Have to Post this Somewhere - Part 3 - My World Falls Apart
I kept my cell phone on me, hoping it would ring, that one of my friends would check on me. I was too weak to call them myself; I needed someone to reach out to me because I was sinking and just so weak. And I wouldn't be able to take it if I was opening my heart enough to try only for them to say “I can't talk right now, I'm working” or to wake them from sleep leaving them confused. I wasn't sure what their schedules were. So I knew someone would call me soon, to check on me, to make sure I was alright and let me know they were truly there for me. All I needed to do was wait and keep working and trying to help the family.
So many were reaching out to my Mom, having come from hours and hours away. Even my anti-social younger brother had his friends over or was often at their place. My sister and her boyfriend clung to each other, it being even his loss because Dad had truly considered him a son... Me, I had my cell phone, always in my pocket, or on my desk, or even clung in both hands to my chest... ever silent.
I finally had to talk to SOMEBODY... Nobody was on Yahoo Messenger, so I tried mIRC, and entered the channel with my Wing Commander RPG buddies. I'd only ever felt truly close to a couple of them, even though I cared about them all... I rarely had time or occasion to just small-talk with them as I used to with my usual group, so I hadn't gotten to forge the same close kind of bond with most of them... But, I got such unexpectedly understanding, tender care from them, unexpected individuals as well as expected (even though I also got far less of such from the person I had thought would try to help the most...). Ones who weren't there at the time still had offered sentiments which had already meant the world to me.
They all said exactly the words I needed to hear. They encouraged me to talk, to say the things that finally helped me crack open the shell that had formed around me. They comforted, they gave advice, they talked and listened, they related. I finally was able to cry. I so badly needed a hug, but I know they would have if they could have. They did more for my heart and soul, though, than anyone else had, and still has. They got me to think about his life, to feel his presence still around me as it truly was, and they made me feel cared about.
I know my family cares deeply, and I for them. But it is that unconditional care. Beautiful and irreplaceable in its own way. But... in the worst time of my life, I needed to know that there were people who were willing to feel my pain, to not run away, and to sincerely want to be there for me and help me, out of their own free will. They literally saved me. The pressure left my heart, and I could now cry when I needed to. Even though once again text was all I had... These wonderful people are on different ends of the earth.
I had to drive for hundreds of miles on Monday, to do my work, and missed an hour of Dad's showing at the funeral home. I hadn't even gotten to mentally prepare to see him one more time, looking as if he were merely sleeping, surrounded by people I hadn't seen in years or only had heard about. Unexpected people, including the woman who had bought our old house in Carlisle. Even she had cared enough to come despite only knowing us all so little. It was so touching, to see people who owed my family nothing, yet had still come to pay respects, from far and wide.
Our boss finally called Mom, at the funeral, giving excuses as to her lack of contact. She had been moving, without telling us, to another state, and her computer didn't work right, bla bla bla. Mom had to eventually interrupt and say “I'm sorry, I have to go, I'm at the funeral home.”
We were continually left hanging, jobs weren't assigned right, and we got more and more new jobs piled on us constantly. We were told they HAD to be done on time because these were new clients that could be lost if they weren't impressed. After a few days with her friends over for support before they had to go, Mom flung herself into it eagerly; she wanted to keep busy, distracted, out of the now all-too-quiet and empty house. But me, I needed time, I needed to think, to feel, to adjust to not having Dad around physically anymore... but I didn't have this time. I had to pile more exhaustion upon my exhaustion and exhaustion, and work.
I kept being slow, distracted. Remembering Dad, hiding my tears against store shelves. Thinking of Mom's agony and crying for her. My sister, my brother, everyone, crying for them. Seeing foods I would have wanted Dad to taste, holding the item and having to remind myself he couldn't. Reaching to buy something I know he loved but then stopping myself.
And the other distraction... why my phone remained silent. Not even a text message, let alone a ring and a human voice. I needed so badly to be held, or at least, at VERY least talked to by a voice of someone who cared... That need burned and ached and throbbed in my chest again. Hollow and agonizing. I felt desperate. I felt... abandoned.
I had not spent anywhere near so much casual, or deep, time with the WCRPG folks, as I had with the Wisconsin gang and my friend since like first or second grade, who only lived less than two hours away (Though she wouldn't let me visit, and hasn't had time to do so herself)... I had spent at least some actual time with all of them, having traveled 11 or 12 hours each way to see them... As I'd typed earlier, they were my big goal in life, they were the center of my existence... and they didn't care enough to call.
I would have called them immediately if they'd had something like this happen... Hell, I would have dropped everything and drove up there to be with them. I would have run through a battlefield for them or leaped between them and a gunman to take a bullet for them.
They wouldn't even press buttons on a phone for me.
