19th Nervous Breakdown

"You're the kind of person you meet at certain dismal, dull affairs,
Center of a crowd, talking much too loud, running up and down the stairs.
Well, it seems to me that you have seen too much in too few years,
And though you've tried you just can't hide your eyes are edged with tears..."

I'm so tired.

Today I was at work, thinking constantly of those on the southwest coast who have dealt with so much devastation over the past few days, my heart breaking as we try to pursue all avenues and try to help.

Help.

That is all I have ever wanted to do.

I look at my own situation and decide that if nothing else I can put my energy into helping.

There are those who have helped me.

"You better stop, look around.
Here it comes, here it comes, here it comes, here it comes,
Here comes your nineteenth nervous breakdown..."

And on top of it all the house renovations are behind after having to go to a second painter after dishing out money after money to the first without results.

Two weeks have turned to three weeks.

I have not slept in my bed since April.

I have not been able to wash my clothes since July 31st.

I have not had a microwave since July 31st.

And every day there are excuses and more reasons.

I am tired.

Then Stanley got out.

Someone came to buy the mattress set I was selling to try and make some money because I am drowningdrowningdrowning and after being told by my contractor, because I could not be home and was at work, that they needed to watch the dog they watched him slip by their legs and said nothing.

When they were leaving and he asked if anyone had seen the dog they said, non-chalantley, "Yeah he went outside earlier."

Panic.

Crying and driving home while I called Sheena who has saved my life so many times and somehow keeps her head about her as I lose it over and over and over.

Then a text telling me I should have been at home watching my dog.

Yes I should have been.

I should be a lot of things and I should do a lot of things but I am barely keeping my head above water and trying all I can with everything I can.

Another reminder that I am not enough.

"Oh, who's to blame, that girl's just insane,
Well nothing I do don't seem to work,
It only seems to make matters worse, oh please..."

I am really trying.

I am just not used to life being this way or being treated this way.

These past few weeks have been an inhumane practice of how humans can treat other humans.

I was never raised to treat people in that way so I have had no concept of how it is or how it feels.

I am just so, so tired.

And when the thought of Stan being lost or hurt enters my mind panic ensues and I feel like something bad is going to happen to him no matter how hard I try.

I should have been at home watching my dog.

And I feel inadequate.

Brad never made me feel that way.

For once in my life someone made me feel like enough.

And I feel like I am back to being a scrap of a human constantly clawing at every day, every thing to make it to the next day.

I cannot find a break and at this point I am not sure I deserve one.

"You were always spoiled with a thousand toys but still you cried all night..."

I have not been spoiled or privileged but I know I have not had it hard.

And so many more do now.

I just want to help.

As my own heart sinks further and further into its acceptance of whatever this life now is.

I just wish he was here.

I know these feelings would not exist if he was here.

And every day is another exercise in crawlingcrawlingcrawling and climbingclimbingclimbing as one step ahead equals two steps back.

I hate it here.

"Here it comes,
Here it comes..."

And I have no choice but to accept it.

"It's just your nineteenth nervous breakdown..."

I Coulda Been a Contender

His sister gets married tomorrow.

I remember the day we were on the back porch in the sun when he took the call and came back to say, "Jenine is engaged!"

We talked about our own wedding.

On our second night together he looked at me and said, "Will I have to get another wedding ring? I had a deadly wedding ring."

And ever since we were so excited to have him suited up in the wedding party and to celebrate her finding her love.

He was supposed to walk her down the aisle.

We talked about how he would be in the wedding party so I would watch Colton.

We were both so happy and we couldn't wait.

Now he won't be there.

And I won't be there.

No longer invited.

To say my heart broke over and over again is an understatement.

I cannot put into words what this feels like.

I have never felt so hurt in my whole life.

And let me tell you - 

I have experienced hurt.

I have experienced the worst that has left me down on my knees wondering why this was the hand I was dealt.

But not with Brad.

Brad made me feel loved.

Like I was enough.

That what I was was not an anomaly and it was okay.

He loved me for everything I was;

The broken, disregarded pieces of what I was.

He loved it all.

And I felt that.

I felt more confident than I ever had and for once I felt like I could be me, everyone else be damned.

"I ain't pageant material,

The only Crown is in my glass,

They won't be handin' me a sash..."

I'm so tired.

I'm sick of trying to keep peace and be the punching bag,

"And that's okay, cause there's no way,

You'll ever see me in a swimsuit on a stage..."

I just can't be quiet any more.

"I ain't exactly Ms. Congenial..."

I have never spoken up.

I could not.

I was not raised that way and respect was something that was always drilled into me no matter the situation.

Be the bigger person.

"Sometimes I talk before I think, I try to fake it but I can't,

I'd rather lose for what I am than win for what I ain't..."

