timid

it's been easier to not deal with it, to just push it into the depth of a memory and let it suffocate from my task list at work, my paperwork to get ian's caregivers switched to a new company, anything that doesn't mean investing emotions. but now i'm faced with diving back in, pushing myself to remember the smells and sounds and textures of raw loss. as i retrace our lives and story to push forward on the manuscript, my heart is trying to get me to stop. my mind is only letting me go so far into the memory before pushing panic, and self preservation.

i can't be afraid of what's inside of me, what monster of grief sits in there. it's more comfortable here on this side of it, the loss familiar and usual, though still unwelcome. but back there, back in the ICU and back in the bedroom that i shared with lydia and back in the mangled station wagon, the grief hasn't aged. it's new and it's exposed. i can't be afraid but it's terrifying. i feel my thoughts lurch when they get too close, when they come too near to standing next to the hospital bed and brain surgery drainage tube.

please pray for me, for us, that somehow god would make these hands move on the keyboard and words form in my mind to tell this story at even a fraction of the weight that it's worth.

so, so thankful that he's bigger than me

larissa