This pain was slowing me down afresh, compounding the already existing agony, amplifying it, burying it at times. It made me feel selfish; why should I worry about myself when my Dad was dead? But it was so pervasive, my desperate need for comfort being unfulfilled, in my lonely and tiring work hours.
I finally got the courage to go on Yahoo... one of them was there. He went into small-talk. My heart wasn't in it. My lifelong friend was there too at one point, asking when the funeral would be. I told her it had already happened several days ago. She said she was out of it because of her sleep schedule messing up, so she'd lost track of time. I looked back silently at how I had not let months of that same issue stop me from prioritizing my friends... but told her not to blame herself. Maybe some people just deal with insomnia worse than others, I dunno.
I was realizing around then, that I was becoming numb. That my need for my friends was fading away, and I was doing better in some ways. My brain had re-wired itself. After years upon years upon YEARS of desperately needing hugs, crying from sheer loneliness, snuggling plushies to fill the emptiness, clinging to online chat, absolutely living for yearly trips to conventions with my friends... and now these agonizingly long days of needing and needing them... after all that time of my intense social need being unfulfilled, my mind had closed off that need. It was causing me too much pain, and it would not be fulfilled anytime soon, so it was cut away so I wouldn't have to suffer from it anymore, and could now suffer from my Dad's loss instead.
I didn't want to be that way though; that was such an emo approach, something I had always been against, and it went against who I was: A very social person. Even though I had never gotten a chance to LIVE like a social person, to BE social... in my heart, I was one. I had just been deprived of my true self for so long, and it had become evident that it would remain that way. I didn't want to change that... but I HAD to, and there was no way I could force it back, because then I'd be in agony again. And my mind would cringe away from those efforts in reflex, as one cringes away from trying to put their hand into a fire.
That was the way things had to be, to keep getting my work done, to not give in to despair, to properly be there for my family. And so, that's how I've been.
One month later, and I still haven't had time to unpack my stuff. Have kept getting more work added on, have to dig through junk to find my paperwork, am still so slow at work due to trying to grieve the loss of dad AND my friends, AND my big dream for the future that I'd invested so much toward, in the form of time, money, and intense emotions.
And now I wonder... What am I to do now? I'm not allowed to be too angry at my 'friends' because their abandonment of me was most likely not malicious or purposeful, and yet the fact is that they hurt me, severely. The worst time of my life, and they weren't there for me. True friends are the ones who are there for you at those kinds of times... and now the only ones I have are in other countries, or far ends of this one. Unreachable all at once.
Some of my 'friends' were not necessarily at fault... A couple were busy graduating college, one of whom seems genuinely sorry and is not at fault at all, trying to talk to me but not knowing what to say at this point. The other hasn't even dropped me a single line, though I don't blame him, he's just too polite to tell me he actually hates me, and probably has hated me for the better part of a year (I'd wanted him to be honest about it but I suppose he'd rather drag this on silently than give me the truth...). One was sleep-deprived. One made a big attempt at redemption, even while he made himself the victim, and then he faded away. One did only small-talk, and did not contact me again when I let him know that I felt abandoned. Only one had the guts to finally call me, even if far too late, admitting he had no excuse. I respect him for that; it really took guts at that point, when he knew things were already so messed up. But now he's been silent as well.
I'm not sure anything can completely remove this second-pain, even while I'm aching in the first. My numbness toward my social need goes and comes back now, this month later. Because I want to truly acknowledge the few who truly do care about me, but then I shy back again when I think about the others. I've lost so many things that mattered the most to me. Dad, my friends, and my hopes and dreams. And aside from the rest of my family, I've never had much else. Not much else at all. Because I was passing up everything else just so I could sooner be with them...
What am I to do now? How am I 'allowed' to feel? I have to be hurt without anger, and it's eating me up from the inside. I'm trying to just live, to just cherish my remaining family, but I haven't yet had time to start feeling my own neglected emotions again... but will I be able to stand what will come to me when they return?
It's hard enough without getting to hear Dad's jokes and songs again, or him being able to tell me what year an old vehicle is just from glancing at it, or just plain receiving his vast knowledge of how the world works... And now it's without the support of people who have filled my every day for years out of what I thought was them caring.
I have a new boss now though; whether it was related to these events, I don't know, but she is very understanding, and I will have the next few weeks nearly-off (just easy small jobs), in which to try and rest, reflect, recover, and sort things out, both physically and mentally. I'll unpack my things, I'll organize them, I'll make myself eat more, I'll hopefully sleep more. I'll cherish the fact that I'm now in the same building with my kyoudai, no longer physically alone as I've been for so many years... and I'll cherish the true friends who truly did what they could for me, even if they're so far away.
I'll try to forgive those not at fault, but I can't make things easy to understand or deal with in that regard. I still don't know how I feel about some of them. It will have to depend more on them than me I guess, and I can't bet on them doing anything anymore. I'll just try to make a new life for myself, even if I'll never get that idealized image of a life where I can just go to a friend's house for games and movies...
