Coffee Shop

Tim has hauled me out of the house.  We've been at coffee, alternately trading headphones to share a song and arguing about the past for well over an hour.  I wasn't sure I wanted to come to coffee today- the last thing I want right now is to be around people.   I don't want to see them and I don't want them to see me.  Tim insisted, recognizing my hiding behavior of this weekend as the engulfing depression it is.

Yesterday, I slept all day and night, afraid to be awake for more than a few minutes at a time.  When I was awake, the pain, despair, hopelessness, and guilt would come rushing over me, squeezing all the air out of my lungs.  Constant panic attacks.  It was better to hide.

Here I was, with a new car and the ability to leave the house on a whim after weeks of Cabin Fever, and I couldn't even get out of bed.  I can't really explain it other than to say that sometimes being awake and knowing she's dead and gone forever is just too much to bear.  I opt out.  If you'd seen what I did, you'd understand.

Jake's finger-slicing accident at school mid-week had brought up some bad feelings and thoughts, and they linger, the sharpest little burrs clinging to all my hurt parts.  I'm so relieved Jacob was able to be stitched up and will only suffer a scar he can show off to all the girls.  I am.  But...

But he was hurt and able to be fixed, in a clean hospital under bright lights by people who were compassionate and kind.  Cory was...they say...killed instantly.  No one would- or could- do anything.  I had to watch the confusing, frightening inactivity as they stalled, reluctant to tell me she was dead.  No one even tried.  I can't tell you what that does to a mother to see her child lying there helpless and no one doing anything about it.  Over the last few days, I keep seeing them cutting her shirt open on the road, and I can feel the triumph and relief rise up in my breast to know at last they are doing something, they're going to save her, she's going to be okay.  I crane my head forward, lost in the memory, trying to see them pull out the paddles, and feeling my blood run cold and my scalp tighten as I realize they're not bringing the paddles out.  I see this over and over again.  Then I usually go on a rant about how some people get the paddles and some people don't, and what did my good girl ever do to anyone to deserve no chance at all?

 Maybe everyone else knew with one glance that she was most certainly dead, but I did not.  I couldn't see it.  To see it would drive me insane, and I would not even consider the possibility until someone forced it on me, and then bullied me into leaving her lying there on the road like roadkill.  I hate myself for that.  I really do.

The guilt that I didn't prevent her accident still plagues me most days.  The fact that I didn't fight the shock, push past the hands that held me back to get to her, to touch her will never leave me.  The fact that I didn't fight the police and refuse to leave her side as they did all their stupid accident reconstruction makes me feel small and ashamed.  She wouldn't have left my side.  They would've have to physically haul her away.  That I know.  I'm sorry, Cory.  I'm so sorry.

I try to make sense of it all and I get so tired.  I think of the future and I get so scared.  Sometimes it's easier to just sleep my time away.  If I had it my way, I'd never leave my house again.  And way too often, I wish I could just stay asleep forever.