Turn Around

Even the happy things are a little sad.  That's hard, but fair, I suppose.

But it's the undeniable marks of progress make you more than a little uneasy.

It took years for me to feel even partially okay about celebrating holidays without Cory.  When asked by, Lady, my kindhearted therapist, why I felt so guilty about this, I remember telling her that it felt like I was leaving Cory behind.  That was something I swore I'd never do.  She would never see my back.  Not mine.  Leave that crap for the would-be dads and the would-be grandmas.

[In the painting and letter she made me, "Thank you for loving me...for staying with me...for holding my hand..."]

Lady, who by this time had dealt with me for months and was no doubt a little weary of my fatalist attitude, tried once again to help me see something different.

"What if you're not turning your back on her?  What if she's behind you, looking over your shoulder, so excited to see everything that you're doing?"

I stopped seeing Lady about three years ago, give or take.  But her words...here they are again.

Going back to finish my degree, in the same program I was in when the accident happened, was something I put off as long as possible.  By the time I did it; it was less a choice and more of a necessity.

 School has never been hard for me.  I love to read; I love to write.  But the triggers were everywhere.  It wasn't the work I was afraid of, not even the time it took up of my evenings and weekends; it was going back to the place where it all went so desperately wrong.

The first night I jumped back into class, all I could think about was my co-worker and classmate showing up at my house with chicken as soon as she'd heard, standing in the middle of my living room, crying and reaching out her arms to me...that dear, sweet woman.

For those first few nights of class, that scene washed over me again and again.  I remembered some parts down to the detail, like what my co-worker and classmate was wearing, but some parts were murky, like the order of things.   Most of all, I remembered how confused I felt to see this kind and dear friend that I'd only known in a work and school context standing in my living room.  It was sort of like when you were little and ran into your teacher out in public and could not understand what she was doing there since she obviously lived at the school.

But one class turned into another.  And another.  The semesters passed.  And in a week or so, I'll be finished.  Nearly seven years, after the accident and dropping out of the program, I will have finished what I started back when Cory was still alive.  Back when I was reading her my papers and whooping it up over my grades.

Don't get me wrong, part of me is ready to dance a jig that I am finished with this part of my education.  But there is another part, the part that tightens my chest without warning, that fears that whenever  I move forward, Cory gets further away.

Of course, logically, I know this isn't true.  But my heart.  My heart knows nothing of logic.

I remember being a little nervous about taking classes back then because Cory hadn't been stabilized for very long and when she wasn't well, taking care of her was my number one priority.  Cory had come to me, sat on the end of my bed, the way she always used to do, and asked me about it.  She wanted to know if I thought she was a burden and if I wished I had a different sort of daughter who didn't have these problems.  Cory had these sort of thoughts often because she suffered from depression so much of the time.  Every time she asked me something like this or said something similar, I had to try every bit as hard as Lady tried with me.  "Cory, you are not a burden!  I wouldn't trade you for anyone!  Don't you see?  You've got it all turned around.  You are the reason I want to go back to school in the first place.  I want you to see that it doesn't matter how long it takes you to get there as long as you get there.  If I can do it, you can do it, too."

It doesn't matter how long it takes.  As long as you get there.

I'm not gonna walk.  Crowds, these days, make me feel ill.  And I'm not sure what exactly she can see from wherever she is.  But I hope somehow she will know when I'm finished.  And I hope she will know that she's the reason I made it.  Not despite her.  But because of her.

Always, always, my Cory Girl.