one day i woke up
And I did not hurt.
It is a funny thing when you carry hurt a long time. You get used to it. You live with it. It becomes a part of you you just carry. A familiar weight. And when it goes away, you do not know at first what is different. Something is different. But it takes some thought to know what it is.
I woke up one day and I was not in pain.
I had to turn that over in my head some to absorb it. To even know it. To even know what was changed.
No pain.
Loke and Dolph and Jones died. And my shattered love life made its disaster crash right after Jones went.
That was three years ago.
And I was walking hurting for a long long time.
And then one day I wasn’t.
Today I do not hurt.
It has almost stopped feeling strange. This lack of pain.
For some people that never happens.
For some people, that hurt never stops.
David Foster Wallace is dead. He hung himself September 12th.
0 Responses to one day i woke up
Sometimes I wonder if it stops hurting or we just learn to live around the pain.
It’s strange, I’ve had this same feeling just this month. The acknowledgement of relief.
I am glad you are feeling the same.
This is stopping hurting. I know living around hurting real well. It is weird too, the levels of grief and how and when they can capsize you. Like, when you are new to it, it is overwhelming, confounding, you have no idea how you will survive it or if you can. And then, you meet grief again, but, because you know it, when it comes head on at you, you have experience with it which is not, I think strength, but rather familiarity. Because you have done it before, you know the motions to go through to function through it again. But I think some people get too tired. Some people just do not want to do it again. Or forever. And cannot see or remember that there is an end to it.
What I always come back to when grief is overwhelming, what always saves me? I go out and do something for someone else. It is a weird thing. I spent a year working in an animal rescue place and that saved me more than anything else could have. And now? Now I am okay. It is not about sharing grief or overcoming grief, that kind of overwhelming sorrow is in a way self centered and if I get out of me and take care of someone else it makes me okay. I do not know why.
You have been taking hits like I was taking and harder for a while now. I wish I could lift that for you.
We’ve all been there at one point or another, sometimes multiple points. I have back pain that I live with every day. I’ll take it over the other kind any day… The kind that makes you wish you did physically hurt just so you know that you’re still able to actually feel something else.
Isn’t it odd how many times a person will hammer a nail, knowing, if you do that, odds are you will smash your thumb bad. No biggy, people will keep swinging hammers risking that hurt. But threaten one emotional hit? People will run like they are on fire.
Physical pain is bad, Emotional pain is worse but depression– the bleak, unending belief that banal ugliness permeates reality like grease and old liquor smells permeate a trash bin and I, especially, am worthless and emotionally shallow–that would be unbearable for any long period of time.
While I am new here and don’t know all this history, I am happy to hear that you are no longer hurting.
This last month has been a watershed for me. I got a negative scanner and am looking at photos I didn’t know existed. I’m getting the feeling of a gain instead of one of loss when I see these photos and that is not how it was last year.
You are a strong person to give what little you have of yourself to help others. It is one of the reasons I admire you so much.
Thanks, TP.
Kitty, I would say the same about you. [smile]
Kym, wow, that is one severely lovely description for something not so lovely.
Nice pic.
:(
When Insanity died my heart just broke-things don’t seem as bright and fun as they used to be.
After my nephew died in July, I just don’t laugh as easily as I used to.
I miss that part of me.
A lot.
it’s just over one year since stephen died and I still cry a lot of the time. still hope one day I wake up to find I’ve stopped hurting too
I’m so happy to read this, Max. You hurt for too long. Go be happy, and take the rest of the world with you as you write.
Aww,thanks, Pooks.
Myra and Anita, hugs.
I’m just catching up on blogs today. I am very sorry for your loss.
For all the losses referred to in these comments.
So many strong women who alchemize that which starts out so dark you don’t think it can be alchemized… Amazing.
I am very glad to know that you no longer hurt, max.
Thank you Sulya.