Winter Break

My best friend since grade school once said, "The most dangerous place you can be is alone with your thoughts."

She is a wise woman.  Winter break has provided me a chance to rest and baby myself through some very difficult days.  I stocked up on art supplies and made the lofty goal of leaving the house every day.  While I did make a lot of art, I spent the majority of my time holed up in my bed, chasing down dreams of Cory every chance I got.  My brain, relieved of its responsibilities to others, began working overtime from its emotional center, and soon I couldn't sleep, no matter how much meds I took.  Four a.m. would find me up in the studio of a silent house, eating pineapple chunks and pecans as I painted or watched old episodes of Law and Order, or simply cried.  I want my girl. 
The next day, I'd be sawing logs like a rock star, all day long.  Before long, I'd completely reversed my days and nights, and was ready for the Warped Tour.

I left the house maybe three times in the last two weeks.  Bathing has been optional.  Eating, the same.  I slept; I painted; I wrote- although, not on the blog very much, admittedly.  In unbelievable amounts of pain, I tend to back away rather than reach out to people.

Here's what I thought about:

Don't believe the old adage...it doesn't get easier with time.  At least, it hasn't for me.  The more time goes by, the more real it becomes.  I am never going to miss her less, but every day I miss her more.  It's a shit deal.

I can now understand why some people turn to drugs and alcohol to relieve their pain.  I promise I'm not out trying to score a hit, the most I'll do in drown myself in carrot cake, but still...I never understood why anyone would do something they knew to be so harmful.  Well, now I know.  Pain this bad...you'd do just about anything to have some relief, even if it's only temporary.

I can be a very ugly person.  I watched Tim helping Jake put together his new bb gun the other day, and felt such a desperate sick wave of jealousy come over me, that I had to leave the room.  One minute, I was admiring the tilt of Jake's head, the way his jaw was starting to become more defined as he grows older; the next my heart was in my throat as I realized he wasn't having the happy childhood Cory had enjoyed; the next I was stumbling out of the room as fast I could, so jealous that Tim still has his boy, I could hardly see straight.  What kind of mother thinks that about her own child?  Hence, the ugly label.  When I'm wrong, I say I'm wrong- just like Baby's father in Dirty Dancing.

I didn't go to the cemetery at all, not even on the holidays.  I disgust myself.  I should be there for her, but I cannot bear it.  It ruins me every time I see that piece of ground.  I cowered here in my bed, warm and sick in my denial.

One night I woke up out of dead sleep, my eyes springing open, certain I had caused Cory to want to die because I'd told her to keep her hair out of her soup at the last meal we shared together.

Sleeping has been my main job this winter break.  It has been either fighting me or drowning me, no in between.  It provides a reprieve from the pain, and sometimes, boasts the most amazing illusions and/or chance meetings for Cory and I between her world and mine.  I never know when I'll get to see her, but it's like the lottery- you can't win if you don't play.  I've been playing every dollar I have.

And finally, this wretched business of acceptance.  I don't know how to do it, folks.  I just don't.  And frankly, I'm not ready or willing to learn.  Is that something, I wonder, that people decide, deliberately, or does time just sort of steamroll that shit over you when you're too tired to crawl away?