Apples and Oranges
"There are years that ask questions and years that answer"
And this is a year full of questions.
Who am I? In the face of crisis when all is stripped away what is left? Who are my people? What do I really want out of life?
A year ago I thought I knew the answer to all of those questions. even in December as I sat around making a list of highs from 2017 and wishes for 2018 I would have called myself extremely happy.
I knew what I wanted, and I said so many times that I was living the dream. I finally felt like I had an understanding of who I was, and I felt ready for the great rising. I had a tribe of people I thought I was going to be with forever.
And then March of 2018 happened. Crisis and trauma has a way of making shit real. and that dream job I had didn't have time to wait for me to collect myself. And the people I thought I would be friends with forever decided I was too much for them, or as the months passed and I wasn't 'over it' they moved on without me.
I've been thinking a lot lately about the ones who left.
in those first few days and weeks we got plenty of cards and meals, people who stepped in to help pay our bills when the expenses increased and our work hours decreased, people who would text or call and say "just checking to see if you needed anything."
I hear its like this for a lot of people in grief. time passes. the calls and cards and check in's stop. but for me just because I'm more mobile now, not bedridden and recovering from surgery, doesn't mean I need people any less. a lot of days I don't know how to reach out and ask for what I need, and on those days I desperately wish someone would reach out.
a while ago, after a few celebrity suicides, the whole mental health topic caught attention again. Soon I began seeing the phrase everywhere "Check on your strong friends."
Shared by people I once considered close friends I thought Yes! Check on your strong friends!
What I really was thinking was I'm tired of pretending to be strong. check on me
but my inbox was still empty and no one came to my door or made an effort to reach out. and here's the thing - I could have reached out. but grief is exhausting, and often times the silence of people felt like betrayal, and I didn't even know what words to say if I did have someone I thought I could talk to. all I wanted was for someone to see me.
See that 4 months later and I still have days when I'm not ok. See that I'm still a mother, and that my child's life mattered and that he was loved and his life profoundly changed mine.
My initial reaction when I think of the people that left is anger. I notice the people who comment and like the posts I share about my son, and the people that don't. I try to keep from making judgments but I often do. I know the logical reasons why people backed away: because my reality has become the nightmare they don't want to look at, because I am stuck in this whirlwind of grief and am a really shitty friend, because they don't know what to say, because they don't understand. but in my head my rage voice gets the better of me
I would have showed up for you. How dare you turn away from me because I'm grieving? Is it because my truth makes you uncomfortable? Yes, just close your eyes and go back to your perfect little life, I see now that I didn't mean as much to you as you did to me
We all like to think we know how we will react when crisis hits us or someone we love. the truth is we don't know. and a lot of us aren't as upstanding as we think we could be. In hindsight you can see but its too late then.
I was journaling last night, writing a letter to one of the people that has left when I came to a realization. I wrote the words "And maybe I'm asking for something you aren't capable of giving."
Pause.
Could it be true? Just because I (the me I am now, knowing how much it sucks to have your friends abandon you when you are going through trauma) would offer this kind of support to them doesn't mean they can offer it to me? With the new babies and the new businesses and the life that just keeps moving is it possible that they physically cannot extend to me what I want them to? Am I allowed to be angry about that?
I am angry, in a way that is more deep sadness. I'm really sad that I lost my baby and then I lost my friends. I'm really sad people weren't who I thought they were, or couldn't be who I wanted them to be. But as I wrote it I also discovered a moment of peace.
Maybe now I can stop waiting for them to be someone they'll never be
If my people were an apple orchard, and I was in desperate need of oranges, as hard as they tried they'd never be able to give me oranges because they are only capable of offering apples
That is the sad reality.
And it's not fair. So many things aren't fair. and I can rage at the injustice but I still have to pick myself up and I have to work to pay the bills that seem never ending, clean the kitchen even though all I want to do is fall into bed and cry, take the dog for a walk even though I'm exhausted to my core. life goes on for me too. my world stopped and my heart was ripped in half but I still have to keep moving. And I'm jealous of your Instagram perfect life, and I wish things were different for me and I feel like the thing you shelter your eyes from because to look at it dead on would just be too much and that makes me angry in a whole new way because for me there is no averting my eyes.
the calls and the cards stop but this is still my reality. its just my reality - lonely.
None of this is to make people feel sorry for me. Maybe its just a plea that next time, for the next person who experiences a trauma so deep and expansive, you'll show up. Check on your strong friends ok? Tell the grieving mom months and years later that you see her, that you remember her baby.
After journaling that night I went on Facebook. Social media has its downfalls but this time I think it saved me. I'm in a group for mothers whose babies died in ways similar to Paris. I was feeling heartbroken and a little angry and between the picture of a friend's new baby and a blurb about a different friend's business there it was.
I know. I'm so sorry you have to experience this reality too. I remember Paris. You're never alone - we are here to support you every step of the way. What you feel is ok here, we will hold space for you.
I felt like my broken heart had been given a place to land, if only for a second.
I kept looking to my old friends to give me what I so desperately craved after the loss of Paris - support, companionship, someone to bear witness - and they couldn't give it to me. the apple trees couldn't produce oranges. But here, in the words of these women I had never met, I found what I had been looking for. just not in the way I expected.
I thought I had answers, only to find out when tragedy struck I just had more questions. But maybe hidden inside the question is its own kind of answer, and it never looks like you thought it would.
