All The Cool New Things

I'm failing.  I couldn't keep her alive.  I can't let her die.

 This horrid new normal is determined to break me, or at least bend me to its will.  You will live without a daughter.  You will learn to like at least something about it.  You will.  Not fitting in, yet?  Let's just cut off another chunk of your flesh and try again.  

I don't want to embrace today.  I do not trust tomorrow.  My job is to preserve the world I used to love.  It's all I have.

What is so bad about living in the past, before the sirens and all the gore? Will I really miss out on all the cool new things happening in my post-Cory world?

And really, looking to the future is for fools, is it not?  Why make plans if someone might just die before you get to them?  What is the point?

Will Jake really start high school next year, with the bus stop the very one Cory bopped to every morning?  He might or he might not.  He might die.

And so I cover him with kisses and beg him for hugs, treating him like the ten year old he was and not the nearly fourteen year old he is. I am needy, and I hate it, but I cannot stop myself.  In exchange for his love and the magical way he is just alive every day when I get home,  I try not to let him feel any pain or disappointment, other than the loss of his sister. Chores?  As if.

 You've heard of the breathing allowance?  You don't have to do anything to collect the money but be there, drawing breath?  It's sort of like that between us now, but with the additional expectations of not setting fires or killing anyone.  I can't give him Cory back and so I give him a pass on most everything.  Here, son, let me pick out your outfit to wear.  Better yet, let me bring it to you like a live-in butler.  It's an interesting choice of parenting style.  Cory must be so pissed.

I can feel myself fucking up all over the place- failure at work, failure at home, failure as a parent, failure at relationships- but just keep steam rolling ahead.  Finances?  Fail.  Moderate house-keeping?  Fail.  Closet organization?  (Laughs politely.)  I have two modes of personal appearance:  aging super model (everything goes together and the makeup is on point) and clinically depressed (pillow creases on face and uncombed hair).

So is this success at grieving: being alive, drawing breath, but not really doing anything of value?  Is making things worse for myself and everyone around me what is considered "coping"  and learning to live with my "new normal"?

I'd rather sit back and share a Cory story with someone.  Seeing her face clearly is the one thing I still get right.  Sometimes I can even make other people see her, too.