections and you can clearly see him coming for you but you have existed there so long it no longer scares you.
Existing in that place where your choices give you a chance of not waking the next day and that becomes habitual and even worse habitually “okay”. A dangerous place indeed.
***
It was here that I received the Bipolar diagnosis. And while it is in the title of this blog, I never fully bought into this and always felt there was more at play. I still don’t know what all that is but I do think it was more post-partum cracra (think Britney Spears) compounded on top of the eternal grief of not having my babies shortly thereafter, and then add the grief of losing B. Yeah, I was a bit outta my mind.
I shoulda been going to Tball games ecstatic… not bawling my eyes out after each and every event as I sat alone and my kids walked off into the sunset with their Dad.~ That has been the story of my life. The pain of it. And yet, also the beauty of it.~
And you add to it the extreme loss of someone you cared passionately for. Someone you thought you would marry. But he just couldn’t. Get. It. Together. And then he chose to End. It. Forever.
I have to be honest. B talked about killing himself all the time. It is not like his death came out of left field. But he was the type who talked a lot of talk. And I guess I never truly expected him to do it, I thought he liked life too much, liked himself too much. LOL…. ~ Sigh~ Exhale deeply…
But well, for a brief moment, he felt very differently and made a forever choice.
And now it has been 22 years since… where I’ve since learned that this pain and trauma was just the tip of the iceburg… but so was the beauty that is life.
***
Here’s to the next 22 years.
To B, I hope you found the peace you were desperately seeking.
I’ve found mine. ❤
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