Been Here All Along

45| surviror

"You say I am strong when I think that I am weak." - Lauren Daigle

We have all survived the hard part, or at least what I hope to consider the hard part. Ian died exactly 13 days ago, meaning the weekend he was supposed to be home just passed. It was also Easter, and Noah's supposed-to-be wedding weekend.

And we, somehow, made it through. So that was the hard part, right?

We are about to find out. I return to school and work today. While I've been staying caught up in school from the comfort of my own bedroom, I haven't worked in almost two weeks. Aside from the luncheon, I've basically avoided Westchester like the plague.

Additionally, I start therapy tomorrow. People respond to therapy in several different ways: it helps some and leaves others completely indifferent. I've never attended therapy before, so there's no way to tell how I'll react. I hope it helps me because for two weeks I've been bobbling back and forth between emotionally distressed and void of all emotions in general.

It's not ideal crying over every little thing or walking around like you have your humanity turned off.

Behavioral changes are common when someone loses someone they care deeply about. More often than not, behavior worsens due to irritability, but there are some cases where little things change. For example, my punctuality has exceptionally improved these past two weeks. I no longer wake up as I'm supposed to be walking out the door, I actually get up on time and arrive to where I'm supposed to be on time. There's not really a logical explanation behind it.

"Ready?" Kaila poked her head in my room.

Kaila, considering she works a real world job now, was unable to take much time off. She went back last Monday and has been going in everyday since then; however, she took today off and picked up a shift at Westchester to be emotional support for me.

Westchester is one of the places where Ian and I spent a great deal of our time together, and we share memories in probably every square foot of this park. I walk in and it's a slap in the face of memories.

"I guess we are about to find out."

The park looked exactly the same as I had left it when I was last here for the luncheon. Everyone here was happy and laughing, spreading joy to the people around them. I didn't feel it though.

"Where are you working today?" Kaila asked.

"He has me working in the lounge." Probably to limit my human contact to a minimum for now. It makes sense; it'd be kind of awkward if I had an emotional breakdown in front of a customer at the cafe for ordering the same food as Ian usually would. Trevor said people talked about it for days after I found out over the phone about Ian. Old ladies can gossip, that's for sure.

Everyone was talking about the poor heartbroken girl whose boyfriend had died in war.

"Good morning, Josie," Caroline greeted. She had a more professional outfit on today; she usually just wears a pair of khakis and a nice shirt, but today she had on a black pencil skirt and a white button-up blouse.

"Good morning," I said back. "You look nicer today than usual, what's the occasion?"

"My dad wanted Mason and I to sit in on his new business pitch he has in about an hour."

Mason did just finish up his business degree in December, so it's cool that Mr. W is giving him this opportunity.

"Do you know what the pitch is?"

"Basically, he's just meeting with investors and landlords and discussing extending the park property to build a hotel. It's still pretty low key because there's a ton of steps he has to take, but yeah."