𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗻𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀 𝗶 𝘄𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝗴𝗶𝘃𝗲

before

"I think..." the therapist starts. She has her pen in her hand scribbling down my thoughts and my failures. "I think you should stop caring so much." She replied with this after I told her to be honest with me. I asked her to tell me what she thinks about it all.

Friend to friend.

"Look, you told me to be honest." She says it as if she's shrugging her shoulders, like she's giving me a silent, this is what you asked for.

"It's been four years. Four long years of you moping around. Four long years of this." Her words cut deep and hard. They feel like jagged knives digging themselves into my heart.

"If I was in your shoes, I'd just forget about it." she lingers, "Well, I don't mean totally forget, but I mean relocate your pain."

"Maybe pick up a hobby. Get a better job. Something."

Her words bring chills with them, cold chills, the kind of chills that leave you frozen in place. She caught me off guard. I was expecting comfort. Maybe a kind word. But I was definitely not expecting this.

I wasn't looking for it.

"There's nothing you can do to change what happened." she whispers. "There is nothing you can do to reset it. Nothing you can do to save her."

"She," the therapist leans forward, and her glasses slip down with her as well. "Is," the room is so quiet that you can hear a pen drop. I feel the tears start to well up in my eyes. I know what she's about to say.

"Gone." The therapist says it like it's nothing. Like her life didn't carry meaning to it. "He's gone. They are both gone. And you can't do anything about it."

That was a year ago.

I replay that moment in my head sometimes. It comes and it goes like a merry-go-round repeating and spinning around in circles.

Now, I guilt myself for thinking about it. About my mom dying. I guilt myself for taking time to myself. That's why I work my ass off all the time. And sometimes I hate to think about it, but I know it's true.

Her death broke me. I admit it. I don't like to see the things she used to touch around the house. I don't like to remember the words that used to slip through her lips. I don't like to look at myself, because I see her. Maybe it should comfort me, but I hate the reminder that she's dead.

Before, I had a family. It wasn't all that good. But it was a family. You might call it perfect actually.

There was a mother, a father, and me. Their only child. My mother dying broke my dad as well. He refused to admit it. Instead of attending therapy, he replaced the sadness he felt with that clear liquid called vodka and 2am parties.

He eventually stopped coming home, leaving me to fend for myself. Those days quickly turned to weeks, and weeks turned into even longer months. Until I no longer expected him to come back home.

My mother got killed in a car wreck driving home drunk. I know it was her fault. That's what the therapist told me at least. Even though she told me it was her fault, I don't want to believe it is. I don't want to put the blame on her. I still try to erase the bad parts about her, and only see the good.

I guess that is where I went wrong at.