This weekend is the anniversary of the worst thing that ever happened. For me, life is forever split in two parts: before the fire and after. The timeline eternally broken in this way. I think about it daily, multiple times a day, a constant grieving. This time of year is always particularly difficult: death anniversaries, birthdays of passed loved ones. My alter grows. I find myself swimming way out in the depths of my feels.
I don't believe in ‘silver linings’: the good that I’ve often heard people say comes out of horror. I strongly reject any insensitive notions that there is some ‘bigger purpose’ in suffering or in tragic loss. Some ‘greater plan’. Nope. No thank you. We just do what we have to in order to cope and to heal. In my mind, there’s no way to ‘make sense’ of the terrible awfuls' of life because they don’t. We can feel gratitude for the time we had, as well as deep grief for those we lost, but I know I will always be heartbroken. I will always wish it different, no matter what we make of it. I’m learning that this doesn’t go away. I have spent a lot of energy holding others up, or holding myself up for others. As time goes on, I am struggling to hold anything up. I am dropping things. Bits and pieces falling all around. The urge to let them all drop at once intensifies. I suppose I am just now getting to some of my feelings. I’ve always taken a long time to process big pain.
In a way, grief has become part of my tether. Tying me to those I’ve lost. I don’t want to let go, or move on. Instead I carve out space for grief to live with me. I keep it close. I tend to it, care for it. I try to be patient and kind. I try to be honest: living in truth. I don’t have to be ok even when it seems I’m supposed to be. Even when I pretend to be. As I make more space for the griefs, I find that I have less space for the beefs: the arbitrary battles that keep us separate. I have less patience for those who cross boundaries, yet I don't feel as called to 'fix' things outside myself anymore. The space I have for peoples innate flaws or shortcomings has widened, as I have learned to appreciate people as they are. Life is just too damned short y'all.
I’m learning that there is a very real fallout that continues for years, decades, lifetimes after collective loss. I suppose that is part of the grieving process as well. Pain has changed me. Everything shattered, everyone dispersed. Distance where we used to be close. Neurotic caution where there used to be fierce invincibility. Habits became crutches became addictions or sobriety. Many of us were already grieving big pains, or have grieved more losses since. These losses are not necessarily connected but it all has a tendency to feel tangental as the grief compounds. Past, present, future losses all jumbled together. Even friendship endings seem to fester in the bigger wounds. I still feel the gaping holes and spaces in everyday life where loved ones would be. How things would be, could be, should be. The justice that was never served. The feeling of being out of place, in the wrong timeline. A terrible awful upside down world that doesn't have everyone in it. I find myself getting caught on the sharp edges: Why do bad people get to stay while the good ones are taken away?
I brace at the shadow synchronicities. All the things that had to come together for things to be as they are. All the ways they could have happened to make it come out differently. I replay everything in my mind on a loop. The way things weave together, where they break, where they fall apart. I obsessivley study the connections, contradictions, and how cruel it all seems. When things happen in life that are this terrible, it often feels intentional.
The truth is, I’ve never stopped bargaining: How, why, what if? What could I give? What could I trade? To change the outcome. Still angry. It should never have happened. The bitterness settles in the back of my mind, caught in that dark damp crawl space behind the knot in my throat. I don’t believe in ‘god’ (not in any traditional sense anyway) so the injustices of this universe are incredibly senseless to me. There’s truly no purpose in this. The idea that loss, in general, has some kind of meaning is just so insulting imo. People say what they have to in order to move forward and our various forms of coping are valid. However my heart often feels stuck here, broken in this moment in particular, grief preserved, frozen in time; petrified stone, hollow fragments of memory wrapped up in the earth. As people seemed to move on I have often struggled to move at all. I give myself grace. I am aware of how the trauma of loss can stunt us: the long drawn out spaces where action could be. I try not to judge the parts of myself that waded in the shallow ends of life for far too long in order to feel 'safe’. As a way to cope with something that will never “make sense”.
As typical for me, I struggle to find my words. The lump in my throat always there, swelling up, tight like a fisted grip on my voice and on my breath. I inhale deep to catch it again, a reminder to breathe, to live, to love. To keep going. To be grateful: every moment precious and the opportunity to ‘age’ an experience we don’t all get to have. I grieve and honor loved ones who never made it to 20, to 30, to 40, to 50. So for all the sads, the mads, the bads, and the terrible awfuls', I’m just so grateful to even still be here. What a fortune it is to exist spanning decades. To bear witness to time laid out across this life. To look back. This catharsis of remembering.
I find comfort in ritual: tending to my alter. I do the things we loved to, as well as the things we always said we would. I’m inspired by the way many have turned their pain into art: creating to cope. I continue writing my words, dancing my dance, priming my soul. Documenting my thoughts. So just in case I am ever lost, I can find my way back home: to my voice. Breadcrumbs back to memory, to soul. My atheism often feels betrayed by my own quiet hope that we will all meet our lost loves again someday: In some other dimensional fantasy where the timeline fits. The right side up. I’m learning that hope, is part of grief as well.
Six years later, I am admittedly often still looking over my shoulder. Wondering, worried: Who will be next? When will it be me? Am I ready? Will I be afraid? We’re they? I try not to think about it. I realize I stopped breathing, and walking, I inhale to take a step, and exhale to take another. Moving forward. I remember what breathing is, what walking is, I return to the present. I tell myself that I’ll never again take this life, this body, for granted. I’ll never stop dancing. It’s ok to feel however we do. There is no manual, no god, no lesson, no purpose. Just drive, and joy, and beauty, and pain, and love. Cycling through, again and again, until we are dust. Rest in beats, peace, power, and love.
My everything to everyone today and always<3.
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