I'll try my best to be happy anyway, Dad... I owe it to you, and I know you want us all to get through this. I can feel you in peace, and I'll try to use that for strength...
So many were reaching out to my Mom, having come from hours and hours away. Even my anti-social younger brother had his friends over or was often at their place. My sister and her boyfriend clung to each other, it being even his loss because Dad had truly considered him a son... Me, I had my cell phone, always in my pocket, or on my desk, or even clung in both hands to my chest... ever silent.
I finally had to talk to SOMEBODY... Nobody was on Yahoo Messenger, so I tried mIRC, and entered the channel with my Wing Commander RPG buddies. I'd only ever felt truly close to a couple of them, even though I cared about them all... I rarely had time or occasion to just small-talk with them as I used to with my usual group, so I hadn't gotten to forge the same close kind of bond with most of them... But, I got such unexpectedly understanding, tender care from them, unexpected individuals as well as expected (even though I also got far less of such from the person I had thought would try to help the most...). Ones who weren't there at the time still had offered sentiments which had already meant the world to me.
They all said exactly the words I needed to hear. They encouraged me to talk, to say the things that finally helped me crack open the shell that had formed around me. They comforted, they gave advice, they talked and listened, they related. I finally was able to cry. I so badly needed a hug, but I know they would have if they could have. They did more for my heart and soul, though, than anyone else had, and still has. They got me to think about his life, to feel his presence still around me as it truly was, and they made me feel cared about.
I know my family cares deeply, and I for them. But it is that unconditional care. Beautiful and irreplaceable in its own way. But... in the worst time of my life, I needed to know that there were people who were willing to feel my pain, to not run away, and to sincerely want to be there for me and help me, out of their own free will. They literally saved me. The pressure left my heart, and I could now cry when I needed to. Even though once again text was all I had... These wonderful people are on different ends of the earth.
I had to drive for hundreds of miles on Monday, to do my work, and missed an hour of Dad's showing at the funeral home. I hadn't even gotten to mentally prepare to see him one more time, looking as if he were merely sleeping, surrounded by people I hadn't seen in years or only had heard about. Unexpected people, including the woman who had bought our old house in Carlisle. Even she had cared enough to come despite only knowing us all so little. It was so touching, to see people who owed my family nothing, yet had still come to pay respects, from far and wide.
Our boss finally called Mom, at the funeral, giving excuses as to her lack of contact. She had been moving, without telling us, to another state, and her computer didn't work right, bla bla bla. Mom had to eventually interrupt and say “I'm sorry, I have to go, I'm at the funeral home.”
We were continually left hanging, jobs weren't assigned right, and we got more and more new jobs piled on us constantly. We were told they HAD to be done on time because these were new clients that could be lost if they weren't impressed. After a few days with her friends over for support before they had to go, Mom flung herself into it eagerly; she wanted to keep busy, distracted, out of the now all-too-quiet and empty house. But me, I needed time, I needed to think, to feel, to adjust to not having Dad around physically anymore... but I didn't have this time. I had to pile more exhaustion upon my exhaustion and exhaustion, and work.
I kept being slow, distracted. Remembering Dad, hiding my tears against store shelves. Thinking of Mom's agony and crying for her. My sister, my brother, everyone, crying for them. Seeing foods I would have wanted Dad to taste, holding the item and having to remind myself he couldn't. Reaching to buy something I know he loved but then stopping myself.
And the other distraction... why my phone remained silent. Not even a text message, let alone a ring and a human voice. I needed so badly to be held, or at least, at VERY least talked to by a voice of someone who cared... That need burned and ached and throbbed in my chest again. Hollow and agonizing. I felt desperate. I felt... abandoned.
I had not spent anywhere near so much casual, or deep, time with the WCRPG folks, as I had with the Wisconsin gang and my friend since like first or second grade, who only lived less than two hours away (Though she wouldn't let me visit, and hasn't had time to do so herself)... I had spent at least some actual time with all of them, having traveled 11 or 12 hours each way to see them... As I'd typed earlier, they were my big goal in life, they were the center of my existence... and they didn't care enough to call.
I would have called them immediately if they'd had something like this happen... Hell, I would have dropped everything and drove up there to be with them. I would have run through a battlefield for them or leaped between them and a gunman to take a bullet for them.
They wouldn't even press buttons on a phone for me.
This pain was slowing me down afresh, compounding the already existing agony, amplifying it, burying it at times. It made me feel selfish; why should I worry about myself when my Dad was dead? But it was so pervasive, my desperate need for comfort being unfulfilled, in my lonely and tiring work hours.
