A friend posted the photo this morning.
I've spent the last 3-4 weeks so busy I'm left exhausted, frustrated, defeated, and mostly numb & empty. I mostly prefer numb to the searing pain that was the weeks before. I have transitioned I think to speak of details of Ryan's death as statements of fact, separated from their emotional connection. I worry how this makes me appear to others (i.e. "insensitive", "crazy", "strong", "detatched") and while I say I don't really care - I do.
My fight is almost exclusively in my mind now. I've packaged up things so well that I am no longer the reactive, teary-eyed person in public that I'm anticipated to be or that people are scared I will turn into. I'm the occasionally screaming, silent tear mourner that lost her Every Day nearly 6 months ago now. The battle remains almost exclusively in private now.
I fear not seeing the year 2016 by my own hand. I fear looking back at 35 and wondering why I am still where I am at. I fear that if I move forward I will be subject to a different level of insensitive comments.
I want to take a trip. I want to challenge my brain and take the MCAT, continuing on with school. I want to crush it on the marathon next year. I want to be the little white lady one day drinking Guinness and telling stories and sharing experiences that leave people's mouths wide open and who then walk away inspired. All of these take day-by-day and even moment-by-moment struggles to challenge the way I can't help but think and the darkness I'd prefer to disappear into.
Just because I want those positives doesn't mean I still don't want Ryan. Running well next year, experiencing another birthday, finding my passions and trying new things doesn't negate the feelings of wishing for him to be there with and for me. It doesn't dull the pain of him not being there; it probably intensifies it. Because I'll look for him and not find him at the finish line, I'll cry for the empty spot on the beach next to me and the seat that won't be filled at graduation.
People are confused at times: "moving forward" = "moving on" they think. Ryan won't ever be forgotten. His memory brings me JOY, not pain! My Sweetheart won't ever not be loved, mourned, and missed. He was my first choice - robbed from me not by my own or his wishes. I can still carry him with me, literally and metaphorically, as I search for my own meaning in life and push myself to live in a way that he would be proud of. For now, I wander numb through the house - private tears running down my face searching for enough strength to begin the arduous task of feeding myself or even getting out of bed, hoping for strength to be gifted to me by a stranger or a less-than-handful of friends that didn't lose hope in me.
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