Thoughts from my coffee cup: Lost in the woods, unworthy of rescue

I have been working very hard at keeping myself busy. I workout, clean, take kids to and fro, work part time, swim, etc. There has been so much going on in my head that I am sometimes unsure how to deal with it all. Be it the pain of losing my mom, the pain of my kids growing up, the physical pain in my body, the stress of finances, or the emotional pain of life, I occasionally feel incapable of coping. There is stress, there is sadness, there is confusion, but most of all there is longing.

I long so much to have my mom back in my life. I long to hear her, to see her, to feel her. Since I have been so good at repressing my feelings, I have lost so much of her. For a couple years now I have not been able to hear her voice, to hear her laugh, or to see memories of her. I try to go back in my head and remember specific things that I know we did, but I cannot see her in them. It is like my brain has removed the very existence of her. When I try even harder my brain replaces her image with that of a photo, generally a picture I have seen recently. She has been reduced to nothing but photographs.

I blame myself for this mess. I am the one who has chosen not to feel the pain of her death. I am the one who has made it a fact, something generally easy to talk about and not at all personal. I am the one who has separated myself from reality, in fear that it would destroy me. The times I have let a little bit of the sensation in, I have been unable to control the overwhelming explosion of sadness. I am terrified that if I allow myself to open the closet door, to let all that darkness in, that I will not ever get back to the light. I am afraid it will swallow me up and I will never emerge out of it all. Just cracking the door open a little takes me off my feet and I am inconsolable.

I still don’t know how to move on with my life. I honestly do not even know who I am anymore. I look back over the past couple years and it feels like I am looking at someone else’s life. I long to remove the past four years from the record. If I could snap my fingers and go back in time I would. I don’t know how to move on without my mom. She kept me grounded in a firm foundation of truth and wisdom. I was a better mother, a better wife, a better friend, and a better person. I just do not know how to do it without her, and without being able to hear her, feel her, or even remember her, I am just lost.

Sometimes in life I feel like I am just going through the motions, but am almost empty inside. I feel like I am lost in the woods. It is breathtaking and beautiful, but also scary and lonely. I can hear the echo of birds calling to one another, finding each other. But I am here alone with nobody to find me. I am a lost cause who should honestly give up hope of any rescue. Nobody has probably even noticed I am missing, and the ones who have probably feel better off without me. When I look at myself I think they probably are better off without me. I am so inclined to just mess everything up. I am so talented at ruining the good around me. I turn smiles into tears, approval into disappointment. I push everyone away from me.

I sit around here feeling lonely, but I have shut anyone close to me out. There are so many people upset with me right now and that is mostly because during a really hard time I stopped responding to anyone. I stopped answering my phone, didn’t respond to texts, and disconnected all social media. People who had been close to me, who had been a support system were shut out and I still haven’t found forgiveness for that. I chose to shut everyone out of my life, but then felt lonely and bad about myself that nobody was there. It is such a vicious cycle. I have been doing better about this, but sometimes still go back to shutting people out. I just fall off the face of the earth because it is easier than dealing with reality. I feel like everyone is just ready for me to be okay and that I am going to disappoint them all again.

This downward spiral that I have been on since my mom died has been very unpredictable, unstable, and devastating to those of us involved. There have been very few able to walk it with us and for those who have stuck with us, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. It is by the very grace of God that our family is still in tact, that we are still married, and that there are still a few people who truly love our family.