Reality

… can be a real bitch.

Let’s talk about the daily thoughts of a widow shall we? Oh you’d rather not? Cool. Hop off my page. 🙂

As much as no one wants to hear about it, imagine how it might feel to actually live through it. The reality of it all is, a lot. For me to go through, and for every single person in my life to walk through with me.

Very few people choose to stay. I get it.

I have some really kick ass good friends. The best actually… and I push them away. All. Of. The. Damn. Time. It’s a part of myself that I am working on, but nevertheless it’s still a part of me that they accept. Swear to God, He broke the mold when he made my best friends. (Adella and Angelina , I salute your bravery:))

Reality.

It’s extremely hard for me to condense my thoughts into one blog post about this topic, but I’m going to at least try, because I think it’s such an important aspect when helping someone deal with tragic and sudden loss.

The people closest to me have learned to navigate the very darkest parts of me, and let me tell you, my world gets DARK, often. I always find my way to the surface, but it’s taxing on the people who love me the most.

Loving someone through their grief is not for the weak. I am a complete mess of a human being some days and I own that. I shut down and I shut people out. Frequently. It’s not personal or intentional. That doesn’t make it right, or easy on the people who love me.

Let me offer you some insight to the ‘why’ behind it all.

My reality.

In my life, the very worst happened. Twice. In the span of 6 months my entire world as I knew it ended. My world stopped, but at the same time, it didn’t. I had to find a way to somehow pick up the broken pieces without completely breaking. Seeing as how I didn’t get a fucking instruction manual, I’m kind of just winging it. Some days… a lot of days, I do things that make absolutely zero sense to someone who hasn’t been in my shoes. Believe me when I tell you, I do not make sense to MYSELF most of the time, but I’m trying to find my way through. It takes a little (a fuck ton, actually) of patience to have any kind of relationship with me, I’m aware. It’s not that I’m ‘too much.’ I’ve just been through SO much.

Here is the me that you think you know: someone who is overbearingly concerned with your safety. Who asks too many times if you’re okay. It’s probably annoying as fuck.

Here is my reality: I watched someone die. Start to finish and the entire 10 days in between. I literally had a front row seat. Let me tell you, it fucks with my head every single day.

Here is the me that you think you know: someone with walls so high with zero intention of letting anyone in. Ever.

Here is my reality: losing one person ripped my heart out. Losing my best friend shortly after that? Destroyed me. My walls are not to keep people out. My walls are to protect what little of my heart I have left. It’s a ginormous task to break them down… again, extra patience required. Trauma is healed through safe relationships. Building safe relationships would require me to let my walls down. No fucking thank you.

My reality fucking sucks.

Every single time I hear an ambulance , I remember the sirens of hope I heard when my husband was unresponsive and I was helpless. Every single time I hear the word CANCER or ‘be the match,’ I am tossed right back to December 25th, 2018 when I promised my best friend that she would be okay, but she wasn’t. I am thrown right back into the trauma. For a split second, my brain can’t separate the then, from the now. I do not do this intentionally and there is not one part of me that can stop it from happening This is where it gets messy, and why most people choose to leave. I wish like hell the trauma would subside and I could live a normal life. Whatever the hell normal is these days. However, I am 💯 done apologizing for the way I react to certain triggers. If I could stop them, believe me, I would. It’s exhausting and really isolating.

My reality is this: I am scared. Literally all of the fucking time. I am scared to love people. I’m scared to let people in. I am scared to get too invested in someone because in my world, the people that I love, die.

That’s my reality.

I would rather shut down and shut people out then lose one more fucking person.

The flip? The softer side of my current reality ? The people that have been patient enough to stick by me even when I gave them every reason not to, know this, I’m worth it. They have shown me that I am worth it. They have stood by me and held me up. Even when I pushed them away. Even when I told them to leave. They stayed. They know that underneath all of the armor, there is a heart of gold. A heart that has been broken, but still manages to keep beating.

Fun fact, I already know I am hard to love. Not because I am unlovable, but because I fight like hell to push people away. Safe relationships are so crucial to people with PTSD. People who can love you gently through your irrational fears are so few and far between. They are my home base and absolutely irreplaceable.

My reality is a hard pill to swallow. It takes an act of congress for me to let someone get close to me. I hate it. I’d rather do anything other than talk about my feelings, but I’m trying.

Most people do not know how to navigate my reality, and to those people I kindly say, well thank fucking Jesus it’s not yours.

Until next time,

~A