The Wrong Quote

Grief is not love in a heavy coat. The quote got it wrong. Grief is bitter and sharp. When I stand and face god I will ask him why he took you away and walk before I hear the answer. I am not better because of this, I have fought wars with anger to be this kind.

I am so tired of being brave. I am not brave, I am scared. I am so scared to keep going without you. I am so scared how much this hurts, how sad I am. I want to feel better but I don’t know when I will. They all said it gets better or it hurts less but my grief feels stunted. I feel at a loss. What am I doing wrong? What have I possibly done to deserve this? God will never hold my hand again, I will turn my back against him. I was so mad at him I was so so very angry. And when people told me that I couldn’t be angry anymore then I felt nothing. I turned my anger into kindness and now I can’t ever get away from being the kind girl. I am tired of being kind, I want to be mean but what good would that do? I can’t rekindle how often I would lash out at others and hurt them. Oh god how many people I have hurt by being myself and by hurting so much I can’t even think straight. Nothing feels good anymore.

Grief is not me being brave, my grief is not me being strong, my grief is not me seeing kindness in an unkind world. Rather, it is brittle and bare. It feels lonely. Oh my, God, nobody ever talks about how lonely it feels. You could meet someone who has experienced the same loss as you, and they will have a different experience. Nobody will ever meet you in the field where you laid, drunk and alone, watching the stars. Nobody will ever experience their mother telling them to stop crying when faced with the biggest tragedy that has occurred in their 17 years of living, nobody will ever understand how your mother also died when your father died. How she took on a new life, a new name, a new family, and left that part of her behind along with her children. Nobody will feel how it felt to be left alone, with a. Fridge full of alcohol and an absent mother who did not care what you did, did not care if you were in school, did not know how to care for you. She did not - she still does not know how to react when her child, full of rage and sadness approaches like a lion from the ashes and asks for some morsel of comfort only to be turned away and embarrassed for ever asking for help. My mother once told me she was so glad that there were other older women to take care of me when she was not able to, but I was still a child and she didn’t even try. She ran away with her new boyfriend and made the other kids hate her. I still hear the screaming match… “he’s using you for your body and your money”. The only one who ever advocated was the eldest daughter. The youngest was always forced into quiet desolation where nothing really truly mattered.

I tried to make peace with the pain but every time I look into the mirror all I see is a 17 year old version of me who was so broken that now I can’t even drink like a normal human. All I see if an 18 year old version of me sacred shitless when her mother told her she was moving across the country to be with her new husband, All I see is a 19 year old version of me who was so absorbed in drugs and alcohol she didn’t care about anything else besides getting drunk or high. All I see is a 20 year old version of me who finally cracked and tried to get help for her addiction but was met face to face with predators and verbally abused for 4 months. All I see is the reflection of someone who never recovered from alcoholism and nobody believes me. All I see is a girl who was never believed, one who loved too much and always lost what she loved.

Whenever I wake up, I feel like I have overreacted. That whenever I sob into my bedsheets or the crook of someones neck, I am crying for no reason. I feel as if a hand smashes into my face and tells me to be grateful. You are alive! You have a home! You have clothes! Am I supposed to be grateful to have survived this??? I am not. I will never get justice for the 21 years of my life. Call me ungrateful because where you see a lack of gratefulness I see an epitome of sadness. I usually do well but somedays it hurts so so very badly. And when it hurts I don’t know where to go. I feel as if I should suck it up or get over it. I am scarred head to toe because I wouldn’t open up. I am supposed to be grateful for that? I am supposed to be grateful to have survived overdoses because I am alive? Do they not realize why I tried to begin with? I hate looking at my scarred arms and legs which I carry like overpacked luggage everywhere I go.

And now, after writing this, I am back to empty. A tank always either brimming full or completely empty. I do not want a hug, I do not want comfort, I do not want a cup of tea, I want my dad back. I always want him back.