But I'm done not being me and holding back.

I am not responsible for rebuilding the bridges I did not break.

I hope it is beautiful.

My heart is in a million pieces.

And I do not have the tools to even begin to stick handle this much hurt.

I am just here.

And tomorrow nothing changes for me but so many move on.

And it damn well hurts.

"It's heads or tails and heart attacks and broken dreams tonight..."

Dreams.

I keep having these dreams now.

One day I have a dream where Brad calls me and he is still alive, just horribly injured after the accident so he will not see anyone and just wants everyone to think he did not survive.

The second we are getting married on a Wednesday and I am going around preparing, getting things together, but telling everyone I am not sure he will go ahead with it because he is so injured after the accident and does not want to be seen.

I wake up thinking it is all okay and just a misunderstanding and I can call him now and at least we will talk even if I cannot see him.

I miss his voice.

There is an ad that plays on VOCM in the mornings when I am listening to Open Line that says the first thing you forget about someone is their voice.

It plays a voicemail over and over and over.

It is sponsored by MADD.

How fitting.

I listen to his voicemail over and over and over.

"This is Brad. I can't come to the phone right now."

And for a second I almost leave him a message like I used to, telling his to get his ass home because supper is waiting and I am waiting and I just want to kiss his face off.

And he would usually call the second he got it and say, "Hi there."

Hi.

"What are you doing?"

Missing you.

And I guess nothing has changed because in your absence I am missing you.

It is Wednesday.

You should be on a soccer executive board call if soccer is over.

Is it over now?

I don't even know.

If it isn't you would be driving back home with Colton and I would be asking you to pick a Hello Fresh meal and have it waiting when you got home.

I got a renewal request from Hello Fresh yesterday.

They can't understand why I canceled.

Because you died.

And I don't need to eat much anymore beyond something meagre to keep me alive.

My new appliances are sitting in the living room.

I know we would still be looking for people to help move them but we would be doing it together.

Trying to install the microwave together.

Picking out colours together.

Your sister is getting married this week.

You were going to walk her down the aisle because your dad can't but now you can't and I can't imagine how that feels.

I could not wait to see all of your friends and to have so much fun with you.

But now you won't be there and I won't be there because I'm no longer invited.

I think I have cried more this week than I have in a while.

They warn you about the secondary losses.

And I am just tired.

I sleep - medicated sleep - last night for 10 hours - but I am never rested.

How can I be rested when you were my restful place?

You were the place where I could be comfortable and know there was never anything you wanted me to change or anything you were not proud of.

I keep trying to make you proud but that is getting harder as my will gets lower.

I feel so tired and defeated.

I know grief comes in waves and this is likely just one more tsunami without a name that I must, as my dad would tell me he did with every boat in a storm, turn my back to it and jog it out, but sometimes it feels so overwhelming.

I miss you and I just don't know what to do about that.

So I will go now.

I will go, turn on the TV, cuddle with Stanley and tell him about you.

And I just wait for the quiet.

Where I can remember your voice and miss it and that smile you would give me every night as you said, "Nite nite."

"But listen carefully to the sound of your loneliness,

Like a heartbeat, drives you mad.

In the stillness of remembering what you had.

And what you lost."

"A simple souvenir of someone's kill..."

"And I'm afraid
To sleep because of what haunts me..."

Night time was our time.

We were done with work, meetings, conference calls, board meetings, volunteer Zooms, soccer and hockey and the gym.

And we would collapse on our big teal couch to turn on the TV to some British murder mystery and laugh as we told each other about our day.

But now the night brings the end of the day's push push push and everything that acts as cement to keep me together and keeps me going.

"I awoke
Only to find my lungs empty
And through the night
So it seems I'm not breathing..."

And I wake up every morning trying to catch my breath.

I try to drag you from those dreams into my morning so you would be here again, snoring on your pillow as I roll over and hug you awake rather than me waking up, drenched and sweaty, holding your pillow that no doubt misses you like I do.

"And I'm afraid
To sleep because of what haunts me
Such as living with the uncertainty..."

I am.

I am afraid to sleep.

I am afraid you will not be there and that is the only reprieve I get from not having you on this earthly coil.

You are there most nights.

But the nights when you are not there I spend my dreaming hours looking, searching, wanting to find you.

"I'll never find the words to say
Which would completely explain
How I'm breaking down..."

Someone save my life tonight.

"Like the sea
I'm constantly changing from calm to hell..."

Anxiety holds my chest hostage to the point where I can never tell if I'm losing my breath, succumbing to anxiety or if it is a heart attack.

In my current state I expect the probability of each to be as equal as can be.

Tomorrow. 

"Someone come and
Someone come and save my life
Maybe I'll sleep when I am dead
But now it's like the night is taking sides
All the worries that occupy the back of my mind
Could it be? This misery will suffice..."

