Hi my friends. Hi blank white screen on my iPhone that I’ve connected to my portable baby pink keyboard because for whatever reason my desktop won’t turn on. Hi little worries that turn into all sorts of discomfort that swims in my gut. Hi self-doubt and shame and sage I haven’t lit and tea I should have made a pot of and over-sweetened cold-ish but not iced (bc I have been too lazy to make ice) coffee. It’s been awhile.
I’m sorry that…it’s been awhile. And I am sorry that I almost didn’t arrive back at my keyboard tonight. Things have been fuzzy this last week, with the first holiday of the season approaching and elapsing. Halloween, you motherfucker.
This year, people be like “Happy Halloween!” and my mind be like “Thanks, my Dad’s dead!”. But of course I smiled and wished them a spooky, orange and black and cobweb clad hello. Turns out, death’s not so spooky or silly or festive when you’ve been cornered by it for the last 6 months since watching your fucking idol die when he was only 66 for no goddamn good reason at all other than shit’s unfair and cancer sucks.
And I get it. I get that holidays are fun and silly and that they give us some warmth in a sometimes otherwise aloof and lonely existence. But right now they just all feel like Valentine’s Day on steroids. Too showy and too insensitive and created by hallmark to remind me that my Dad’s dead, how bout’ yours?
The irony of all this shit, of course, is that wherever my dad is he’s prolly nagging me for being too morbid about his death. And for even saying the word death like it’s nothing. Because trust me, it is fucking something. And it’s something that has swept everything else out from the foundation underneath me that was once paved with the help of my once innocent and pure and un-tainted intent. When I thought the worst heartbreak actually came from heartbreak. Before I learned the depth that lives in loss. And I know that I sound pissed and that’s because I am. I’m mad at something I can’t even call on the phone and scream at. Like “Hey Cancer, FUCK YOU. Why did you do this to another innocent person? Why was your presence something that even me and my Dad couldn’t find a way to laugh ourselves out of?” Why can’t anything take this pain away.
Anyways, my Dad would prolly tell me to stop writing “prolly” and start writing probably and start saying shit that’s more lovely and inner-strength inducing for those of you and moreover, for myself, who could really use some hope during desperate times like this.
I will say that first of all, shit like this turns us into warriors if we so let it. And that even in our darkest times we don’t have to lean into being shit-holes to ourselves.
I mean I was somebody who would crack a box of wine even when the breeze in my path would swing itself into a direction I didn’t care for. Like, it windy outside? Drink. Its cold outside? Drink. Do you not have ice in your ice cube makers? Well then go down to the nearest liquor store, get a big bag of ice and while you’re at it grab some vodka and juice or soda as well and mother fucking go home and well, drink.
And I’m not saying that everyone’s demons look the same as mine or that everyone should stop drinking and be as quiet as church mice and as clean as the white snow that my puppy hasn’t burrowed into and/or peed or shat on yet. But I am saying that grief does do something to you that almost makes you feel like all other strong things you’ve done before don’t even hold a candle to it, as they say. And for me, it’s allowed me to be just broken enough to decide that there are other things in life I can control that won’t break me any further. Does that make sense? Like, watching my dad die was actually the worst thing I’ve ever been through, and on that day I was a boss. A sober boss, on day 59 of my sobriety. So if I can make it through that I can make it through anything without a drink. And furthermore, living in this quiet kind of brokenness has made me really wonder where I’ve picked unnecessary paths of destruction and despondency before through harboring on the little things. Like continuing to choose to be with men who make me sad, or sitting around hating myself on perfectly lovely Tuesdays, or picking fights I couldn’t win against the weather I can’t change and fucking hating wind so much that I fucking hated myself. That’s the kind of shit I’m talking about, I think. And per usual, I digress.
What I think I’m trying to say is that grief accidentally makes us a warrior, a fighter. A way stronger version of ourselves that we didn’t believe existed anywhere, because it hasn’t needed to exist somewhere before up until now. When we’re really sad and we’re really desperate. I saw my dad die in front of me and I’m still here. So what’s a little holiday? What’s a little raindrop? And that’s where the paradox arrives.
In this fortitude, I think it can be difficult for us to reason with the concept that a seemingly little and lovely holiday can bring us down so easily. But unfortunately, it does. And maybe it isn’t a holiday for you. Maybe it’s a certain smell or a type of sun beam that you wished shone differently now that your loved one isn’t here to enjoy it with. These little moments that we took for granted when our dear loved ones were still here still exist when they’re gone and that hurts so fucking much. And I think that maybe this is okay, too. I hate when people tell me to give myself grace because I don’t quite know how to do that. And at the same time, it’s sort of all we have when these moments of pure and deep and based off of the amount of love we have for that person whose no longer with us arise.
So if you’ve felt down lately, my loves, so have I. I’m here to tell you that’s okay. And maybe go tell myself the same thing, too.
So please forgive me, my friends, that I’ve been in a fuzzy cloud. I’ll try my best to get past them and to write to you anyways. Please do remember that I love you, and even on our worst days, I love you even more. I hope one day soon that will help me, on my worst days, to love myself a bit more too.
Anyways, that’s all I have to say. I’m signing out.
Stay beautiful my loves, together we flock.
xx, Sarah
sara[h]doxicaL @best 