home

home home home i want to be HOME NOW PLEASE.

mana and i agree: this is the most emotional tension we've held for an extended period of time in our lives. this is the hardest emotional test we've ever encountered.

there is nothing coherent about grief. i feel like this is the most surprising part. yes, you are a Grieving Person (sometimes people won't let you forget), and you are numb, but you are still yourself. and you want to clutch desperately at normalcy, or what you think normalcy is. and whatever your usual coping methods are, grief will amplify them. so you find yourself filing at work and trying not to cry. or you find yourself biting your nails over the tension at a student auction, then stop and wonder what the hell you're thinking. you still want to kiss your favorite boys. your dreams will surprise you. there just is nothing uniform or normal or consistent about it. it's the strangest emotional state i've ever experienced.

i'm scared. there are two potential extremes: i will go completely numb in this limbo week and not be able to come back. i will be a numb dead thing while people cry on me. i will withdraw, because i do not want my grief to be public; i want to hoard it for myself and the person it belongs to. the tension of this week will break me in a different way and take away my emotions. i will feel nothing and i might not heal.

option two: i will be a wreck. i will fall apart. i will cry like it is the last time i'll have strength for tears. i will play these keys like a piano and write write write out my grieving thoughts even though no one will probably read them.

this week i keep thinking, this is the hardest thing i've ever done. followed by, don't be so dramatic. what's hard about it? just sit on your arse and don't think until you fly home.

then i remember: i have to manage not to fly apart at the seams, fly in all directions. oh, right. i'll be sitting in class and about to cry at some completely insignificant word or phrase someone's uttered and think, nope, i haven't lost any of those feelings. they're definitely still there. the fact that i sound more powerful reading gwendolyn brooks aloud than i ever have, the emotion in my voice - how did it get there? - reassures me, i am still human, i still feel. the tears will come. it will hit. i won't have trouble unlocking it.

and honestly, i'd rather have it be option two. option one is a terrifying loss of humanity. i need to break it open and get it out. i need to learn from last time.

like i told ed: it'll suck when it hits. but life sucks now anyway. it might as well suck in the service of something, like clawing my way back to reality.

i would never wish this on anyone. i never want anyone to feel this way. emily was saying how she doesn't know how this feels, and was talking about how our parents and her shouldn't talk about it like they know what it's like. i said good. i don't want you to know what this is like or how it feels. your job is just to be there for us, okay? i DON'T WANT you to approximate this. ever. if i could write a spell or a poem strong enough to prevent that, you bet your ass i would.