Reflections…
For the longest time I did not feel safe. I did not feel like I had a home. I did not know where I could go to fall apart and be my broken self. It felt as if life was never going to be remotely the same or better, and that was as good as it was ever going to get for me. Guess what, I was wrong. It may have taken 10+ years, but I have found my footing. I have built the concept of a home for myself again. I have started owning up to things and owning things, from which I ran far away because I wasn’t going to put myself in the position of losing things. And I have, lost a lot.
Losses used to be coming second in a competition that I wanted to be first in. They used to be an earring, a hairband or a sock. Losses used to be getting sick or injured right before a concert. I had not realized what it would mean to lose a whole person. Well, apart from the fact that it could be romanticized into one form of art or another that make us feel a certain way. This was as far and wide as, the concept of losing someone would get for me. If you lost your mom, you could write a beautiful sad song about how you felt and others would feel sad for you. For some reason that felt like a good thing when I was 8. Even at 11 it felt special to know someone who had lost a dad, it felt like it brought some weight to their story that others did not have.
It was not until I was a good 19 years old, that I got to feel the absolute fear of losing someone. The fear of losing someone, the moment in front of their lifeless body and the aftermath with the void that absolutely drove you insane were just a few moments in the multifaceted process of experiencing death. Fast forward to loss of one grandparent, two parents and, two long term relationships, I am still figuring it out at 31. Now, after two years of therapy and one good job, I am back in the game, riding the bicycle of life. I saw somewhere that the technique to balancing the bicycle is to keep riding. I had lost the balance, because I was too petrified to stay on the bicycle and too tired with the weight that I was carrying. All I wanted to do was to disappear. Well, not any more. I don’t mind being alive, as much as I used to.