And this is a year full of questions.
Who am I? In the face of crisis when all is stripped away what is left? Who are my people? What do I really want out of life?
A year ago I thought I knew the answer to all of those questions. even in December as I sat around making a list of highs from 2017 and wishes for 2018 I would have called myself extremely happy.
I knew what I wanted, and I said so many times that I was living the dream. I finally felt like I had an understanding of who I was, and I felt ready for the great rising. I had a tribe of people I thought I was going to be with forever.
And then March of 2018 happened. Crisis and trauma has a way of making shit real. and that dream job I had didn't have time to wait for me to collect myself. And the people I thought I would be friends with forever decided I was too much for them, or as the months passed and I wasn't 'over it' they moved on without me.
I've been thinking a lot lately about the ones who left.
in those first few days and weeks we got plenty of cards and meals, people who stepped in to help pay our bills when the expenses increased and our work hours decreased, people who would text or call and say "just checking to see if you needed anything."
I hear its like this for a lot of people in grief. time passes. the calls and cards and check in's stop. but for me just because I'm more mobile now, not bedridden and recovering from surgery, doesn't mean I need people any less. a lot of days I don't know how to reach out and ask for what I need, and on those days I desperately wish someone would reach out.
a while ago, after a few celebrity suicides, the whole mental health topic caught attention again. Soon I began seeing the phrase everywhere "Check on your strong friends."
Shared by people I once considered close friends I thought Yes! Check on your strong friends!
What I really was thinking was I'm tired of pretending to be strong. check on me
but my inbox was still empty and no one came to my door or made an effort to reach out. and here's the thing - I could have reached out. but grief is exhausting, and often times the silence of people felt like betrayal, and I didn't even know what words to say if I did have someone I thought I could talk to. all I wanted was for someone to see me.
See that 4 months later and I still have days when I'm not ok. See that I'm still a mother, and that my child's life mattered and that he was loved and his life profoundly changed mine.
My initial reaction when I think of the people that left is anger. I notice the people who comment and like the posts I share about my son, and the people that don't. I try to keep from making judgments but I often do. I know the logical reasons why people backed away: because my reality has become the nightmare they don't want to look at, because I am stuck in this whirlwind of grief and am a really shitty friend, because they don't know what to say, because they don't understand. but in my head my rage voice gets the better of me
I would have showed up for you. How dare you turn away from me because I'm grieving? Is it because my truth makes you uncomfortable? Yes, just close your eyes and go back to your perfect little life, I see now that I didn't mean as much to you as you did to me
We all like to think we know how we will react when crisis hits us or someone we love. the truth is we don't know. and a lot of us aren't as upstanding as we think we could be. In hindsight you can see but its too late then.
I was journaling last night, writing a letter to one of the people that has left when I came to a realization. I wrote the words "And maybe I'm asking for something you aren't capable of giving."
Pause.
Could it be true? Just because I (the me I am now, knowing how much it sucks to have your friends abandon you when you are going through trauma) would offer this kind of support to them doesn't mean they can offer it to me? With the new babies and the new businesses and the life that just keeps moving is it possible that they physically cannot extend to me what I want them to? Am I allowed to be angry about that?
I am angry, in a way that is more deep sadness. I'm really sad that I lost my baby and then I lost my friends. I'm really sad people weren't who I thought they were, or couldn't be who I wanted them to be. But as I wrote it I also discovered a moment of peace.
Maybe now I can stop waiting for them to be someone they'll never be
If my people were an apple orchard, and I was in desperate need of oranges, as hard as they tried they'd never be able to give me oranges because they are only capable of offering apples
That is the sad reality.
And it's not fair. So many things aren't fair. and I can rage at the injustice but I still have to pick myself up and I have to work to pay the bills that seem never ending, clean the kitchen even though all I want to do is fall into bed and cry, take the dog for a walk even though I'm exhausted to my core. life goes on for me too. my world stopped and my heart was ripped in half but I still have to keep moving. And I'm jealous of your Instagram perfect life, and I wish things were different for me and I feel like the thing you shelter your eyes from because to look at it dead on would just be too much and that makes me angry in a whole new way because for me there is no averting my eyes.
the calls and the cards stop but this is still my reality. its just my reality - lonely.
None of this is to make people feel sorry for me. Maybe its just a plea that next time, for the next person who experiences a trauma so deep and expansive, you'll show up. Check on your strong friends ok? Tell the grieving mom months and years later that you see her, that you remember her baby.
After journaling that night I went on Facebook. Social media has its downfalls but this time I think it saved me. I'm in a group for mothers whose babies died in ways similar to Paris. I was feeling heartbroken and a little angry and between the picture of a friend's new baby and a blurb about a different friend's business there it was.
I know. I'm so sorry you have to experience this reality too. I remember Paris. You're never alone - we are here to support you every step of the way. What you feel is ok here, we will hold space for you.
I felt like my broken heart had been given a place to land, if only for a second.
I kept looking to my old friends to give me what I so desperately craved after the loss of Paris - support, companionship, someone to bear witness - and they couldn't give it to me. the apple trees couldn't produce oranges. But here, in the words of these women I had never met, I found what I had been looking for. just not in the way I expected.
I thought I had answers, only to find out when tragedy struck I just had more questions. But maybe hidden inside the question is its own kind of answer, and it never looks like you thought it would.
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