So there’s a very strange phenomenon that I’ve noticed. I will start crying because of a particular memory or thought, in the most prominent instance so far was after the wedding we were supposed to officiate together. I held it together through the ceremony and the dinner, then left. In my car, letting the snow melt from my back window while my car warmed up, I started crying. Hard. Because he’d abandoned me to do it myself. Because he was supposed to be the one I sat with and talked to through the dinner. Because we were supposed to sing together at the karaoke. Because HE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE THERE.
Sobbing. For a while. And at some point in the middle of crying, all the reasons left my mind, and I was just crying. Hysterically. I suddenly felt as though I should stop now. I’m milking this. I’m being fake. This is insincere.
I couldn’t stop. So I made myself think about all those reasons again, the songs we were supposed to sing. What he looked like when I found him. Anything I could focus on to give myself a REASON to be sobbing hysterically.
When I stopped I felt… empty. And terrible. I wondered if I was really heartless and unfeeling, because I couldn’t keep my reasons present in my head. Because I didn’t feel meaning behind the crying.
I know I loved him. I know this destroyed me. I know that I truly do miss him and mourn him. But I still felt like a big fraud.
I wonder if that’s a bit of a defense mechanism that our minds use. If they know that at some point, our psyche can’t handle it all, and just let our minds go blank. Let us finish the crying without compounding the pain of the reason we’re crying, and in the process, give us another reason to feel bad.
I am not a fraud. I have permission to feel my feelings. Everyone does. Whether they loved him with their whole heart and he was the center of their world, or they knew him in passing and really liked him that one time they met him. We are allowed to mourn.
Written 3/6/2014
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