grief is quite the silent beast

i used to feel my emotions on hyperdrive, up until about two weeks ago when i finally received lifechanging medical care that i have needed for years but was consistently denied time again and time again.

these past two weeks or so have been the first days of my life where i have lived with my nervous system under my skin instead of sitting right on top of it. having my medical conditions treated has done more for me than eight whole years on constant trials of psychiatric medication ever did for my emotions and mood.

that being said, these have also been the first two weeks that i know of in my memory where i have actually lived in my own body. i can actually feel my emotions without feeling like i am being injected with lava-hot potassium every single time something would make me feel anything. i can actually process my feelings, acknowledge them, and i no longer react to the majority of things i used to react very innapropriately towards.

cutting straight to the chase here: my dad died at the end of last october, and after my week and a half of what i’ll call my ‘honeymoon period’ after starting my new treatments where i finally began to feel truly healthy for the first time ever, now that the endorphins have worn off, i’m starting to actually feel the real weight of my feelings and all else that i carry.

my emotions used to be loud. hot. violent, even. physically destructive to everything around me and myself. they were always unpredictable to those around me, which led me to become isolated.

the day my dad died, the pain was unbearable. the days, weeks, months after that, likewise, were unbearable. 

and the pain now, although functionally bearable, is still unbearable, albeit in such a different way.

like i said, it was violent and destructive and agonising. it felt like a hole was being eaten right in the centre of my abdomen, right below my sternum and right above my stomach.

but that was loud.

now that i’m able to feel my authentic emotions without any sort of outside influence or disruption blowing them off centre, that grief that i knew to be so painfully fortississimo, is eerily dead silent. 

but it’s there.

i feel like i am very much at a baseline. no ups, no downs, but i am also beginning to recognise that i am probably very deeply depressed right now. 

it’s such an icy feeling. almost like glacial claws digging into where that hole i mentioned formed, embedding themselves ice cold into the walls. my body runs hot like a furnace, but inside i feel grimly frigid. 

i swapped out my signature cross pendant on my chain with the ring they found my father wearing when he died. i finally garnered the strength that day to take his broken necklace out of the biohazard bag it was given to me in and place it atop the weed jar i put my portion of his ashes in.

he would’ve been so proud to know that that jar came from my cousin - his nephew’s - business.

it sits right in front of a photo of him and i from when i was in fifth grade, from a parent child event. 

i may not have grown up with ‘normal’ parental arrangements - i mean i was raised in the custody of his mother, my grandmother, and i haven’t seen my biological mother since i was two years old.

but he showed up whenever he could, dressed the best he could despite having unstable living arrangements and eventually ending up homeless until the end of his life with minimal support from our family. 

grief is so silent, that you never sense it sneaking up behind you at any given moment. i remember bursting into tears in the middle of a tj maxx because of this stupid lion stuffed animal i found that had no ears. i still think about it, and wonder if i could ever go back to get one.

i’ll find myself laying in bed and having that feeling driven into my heart like a stake; he’s not here anymore. at least, his body and consciousness don’t work in tandem anymore like they used to. they’re separate now; his body returning to the earth he so lovingly roamed like it was his own personal playground as i spread his ashes along his favourite duck pond with my best friend, and his consciousness, although i don’t know where, is out there.

i know it is. from the first day of dias de los muertos, when i went out with my partner for chinese food in his honour since i had no ofrenda nor the ability to afford to build even the shittiest of one. i had broken my glasses in anger a month or so prior. 

yet, when i looked out that window, where we sat in the glow of golden hour, i saw him sparkling amongst the bright red leaves that swayed in the autumn breeze. i know that was him. after his death, the world has looked so much more beautiful since then. because his soul is. his soul is beautiful, and always has been.

father’s day this year - the first one since his death - was terrible. but not in the way i tried to brace myself for, or was convinced i could have been able to anticipate. it wasn’t agonising, it was freezing. empty. barren.

no walking to his favourite fish shop or getting shitty food at jack in the box, no none of that.

the day before that sunday i found myself at his favourite carl’s jr. location. it didn’t wrack me with sobs like i was convinced it would. in fact, it was surprisingly pleasant. i picked up my food from the counter, and sat in a singles booth along the wall. since his death, not even putting on his favourite shirt made me feel so warm again. but i didn’t immediately recognise it, not in that moment.

this isn’t something that takes getting used to, or that will ever fade or go away with time. not like most other emotionally scarring things. a breakup usually takes about half of the duration of the relationship to recover from, losing an important material item will probably have you feeling down in the dumps for a while, but grief is forever.

there is a hole in my heart that is six foot five inches tall, and it is two hundred pounds lighter. emptier. 

grief is a silent beast, one that attaches itself to you and haunts you significantly more than a spirit ever could. grief is the ghost that is more threatening than even the most restless souls.

at times, it has me convinced that i’m one of them.