TW: Substance abuse and profanity
Dear Mom,
I’ve spent the past 10 years putting together what happened to you. It’s like learning a new language that no one else understands. My heart has bled into notebooks and napkins and iPhone notes filled with words trying to make sense of it all. A lot of people tell me they admire how I talk about grief. Past writings feel cathartic, introspective, empathetic. I’ve found ways to capture experiences that feel incoherent. Yet when I sat down to write this year’s letter, there’s only one thing I could think about. Fuck grief. Fuck it to hell.
Sadness is easier for people to digest because you can soothe sadness. Anger makes people uncomfortable. You can’t soothe rage. It’s bright red with a heat that will burn those who get too close. Today I’m enraged.
You’d want me to cool down and go wash my face. To think of you fondly. My family and friends remind me that today will pass and life will move forward. But now and again I have to let that teenager out because she was so scared of being sad she didn’t let herself be angry.
For years I numbed grief with alcohol and drugs that kept everything at an arm’s length. You stop noticing tears when they’re mixing with cheap vodka in a parking lot. Remembering your birthday wasn’t a problem when I was so high I couldn’t remember who I was. I close my eyes and feel the cold shower floor, wishing I’d wash down the drain. To the rest of the world I kept my grief folded neatly inside me in a box on the highest shelf. It lashes out and leaves lacerations that cripple me internally. Being a pillar of resilience all the time stretches you thin, like cling wrap holding too much together. Grief is fucking exhausting.
I thought I’d outgrow the anger, like puberty. For the longest time I didn’t even know who I was angry with. I thought I was angry with you. How you left me on the doorstep into adulthood. How every night I screamed into the void you never answered. How we were robbed of so many precious moments together. I stopped being angry with you when I realized rage doesn’t bring dead people back.
I think I’m still angry with myself. For loving you as much as I did, because maybe if I didn’t this wouldn’t hurt as bad. I’m angry at how deep and intense this rage still feels. That 10 years later I’m still hurting from fresh wounds and healing from old ones. I still hope time will forgive me so I can forgive myself.
Most of what you read on the Internet tells you how to “process grief.” How you’ll come out of it a stronger and more whole person. We write sympathy cards that offer fluffy consolation like, “they’re always watching over you, celebrate them every day you live!” We need to talk about how messy grief can be. It’s complicated and ugly. It will make people feel awkward and there are some wounds that never heal.
We try so hard to be our full selves when in reality we are fragments glued back together. We are the pieces of a lost self we tried to pick up and say, “I just want to be okay.” In reality we’ll never be okay again. We’ll just, be.
You used to get so red in the face when you were angry. You’d explode. Sometimes I’d laugh because I was so nervous and you’d get even more mad. When the anger dissipated you used to tell me it was because, “you cared about things passionately.” Thank you for showing me that anger isn’t a bad thing. I’m still pissed off. And I still love you. Forever.
Leave a Reply