Where did you go? I wasn’t expecting this. For you to die. I was just going about my life and yours ended. Like they do. You were doing better then you were just gone. Into the unknown.
You can’t say goodbye to people in real life. We have to die alone. We do anyway. Like that last moment is all you. We don’t take favorite people and blankets or stuffed animals. No sweatshirts that smell like crushes or your dad and favorite movies. No one can go with you. My sister zoomed her goodbyes. I would rather say no goodbye than say it over the world of the technology that has become our in real life. No zooming while I’m dying allowed.
You are with dad. And your parents. To that place people go that die. The unknown. I couldn’t cry right away. It was stuck. Stuck with other things I couldn’t get out. Other unknowns. Doubts and fears stuck from years of being told to keep them in. From years of thé known things.
The coronavirus won here. It is what you died from. I don’t want it to make me feel anymore or less afraid of it. I already am. I just don’t show it by hiding out or from my behavior. I still just go about my business and people still die. Only I now wash my hands more. I already keep distance and I already avoid people. But I am a face toucher. And I use my hands a lot. I am always moving my hair and rubbing my eyes and biting my nails. So I am now a constant hand washer. Since I’m a constant face toucher.
I worried I brought it home last night. That I went on vacation to an isolated place in the woods and where almost no people exist only to get it from the one moment in time I let my guard down, but I never do. Then I came home and like everyone I know dies including some I don’t know. My chest hurts on the left side from a silly fall. Is it how it starts? Is this it? I don’t know. It’s all unknown. I have a little tickle and my eye is watering. But just the one I fell on. I can’t cry but it is watering. I face planted into the ground with my eye and my left side.
I have thought this before. When my dad was sick I had diarrhea and worried that I had coronavirus even though he didn’t. I worried once when the pollen count was higher than usual, then one more time when I actually ended up having Lyme disease. I do not want to cry sometimes so I don’t get a runny sniffy nose and my brain says I have coronavirus. I have anxiety so a little pressure in my chest can also cause panic I have coronavirus. Panic on top of panic. I have worried I have coronavirus more than I have not.
So I am sore, not harboring a deadly virus. My side hurts likely from cracked ribs. It is soothing now that I have taken something to relax the area. I took an aleve. I’m not going to the doctor in fear I could also get coronavirus and for them to only tell me I have cracked ribs and to take medicine I am too afraid to take. Or they may tell me I have coronavirus and will die. I don’t know what they will tell me. It’s too unknown so I’m just not going and will let my cracked ribs heal and hope its not a virus and I don’t die.
My eye is watering from it being scratched from falling on it. I have a tickle in my throat because I always have a little tickle in my throat only this time my brain wants it to be the start of a deadly bat virus. I could have brought it back but it is so unlikely. It was also so unlikely my sister and her husband would get it too. They were so careful. It’s why I haven’t seen them since April. To protect us from each other. Now he is gone and I haven’t seen him since April and never will again.
I worried who’s next? Is it my daughter? She has a weakened immune system from her disability and heart issues. I heard someone say this was a way to weed out the weak. Is she weak?Was my dad? What about my brother? They are the strongest people I’ve ever known? Maybe it is weeding out the strong to show the weak who is strong? How to be strong. I don’t know. That is also ridiculous. It’s not weeding out anyone specific, just some people. It’s unknown why this is happening. Why would my mind go that way? I won’t be able to handle the loss of my daughter. Is it someone I’m not expecting so I should expect anyone?
I couldn’t cry at all. Then I couldn’t stop. Once my ribs felt less sore a dam broke. I just laid my dad to rest in my mind and now I have to my brother. Not in law. Just brother. That’s what he is to me. Was? But still is? He is just in that unknown place. My sister has to grieve her husband and her father in less than 6 months. It’s unfair. It all is. It is all too unknown.
I don’t know how to feel comfort today but my daughters idea was to tuck me into bed and cover me with her blanket which is really my grandmas blanket and to wear my new hiking friends sweatshirt, to cuddle with her bear, and to watch frozen 2. Into the unknown. I can’t form sentences to talk to people. I have other uncertainty mixed in with a whole new loss for me on top of a whole new loss for me. My dad died and now my brother. Too much loss. Too much unknown.
I was told I was beautiful. Why? That’s my first thought. I didn’t say it but I thought it. It is always thé word Im thinking. I always am thinking what I want to say and rarely say it. When I do it’s when it’s not the time and place? I don’t know when and what I am allowed to say and do? I wish I could say even half of what I think. And also wish I didn’t think half of what I wanted to say. I can write it. But not say it. What if its wrong? What if I am rejected? What if I am not enough? Too much? Wrong? Right? Even worse, what if I am right? What if it is good? What if I fall in love?
I need more therapy. My therapist is opening her own practice. I am super excited for her but my insurance may not allow me to follow her. Meaning I start over or I go into the more unknown alone. On my own. Take what she taught me for 5 years and go into the unknown. Question mark. I just wanted to write question mark and not use the question mark. I will worry about her new unknown. She is taking a big leap after taking so many. What if it’s too many? Not enough? Today she talked a lot about herself. I let her. It felt like she needed to. She is scared. I am scared for her and she is for me. We both are going into an unknown. She is going her way and I am mine. Or we may go the same way? Or no way at all?
I am into an unknown. Like the song says. It is playing now and was what I titled my story in my head before I heard the song or knew it was where I was headed. That’s how I felt and now I’m watching a childrens movie that portrays how I feel. An unknown for me is a person who isn’t like the person I knew but didn’t actually know. Someone who doesn’t hide their phone from me to hide a whole other life they have. Yet someone who has a whole other life than me. It’s unknown. I won’t ask questions. It was not allowed and now I don’t know what is. I’m in uncharted water. For me anyway. I am not called beautiful. I am not called many things. I am called nothing which can feel worse than being called not beautiful. Being ignored and isolated feels like you are worthless. This is me saying this. Some are told they are not beautiful but I was made to feel that. I was shown. Not told.
Into the unknown. I’ve done it before. Like my therapist says I am not a bridge to others. Someone for someone to be with until someone better comes along. That’s what I felt for years and still do. I have a post it note that says I am enough in my car. I need it in more places. I am not enough. I am too much. I am both. The doubt comes from known territory. The known not unknown. I know thé known. Anything unknown is that. Unknown. To hard to believe. It may need said as much as it wasn’t to be believed as a known from the unknown. Would someone say I was beautiful more than once for reasons not of their own? Just so I could hear it? Why? Why would they? Why do I need or want them too? I can’t see it myself? What mirror am I using? I don’t like mirrors. I don’t like photos of me. I don’t want to see what others see. I won’t see what others see. It’s too unknown.
This is going to be difficult. Not so much for me but for my sister. And my mother. They have lost so much. I have lost so much and now have two people who have lost so much. I have doubt and fears that I want to share but am afraid to. That’s the fear. I have a fear of fear. I am packed full of it. It’s a nightmare. I love big adventure and risks and exciting things but am scared to death of them. I have less than I used to pack but I am still over feared. Fear of the unknown. Usually it’s a fear of what I knew and know now it’s a fear of what I don’t know. The unknown. Right into it. Head on. Not face first. That hurts.
Aspenleaf 