Another year, Erin

My dearest sister,

I started this blog last week, a day before your birthday. I had a lot written in it about fate and friendship and god knows what else. I deleted every single word...and here is what I really want to say.

Happy belated birthday, my beautiful angel. I still remember the roses on your dining room table, when I arrived at your house for my 25th birthday. You remembered they were my favorite color. That whole trip I got lost in your eyes...We got lost in each others silence. You held me as I cried, harder than I ever had in front of anyone, while the rain beat against the windows outside...I will never be able to give you those moments you gave me for my birthday. What's more, you put aside your heart and your grief back then...to heal my wounds. I wish I could do the same for you. It's the very least I want to give you for this birthday.

I'm sitting in my empty, cold bed with only the glow of the laptop illuminating the room. I'm sure I don't have to say a word, but you have felt how I have been the last couple of weeks. You've done what you always do...give me space. Even though you know I am plugging holes left and right...but the water keeps flowing in...and I'm going under. Your best friend, one of them, and here I am selfishly wallowing in this indescribable pain and loneliness...I couldn't even send you a message. I loathe myself at the moment that much more. I am sorry, for everything that has happened. I'm sorry you loved for so many years, and waited patiently for him. I'm sorry you gave him everything...you and the girls both gave him so much love...but in the end, love isn't enough. You did one of the hardest things any human will ever have to endure: Look at your true love in the face, and close the door. Not because you didn't need love like air, or you became bored and wanted to move on. Not because you hadn't given it your all and would've given even more if it had just asked you to, with a look. You did it so you wouldn't die. Plain and simple. It was killing you. To see it get colder, distant...to see it slip away, being happy without you by its side. No words needed to be said. Don't we always know, my beauty? When we are being lied to? When details are being omitted? Don't we see beyond what's not being said or what is...and know it's bleeding in our arms and we can't save it? You did it to save yourself. And even though you are submerged in pain now...even though you may be dying without it, anyways...at least now it's your choice. You have the control. You're not putting your love and light out there, only to get a small fraction back. 

So if there's anything I can say right now, aside from quite possibly the saddest birthday blog post ever... is that I love you. That I'm sorry I haven't seen you in so long. I'm sorry I am not around much, even though you know in your heart...where I am currently. Like you said last time we spoke...it always seems like we are at the edge of a storm, waiting for it to hit. The taste of vomit in my mouth (I threw up my soul and 4 boots about 30 minutes ago) and the weight of the universe's heaviest silences crushing my chest are proof of this. Of the wait. But like you said...we hold on. For that tiny break...those three words...that insignificant loving gesture...and there it is. We are fine again. A lifetime of neglect and pain and sadness completely erased by a hit of our favorite drug: Love.

I hope for a better year. Love and light, sister. Let's get through winter in one piece. I hope your birthday was filled with family and friends. I hope our eyes meet again soon, and we can tell each other "I love you. I need you. I'm here." with a glance, once again.

Damaged, but eternally yours,

Shaunee

How A $1 Book Trumped A $50 Shrink Visit

I was at my local grocery store earlier today, grabbing the essentials to make chili. It's fall. It's Cowboys football. The cold and melancholy are settling in for the year. All sorrows are less with bread, no? Bueller?

The store has a special running, where you get a book for $1 with the purchase of selected food items. So, when I bought some shredded cheddar for my Frito Pie, I started looking at the basket of books to see what I could grab. I was just going to grab a book and give it to a friend, for her kids. Under the endless pile of Winnie The Pooh, Sesame Street and H-E-Buddy books, a pair of own eyes with the words "Don't Worry!" over them caught my attention. I flipped through it and the pages landed on this image:

The sight of this page, both made my heart overwhelmed with sadness and anger. Last night was a long, long night. The kind of night that you fall asleep completely spent from crying for hours. Where you go to sleep knowing no one really gives a shit how you are feeling as long as you're there for them when needed. I grabbed the book with the intention of writing a post about that single image. I wanted to be cynical, to demand that we stop teaching children lies like this. Having them grow up believing in love and truth and fairness. To stop feeding them crap like you can be happy if you try hard and do right by people. That everyone has their someone and because of that, they'll never be alone. I know. I may have had a rough night even after I went to sleep.

When I got home, I was putting my groceries up and my mom called again (she had called last night). She wanted to see if I was still "off". Last night she was forcing me to talk instead of cry quietly on the phone. She demanded to know, even after I said I didn't have the words to explain my grief. "You have the words, you do. You just don't want to say them. TALK." The call ended when I broke and told her to just leave me alone. This morning she was calmer, but I could still hear the tension in her voice, the worry... Would I do something stupid? Why am I not saying what's wrong? She was also relieved I didn't hurt myself, apparently. The call was short and when I hung up, I felt heavy. I opened the book and flipped through it...

This was no ordinary book. I kept flipping through the pages and reading, waiting for the happy-go-lucky bullshit message, but it never came. This book had a specific, Yari'esque nudge to it. A page showing a group of nervous, cautious penguins read ..."We must move with the times, as soon as the times are sure which way they're moving." Another one showed a frog hanging from a crocodile's mouth, and in beautiful script font it said "Some days are better than others. This, unfortunately, is one of the others." The next page greeted me with a big brown bear, dragging itself across two pages, with the words "At my current rage of progress, I'll soon be somewhere behind my starting point." I smiled, comforted, as a frog with big red eyes declared "I could try resigning myself to fate - but what if fate refuses to accept my resignation?" Page after page of what some may consider depressing messages for kids. But, halfway through the book, the message becomes clearer. The confused looking crane tells me to not let success go to my head..and if I fail, to not let failure go there either. The cat grooming it's paw whispers "If you take care of yourself, that will be one less person you have to worry about." And the last page shows me the same nervous penguin from the beginning, now jumping off a glacier saying "Do something important with your life: enjoy it!"

I felt calm. I felt comforted. I still felt sad, but not hopeless. I still felt lost, but not forever. The author said that she was born a worrier, but after watching that 'Life After People' series..she realized 3 big things:

1. Nature will clean up all or messes eventually; everything will be fixed, everything will eventually be OK.

2. Whatever happens, we are but a tiny blip. We might as well stop worrying about the small stuff, because in the grand scheme of things, even the things we think are really big...are actually tiny.

3. If there is no point in worrying, then we may as well be happy. It is as simple and as difficult as that.

A $1 book was able to calm me down more than hours of self mutilation, days of bone crushing grief and $50 spent talking to a guy with a notepad who solves everything by medicating me. There's nothing wrong with feeling how I do. I can't help things from happening in my life or to me. Eventually, things will be OK. I just have to make it through today. Celebrate my little victories and stop waiting for someone value me how I deserve to be. Only I can do that.

So, I'll make some chili for my Frito Pie now. Something is bound to break, work, happen. I am a good person.