Honor Aside

Chapter 12

Let go so you can see what falls away, what falls apart, and what falls into place. That is what I now think, after the past nearly two years of madness. The pandemic, running away, my family, and my sister. And me. Learning to take care of and have compassion for myself, because berating myself for perceived faults is not a nice way to live. It makes me angry, depressed, anxious, and sad. I don't want to live the way that they lived. It made me want to end myself. I hated things that were completely normal or natural, for no reason other than that I saw things negatively. Complete recovery will take years, if it is even possible.

As of now, I still miss my parents. I miss my mom most because I know her most. My relationship with my dad has always been a bit of a mystery, like a blindspot. I couldn't feel what it was, maybe because we never had a strong emotional connection. With distance, I'm starting to see some of the pieces, but I still can't articulate what exactly I needed from him or why. It scares me that I don't know that, because I think it might be important for the future when I start to look seriously for a partner. I don't want to make the same mistakes. I can't settle for what they had. It would be understandable if I ended up in a bad relationship given the generational pattern of abuse, but I'd rather not be part of that. I would blame myself for having gotten myself in a mess like that again. I try to have self-compassion but it can still be very hard. There's still some anxiety about getting a good result out of whatever I do. If I end up with an emotionally stunted asshole, I think I will have failed. But even that thought process is flawed. Thinking in an all-or-nothing way, with an inevitable, unchangeable "end result" isn't healthy. Didn't they tell me that I'd end up miserable and regret my choices? As if I wouldn't be able to change my circumstances even if I did have a period of my life in which I was miserable? Breathe.

My sister dying is the single most horrific thing that has ever happened to me. I constantly think of her. In the time since she has died, I feel it in my body. I know at a cellular level that she is gone, at every moment of the day. I never forget, even when I'm not thinking about her. It stays with me like an imprint. I wake up knowing she's gone, the only person who really saw me even for a brief moment. She understood the past and the future I was trying to build. Even if she didn't always support my leaving, she showed a pure, supportive and unconditional love toward me close to the end of her life that will always stay with me. It's too bad that the only time we had that was when she was close to dying. It still demonstrates the connection we had, when everything else was stripped away. She didn't need to pretend with me. When I go to her grave, I approach slowly, my limbs heavy. I sit and talk with her, imagining what she'd say. Her hair never grew back, but there's grass growing all over her grave now. It looks peaceful, and someone else was buried right next to her. A friend for the grounded. Rip my soul apart and fuse it back together.

I think everyone encounters situations requiring difficult decision-making. I think that we all need love and connection. I also think that some people just have it way easier because they have that given to them without having to ask or find a way to it. Or they have that and are born with hands reaching out to give them things they didn't even have to ask for. Not every life is seen the same way, not even by people who think that they treat everyone the same. It depresses me, but I have to continue focusing on what makes me happy and feels worthwhile.