Maybe the misery will suffice.

Maybe it will be the fuel I need to keep going.

Maybe I need to just set myself to get wrecked by what this is going to take and take from the energy reserves that I do not have.

But I need to find them.

I need to replenish them.

I will be there.

And I will draw from depleted reserves to make sure I stand tall.

"Madness fills my heart and soul
As if the great divide could swallow me whole
Oh, how I'm breaking down..."

But I will break down in my own house.

I will remain and I will be strong.

I will see it out.

And I am ready.

"Despite the overwhelming odds tomorrow came..."

Another week.

20 without you now.

Paint and plaster and picking colours while making sure at least one room is Dulux Dusky Dawn like your house was, wall to wall, ceiling to floor.

Dusky Dwan, you said.

Days moving on like nobody else in the world realizes it had stopped revolving when your breath stopped.

And I keep going.

"On the edges of the sharpest knives,

In the middle of the darkest nights,

Always knew that I would find you here,

In a puddle of the bravest tears..."

I keep trying to just push forward without you.

Drawing from energy reserves that do not exist while just trying to keep going going going.

You would have said I was crazy.

This decision to step forward was not easy.

Jokes of, "What else do I have to do now?"

Wanting to just do some good in this world that I can be taken from as instantly as you were.

"Above the crowd,

Feet dangling from a rooftop.

She waits from ledges

For a voice talk her down..."

I caught a glimpse of myself in an escalator at convention two weeks ago.

I asked myself who that was in the mirror.

I barely recognized myself yet could not remember a time when I was anything but whatever this shell is now.

"When faced with tragedy,

We come alive or come undone..."

I've made a decision, one that would have had you giving me that smirk of yours, telling me I'm crazy but that you believed in me.

One that would have had you shaking your head, laughing that hearty laugh when I told you and saying, "Of course you are."

I do not have expectations.

But I have seen what is possible and how glass ceilings can be shattered.

So I will try.

This is a heavy week.

Phone calls and campaigning and meetings and court dates.

Tomorrow I'm adopting Stanley.

I know we said no more dogs but I think you would like him.

He's gentle, he's loving and his life was turned upside down too.

"Find yourself before the sadness came," you said to her in a dream she had about you asking to give me my oversized red and black plaid jacket - my ass-kicking jacket - as you said you had to go now.

I wish you had never had to go.

But I will try.

I do not think I will ever find her again but I can try to find some version of her.

Tomorrow I will try to lace up my running shoes for the first time since you were stolen and instead of running away I will try to run head-first into it all.

"And sometimes you have to go back,

To know just where you have been..."

I will try to find her even though I know I cannot go back, no matter how hard I have tried and still try.

And I will keep trying to make you proud, to show you that maybe my crazy can pay off and I can make a bit of difference in this world - like you tried to do, every living day.

Nothing is the same without you here and it is not the space in this room that makes it so empty - it is the fact that you are not here to share it with me.

Dusky Dawn on the living room walls, your pinup on the wall that you had wanted so bad and I gave you that first Xmas.

Her fist clenched in a moment of power.

You said she reminded you of me.

I hope I can keep making you proud and keep breaking down walls.

"Nothing matters when the pain is all but gone,

When you are finally awake,

Despite the overwhelming odds tomorrow came..."

And tomorrow will come.

One more day without you and one more day closer to 21 weeks.

And though I will never be the same again I just just promise you I will try to channel something of what I once was.

What you made me.

And I will carry you with me every step of the way.

I've Looked at Life From Both Sides Now

"Great, how are you?"

How easily those words trickle out in an automated response to the tens or hundreds of people who I cross paths with daily and who utter the simple question:

"How are you?"

"Happy Monday, how are you?"

"How was your weekend?"

Good, yours?

Except inside there is something clawing to get out that screams in a pitch that obviously cannot be heard,

"THIS IS HELL AND IT WAS HELL AND IT ALL WAS, ACTUALLY, FUCKING HELL."

I tone down the profanities and say,

"Dandy sure, how was yours?"

But yet, with every inquiry, every innocent, blase question asked more of obligation than actual interest, the response remains the same:

"Oh you know, the usual. You?"

Nobody in this club really ever responds with honesty.

Unless we are talking to the other figuratively and eternally black-shrouded members of the club who all try to carry on our daily lives as to not inconvenience anyone with our grief.

"What did you do this weekend?" is met with, "Oh, watched a movie, relaxed," instead of, "Wailed on the floor when it hit me that he would not be coming through the door after soccer practice and we wouldn't order sushi because we were both too tired to cook while also saying we should probably budget better and eat less takeout."

That's not been happening - kudos to Doordash.

Nobody replies with that.

