(no subject)
I was sitting at my desk this morning, working on an email to a provider, when this tight feeling seized up my chest and I couldn’t breathe. At first I thought it was a panic attack, but then I was struck by this overwhelming and sudden sense of loss. I had tears sliding down my cheeks before I realized I had even started crying and could not for the life of me figure out why. It took me a good five minutes to realize what my mind and body had decided to mourn.
When it first happened, all there was was this tremendous feeling of hurt and betrayal that it took me weeks to work through. I was so blindsided by it all that hurt was all that could make it through the initial shock. The hits kept coming in such a rapid-fire succession I didn’t have time to move past it, either. Anger came slowly; it was a relief when it did, when I could feel something other than pain. I happily and gleefully embraced that new emotion because it felt freeing. Petty hatred and the ways in which I expressed it felt good because it almost felt like justified revenge. I was pretty sure I’d grow out of it eventually. I’m not a vengeful person by nature. I try not to cling that desperately to hatred, because it is cold comfort and will twist your heart if you hold on too long. But it helped, in its way, in its time.
It never really hit me until today, though, that I lost something in all of this. It’s not just seven and a half years of friendship and all the accompanying memories that are suddenly marred and blackened by how it happened. It’s more than things that were created jointly and plans for projects down the road that now will never be. I lost someone: a person who I spoke to daily, who I celebrated with, cried with, who I leaned on, who leaned on me. Someone who was one of the people I called to hold me together when I thought my mother was dying, who listened when the world was falling apart around me and who I listened to when her world was falling apart around her. This person that had been a substantial part of my life for seven years is suddenly gone - gone in a way that feels so much more permanent than a spat that might resolve itself a few months down the road.
In a way, it feels like a death. This person has been removed that suddenly and that completely from everything and all I’m left with in the end is this empty spot they used to occupy and a lot of questions that I can’t answer. That nobody else can answer for me, either.
I thought I’d moved on to the glorious and wonderful numb stage, but I guess I’ve got a little ways left to go before I get there.
Posted via m.livejournal.com.
When it first happened, all there was was this tremendous feeling of hurt and betrayal that it took me weeks to work through. I was so blindsided by it all that hurt was all that could make it through the initial shock. The hits kept coming in such a rapid-fire succession I didn’t have time to move past it, either. Anger came slowly; it was a relief when it did, when I could feel something other than pain. I happily and gleefully embraced that new emotion because it felt freeing. Petty hatred and the ways in which I expressed it felt good because it almost felt like justified revenge. I was pretty sure I’d grow out of it eventually. I’m not a vengeful person by nature. I try not to cling that desperately to hatred, because it is cold comfort and will twist your heart if you hold on too long. But it helped, in its way, in its time.
It never really hit me until today, though, that I lost something in all of this. It’s not just seven and a half years of friendship and all the accompanying memories that are suddenly marred and blackened by how it happened. It’s more than things that were created jointly and plans for projects down the road that now will never be. I lost someone: a person who I spoke to daily, who I celebrated with, cried with, who I leaned on, who leaned on me. Someone who was one of the people I called to hold me together when I thought my mother was dying, who listened when the world was falling apart around me and who I listened to when her world was falling apart around her. This person that had been a substantial part of my life for seven years is suddenly gone - gone in a way that feels so much more permanent than a spat that might resolve itself a few months down the road.
In a way, it feels like a death. This person has been removed that suddenly and that completely from everything and all I’m left with in the end is this empty spot they used to occupy and a lot of questions that I can’t answer. That nobody else can answer for me, either.
I thought I’d moved on to the glorious and wonderful numb stage, but I guess I’ve got a little ways left to go before I get there.
Posted via m.livejournal.com.