I finally got the courage to go on Yahoo... one of them was there. He went into small-talk. My heart wasn't in it. My lifelong friend was there too at one point, asking when the funeral would be. I told her it had already happened several days ago. She said she was out of it because of her sleep schedule messing up, so she'd lost track of time. I looked back silently at how I had not let months of that same issue stop me from prioritizing my friends... but told her not to blame herself. Maybe some people just deal with insomnia worse than others, I dunno.
I was realizing around then, that I was becoming numb. That my need for my friends was fading away, and I was doing better in some ways. My brain had re-wired itself. After years upon years upon YEARS of desperately needing hugs, crying from sheer loneliness, snuggling plushies to fill the emptiness, clinging to online chat, absolutely living for yearly trips to conventions with my friends... and now these agonizingly long days of needing and needing them... after all that time of my intense social need being unfulfilled, my mind had closed off that need. It was causing me too much pain, and it would not be fulfilled anytime soon, so it was cut away so I wouldn't have to suffer from it anymore, and could now suffer from my Dad's loss instead.
I didn't want to be that way though; that was such an emo approach, something I had always been against, and it went against who I was: A very social person. Even though I had never gotten a chance to LIVE like a social person, to BE social... in my heart, I was one. I had just been deprived of my true self for so long, and it had become evident that it would remain that way. I didn't want to change that... but I HAD to, and there was no way I could force it back, because then I'd be in agony again. And my mind would cringe away from those efforts in reflex, as one cringes away from trying to put their hand into a fire.
That was the way things had to be, to keep getting my work done, to not give in to despair, to properly be there for my family. And so, that's how I've been.
One month later, and I still haven't had time to unpack my stuff. Have kept getting more work added on, have to dig through junk to find my paperwork, am still so slow at work due to trying to grieve the loss of dad AND my friends, AND my big dream for the future that I'd invested so much toward, in the form of time, money, and intense emotions.
And now I wonder... What am I to do now? I'm not allowed to be too angry at my 'friends' because their abandonment of me was most likely not malicious or purposeful, and yet the fact is that they hurt me, severely. The worst time of my life, and they weren't there for me. True friends are the ones who are there for you at those kinds of times... and now the only ones I have are in other countries, or far ends of this one. Unreachable all at once.
Some of my 'friends' were not necessarily at fault... A couple were busy graduating college, one of whom seems genuinely sorry and is not at fault at all, trying to talk to me but not knowing what to say at this point. The other hasn't even dropped me a single line, though I don't blame him, he's just too polite to tell me he actually hates me, and probably has hated me for the better part of a year (I'd wanted him to be honest about it but I suppose he'd rather drag this on silently than give me the truth...). One was sleep-deprived. One made a big attempt at redemption, even while he made himself the victim, and then he faded away. One did only small-talk, and did not contact me again when I let him know that I felt abandoned. Only one had the guts to finally call me, even if far too late, admitting he had no excuse. I respect him for that; it really took guts at that point, when he knew things were already so messed up. But now he's been silent as well.
I'm not sure anything can completely remove this second-pain, even while I'm aching in the first. My numbness toward my social need goes and comes back now, this month later. Because I want to truly acknowledge the few who truly do care about me, but then I shy back again when I think about the others. I've lost so many things that mattered the most to me. Dad, my friends, and my hopes and dreams. And aside from the rest of my family, I've never had much else. Not much else at all. Because I was passing up everything else just so I could sooner be with them...
What am I to do now? How am I 'allowed' to feel? I have to be hurt without anger, and it's eating me up from the inside. I'm trying to just live, to just cherish my remaining family, but I haven't yet had time to start feeling my own neglected emotions again... but will I be able to stand what will come to me when they return?
It's hard enough without getting to hear Dad's jokes and songs again, or him being able to tell me what year an old vehicle is just from glancing at it, or just plain receiving his vast knowledge of how the world works... And now it's without the support of people who have filled my every day for years out of what I thought was them caring.
I have a new boss now though; whether it was related to these events, I don't know, but she is very understanding, and I will have the next few weeks nearly-off (just easy small jobs), in which to try and rest, reflect, recover, and sort things out, both physically and mentally. I'll unpack my things, I'll organize them, I'll make myself eat more, I'll hopefully sleep more. I'll cherish the fact that I'm now in the same building with my kyoudai, no longer physically alone as I've been for so many years... and I'll cherish the true friends who truly did what they could for me, even if they're so far away.
I'll try to forgive those not at fault, but I can't make things easy to understand or deal with in that regard. I still don't know how I feel about some of them. It will have to depend more on them than me I guess, and I can't bet on them doing anything anymore. I'll just try to make a new life for myself, even if I'll never get that idealized image of a life where I can just go to a friend's house for games and movies...
I'll try my best to be happy anyway, Dad... I owe it to you, and I know you want us all to get through this. I can feel you in peace, and I'll try to use that for strength...