Unless you're talking to your Soulless Sisters.

I sometimes blame the medications for how mechanical I have been.

Other times I blame dissociation and how I throw myself into work to try and keep my brain so busy that it does not have time to break down.

If something keeps moving at an unnecessary speed it will take longer for it to stop.

To Crash.

Just keep going.

Fuel it with Zoloft and see if it will run until it physically cannot anymore and just...

Stops.

Things moved so flawlessly with us.

A perfectly functioning machine; a beautiful tragedy in the end, really.

I have seen both sides of it all.

Black and white.

Never in the middle.

I think most of my life has always been that way.

16 weeks and one day.

Those are 16 weeks and one day more than I thought I could survive without you.

I do not know how the body and mind do but they have.

Busybusybusy until it breaks down.

I have been told by one of my Soulless Sisters that my break is coming, it just has not come yet.

But there have been many times I have thought I would break.

But yet I have not.

So I keep moving and going and breathing and existing.

How is tonight?

"Great. How is yours?"

Comfortably Numb

16 weeks.

16 weeks without you, without your smile, your laugh, your goodnight kisses, your "hi there" when you would call or come in the door.

16 weeks since I stepped into that house knowing it was my first time stepping in without you and that when I had left it was the last time I would see you.

That sidewalk outside of the airport.

Kisses.

"See you soon. I love you."

Paris-bound.

Not knowing how the last time really is the last time but we cannot have a concept of that when living in the now, can we?

We should have been getting back from Golden Sands this week.

Packing the bikes on the back of the car and laughing our whole way with Colton as he told us, "There are no rules in Marystown!"

5 nights in that small, stuffy cabin but there was nothing else on this earth more perfect than waking up there and heading to the beach with you both and spending the day in the sun and the water with wonderful, fun people.

I'm on autopilot now.

Work is insanely busy.

Stanley is here.

This house.

I joked to a friend that I feel like Noah from "The Notebook" with my plans for this house, stripping it and painting, rebuilding, buying artwork, making it ours in the hope you would come back like Noah did for Allie.

But you can't come back.

You said we needed to rid ourselves of the old artwork because it had been yours without me and now it was time to buy new, our artwork for our house.

Yet I still have it all.

Remnants of Christmas paper still taped to the back of the aluminum artwork that hung in the living room from when we wrapped it like a present, with a shiny silver bow, to decorate for Colton.

You had said you had never really loved Christmas.

But you did now and wanted to make it special.

Every Christmas with you was special and I dread the first one without you.

Our Christmas tree with ornaments from Fogo and Jamaica but the Eiffel Tower one from Paris will never make it there because it is sitting on your grave.

I dread everything without you.

Stef and Ryan are home and we should be heading out to stay with mom and dad as mom recovers from surgery, you helping dad fix the bird houses and yard, meeting Ryan and Stef for the first time like he had planned.

But I'll go alone now.

Well, not alone - Stanley is coming.

Your mom looked at my tattoos this week and said, "Don't put him all over you."

But you ARE all over me.

You are all over me without ink, without hours in that studio.

You are all over me and all through me, in every day and second, in everything I do.

Medicated autopilot.

I feel like someone standing outside my body, looking at this shell and propelling it forward to do tasks I have to do.

I forget what okay feels like and I forget what happiness feels like.

Now I just am.

When two RNC cruisers parked outside my yard last night I went back to those long hours waiting for one to show up and how it felt when it did, the sergeant coming through the door and the way her face dropped as she sat at the table, our table.

"Is he gone?"

She did not speak but her eyes - her eyes told me and us that you were.

And that was a hell nothing in this world could have prepared me for.

16 weeks.

Medications, broken sleep, paint colours and new appliances.

And you should be here.

Sometimes I go to my car and I scream as loud as I can and I scream about how unfair all of this is and how beautiful you were.

And then most times I sit and exist.

Blankly.

I wonder where I should put your Andy Worhol banana that sat so lovingly in the corner of the kitchen counter.

I wonder where I'll put our Sailor Danny prints you mistakenly ordered on paper instead of canvas and told me I was never allowed to let you order important things ever again.

I wonder where I'll put our "Brad & Dwan, Jamaica 2022" carving you asked me to pick and we stood holding hands as the rastafarian carved it by hand.

I wonder where I'll put my love for you.

I feel so medicated that I am mechanical, moving through motions and not knowing how to live this life without you.

In this house that your best friend's grandfather built that has the grey siding and black trim I always said I liked and you said it was beautiful but worried it would fade.

If there is anything I have learned from this hell on earth is that nothing fades.

The love I have for you certainly will not fade.

And I just wish, in some way, we had known and I could have told you everything you mean to me and how deeply I love you.

But we never really know when the last day may be.

And so, I exist.

I have become

Comfortably numb.