Six years.
SIX.
I started to touch on this in my last post, but we've definitely hit the period of "nobody really cares any more" as we should just be "over it" by now. I can list out on one hand the few people who wished K a happy birthday (by text, or sharing a memory on Facebook). And honestly, I can't say enough how incredible those wishes were. Are they necessary? Heck no. But that doesn't mean they meant nothing. They seriously meant the world to me.
Unfortunately, what hit me more was the realization that my emotional state has hit a new cross roads. And not for me, but for my presence in society. From therapy (again, my last post), my grief journey is expected to be never ending and my emotions will still fall within the categories of anger, denial, and sadness or depression at times. Most of the time I'm okay. But the past few months have been a fog of depression. One that I didn't even realize I was in until it started to lift last week after some hard talks and lots of crying with Ryan.
Because grief isn't accepted by society, many put up a steel wall to protect themselves. A boundary that keeps them together when they're falling apart on the inside. This works well, but really only when you don't have to deal with other people outside your immediate family. It's a protection method, a way to keep the tears and deep sadness from oozing out of every pour of our bodies. But what others see is a cold hearted bitch who is angry all the time. The feminist in me says this is because women are supposed to be soft and nice and approachable and not have opinions or feel frustrated when they're being trampled on or disrespected while men are allowed to be gruff and direct. Just in that description, there's a huge difference between the same actions and how they're perceived. For men, simply direct, maybe rough, but getting the point across, so acceptable. For women, bitchy. Is this an excuse for how I'm feeling toward the world right now? Maybe, but it's literally how I'm feeling. Just in the groups of people I see day to day, the men are allowed their off days with cautions of "ooh, don't approach him today, he's really angry" and making a joke of it. Why can't women have an off day and then just move forward once it passes? I digress.
The past few months. I honestly could not tell you what life has been like except that if a picture were to be drawn to represent it, it would literally just be a dark grey cloud. And stress. Lots of stress from work. I'm still blown away by someone asking me how I'm doing, me opening up a bit, and the person just saying, "okay!" and walking away. Like, could you have talked to me for a few minutes? Is it that horrible to reach out to people who maybe aren't doing so hot? So many people withdraw when someone's having a bad day, month, whatever. That's the opposite of what they should be doing. Sadly, Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain are perfect examples of this. Appeared fine, but then missed a meal or two (in Anthony Bourdain's case) and nobody checked on him soon enough. It's tough to portray to the world on a daily basis that life is dandy 100% of the time. Exhausting, really.
And that's the crossroads I'm at now. Six years out, and the grief still hits me hard at times. The hardest time is the spring time leading up the Korbin's birthday. Couple that with some major stressors at work, and you've got a not so happy camper with that steel facade built real high. I asked Ryan after all of our hard chats last week, how much do you keep pretending just to appease others? It feels like denying so much that has happened, that's existed. Right now I'm feeling really guilty that we didn't have a memorial or a funeral for Korbin. I mentioned hearing of a mutual acquaintance's loss of one of their children (still birth, possibly?) to a family member, and this person expressed sorrow at the tough time the family has had, but they're doing okay thanks to lots of support from their own family. When I mentioned that I get how hard it can be, they looked at me kinda funny, like, how would you know? And then said, "oh, yeah. Yeah, that's right." But in more of a tone of really, how could you know? He was born, but so many don't recognize that. Some friends who had a child very early (a micro preemie) were shocked to hear K actually has a birth certificate. He was born alive and expected to survive. Till he didn't.
Maybe a funeral would have allowed him to be acknowledged as someone who had a presence in this world.
The only people that it truly matters to get it are Ryan, P, and me. His parents, his brother. Nobody else needs to get it. But man, it cuts deep when people don't even recognize it. The months of March, April, and May were a fog. Now that the fog has lifted, I'm seeing how much I struggled through, remembering all too often feeling irked by others. A great quote, that I'm going to paraphrase, tuned me in to recognizing how much I was struggling: if one person is bothering you, it's them. But if everyone is bothering you, the problem is you. Attitude adjustment, accepting demotions, sunshine, whatever it takes. Somehow, I've got to pick myself up by the boot straps and hold my head high and pretend like life is a-okay. Never denying anything.
Because I got a lotta love to give.
