healed

There's something I should say, but I don't know what. A poem I should write maybe... I don't know. This whole thing has been so full of everything, and I feel so empty despite the wonderful things that have happened.

It is a craving - I remember it... Finding myself in front of the refrigerator, or staring blankly into the cabinet, no idea how long I'd been there, but knowing, again and again, that what I wanted so desperately wasn't in there.

I have been so lucky, so loved, so much a part of some inexplicable miracle, and I'm glad of it. It has been much easier to survive, and will undoubtedly be much easier to bear. But that is not to say that I am not terribly unspeakably empty, broken, and craving.

I have laughed and smiled more in the last few days than any grieving mother has the right to. I don't regret a moment of it. Nor do I deny that I just cried over the ending bit of LOST because I want my magic island, my miracle cure, my fat and naked baby - wrapped in sand and rocking in a cradle of branches on the beach, backdropped by all the sappy cliches of crashing waves, and the night sky draped behind us like Elvis painted on velvet.

Is it a little crazy to be jealous of fictional characters in a weekly drama? Probably, but I've done very little in the way of defending my sanity over the years, especially the last 5. I know I lost my mind after Alexis died, I don't know if I ever "got it back" so to speak. I think I just managed to become functional, in spite of it all. Now... Well, now I wonder if I haven't completely lost it, maybe I just haven't realized it yet, the insane don't ever know they're insane, do they?

I have received a load of email, offering to listen if I want to talk. I appreciate them, every one. But what am I supposed to do? Call someone up out of the blue and say, "Ok, I want to talk..." Do I start the conversation with something "Hi! How you doing!?" I mean, what is there to say really? We all understand the futility of words, my call would only serve to make someone else uncomfortable. I understand myself enough to know that I'd never cry, it isn't allowed, I don't do it, I can't do it, not with an audience. I don't want to talk anyway. Conversation isn't what I want. What I want is for this all to be unreal, undone, over.

But you see, this isn't something that will ever be over. There is no audible click that signifies the moment when you're done. There isn't a party with confetti and balloons and much rejoicing when you've paid your penance, there is no door prize. Grieving is never done. It is a journey that seems to have no real destination. Somewhere, some time, I read a saying, one that seemed perfectly valid at the time. It said "Grief is a journey from loss, through pain, to healing."

Now it sounds like the directions that Map gives Dora. Loss, Pain, HEALING! Loss pain, HEALING! Swiper no swiping! Oh maaaaaan... How utterly ridiculous it sounds now. What does "healed" mean exactly?

It is something I once thought I was. Or maybe something I tried to convince myself that I had achieved. Now, it is something I wonder if I'll ever be.