Journal Entry Nov. 5-6, 2022

Cracks can open in the most ordinary life and swallow anyone at all. No one is safe.

Jefferson Grieff - Inside

I’m so tired. Exhausted. What’s a more dramatic word for exhausted?

I find that there aren’t words for what I feel. Language just can’t describe this. I had read that storms create such destruction and noise but a shattered heart is silent. Even the universe can’t create a sound for something so truly awful.

I’m tired. I don’t have anything left. I don’t want this. I can’t change it. I can’t live in it. I can’t figure it out. I'm stuck. Living through each day is monotonous. A day begins, you go through the motions, a day ends. You sleep, sometimes. Another day begins. Pointless really. And I have no more energy for it. I do the right things. I’ve started back into some daily scheduled things. I work.I exercise regularly. I seek counseling. I talk to family and friends. There is no relief.  I try to take care of my family, which is a huge failure most of the time. I don’t make dinner a lot, I can’t keep the house clean.

I’m used to the person I used to be. I can’t work this stranger into my life. I’ve always been a procrastinator and have never been the best houskeeper but I had it figured out. Now i can’t do even little things. Nothing to even help myself out. I am conscious of them. “Tanna. You need to get gas before you go home.” I think most people do that and then you’re forced to leave early the next morning or you’re late. But I do it every time. Then I sit there in the morning,”Tanna you have to get up off the floor and get dressed. You have to have left 15 min ago.” And I still can’t force myself get up.

“Tanna. You need to leave the house at 10.” Leaves late.

“Tanna. You have to get up and clean the dishes.” House stinks. Fruit flies. Garbage overflowing.

“Tanna. You need to clean out the car and repack for class.” Goes out to the car 15 min late for leaving and starts to unpack.

All smallish things. All things I did before but they weren’t constant. I could motivate myself to be a good Mom, wife, aunty, business owner, friend. Now I can never get any of it done right. And i understand a different level of unmotivated. I thought i knew before.

The reputation of who I was is suffering. And I care. I continuously am not enough.

I know this is depression. A trauma response. Acute grief and stress.

But where is the hope that one day I will be able to carry this weight. Accommodate to this new terrible life. Find joy.

My blessings are there. The things I live for. So much of my life from before is here still. My amazing daughters, my grandson, my husband, my family and my friends. I see them. They are there for me, encouraging me. But it’s like they’re all trapped in the basement. I hear their muffled screams and it’s not enough. Only enough to add a huge layer of guilt onto my conscience. Nothing can come up for air under the weight of my amazing son’s absence. It’s huge. Enormous. It’s a heavy blanket over everything and nothing can get out from under it. Do I even want to? I’m not sure. At times I am at the end of what I can handle and in those times I want to escape this constant hellish life but other times I wallow in it. The only thing I have left of him.

I love him so much. I can’t accept any of this. It doesn’t make any sense. I can’t figure it out in my brain. His love for me. It was big! I felt it. He loved me. How can this be? He knew how much I loved him. I showed it and he felt it. His love for his sisters and dad was huge. And he felt theirs. Why? I couldn’t save him. He didn’t give me a chance and that will tear me up for the rest of my days.

We are coming up on what has always been such a joyous season. How do I find joy. How do I create magic for my girls. They deserve it and definitely need it right now. But how? Creating what they need will destroy me. Of course I’ll do it for them. But Jeremy and I will lose ourselves in the process. And that’s ok but it doesn’t help for the “hope for the future” bit.

It can’t get better and it can’t get easier we just have to figure out how to get bigger and more efficient at living this life. But I’m lost in grief.