All the Small Things
Every day, without fail, there will be a time where I can hear myself screaming inside. Just hold it together. Get through this next moment. Just think of nothing.
Sometimes it’s the hard stuff that gets me, but other times it’s something so small that it makes no sense to those around me why I suddenly can’t speak. That’s in part why I made this blog. While not only am I not able to find words in the moment, I also refuse to be the person that only speaks of sadness, making people worry and spreading my pain. I also hate attention and don’t like people pitying me which has lead me to be silent and misunderstood. I have decided to put my heart here in hopes that others going through it won’t feel so alone and that those around us trying to support us will get a better understanding of what we go through.
Today. Today was a hard one. Things I don’t see coming. Filling out the kids’ school registration online, I had to remove 2 of their 4 emergency contacts. As if deleting my husband and dad wasn’t hard enough, I also had to give a reason why- 5 freaking times. I’m getting better at not immediately melting down at these small things, I save that for later. It doesn’t mean that I’m not losing my shit inside at all of the forms I now have to check “single” because they don’t have a widow option, or all of the clueless strangers that make comments about my husband that I have to correct, or having to pull up a picture on my phone that was taken pre-wreck and seeing all our precious memories and smiling faces, or even just realizing I bought something at the store that only my husband liked out of habit. The small things come with a big knife to the heart.
There are “not so small” things that can derail me for days, making it seem impossible to leave my bed. Some you see coming, like father’s day, birthdays and weddings. Others, not so much. I finally got the courage to try and switch our cell phone account into my name. I assumed it would be straight forward, but oh how I was wrong. In order to transfer the account, all of my voicemails will be deleted. I promptly aborted mission and told them I would call back once they were saved somewhere. To save the voicemails, I had to click on them. One by one, over and over, I heard his voice tell me how he misses me, loves me, how amazing I am, and the hardest to hear- that he will be home soon. Silently screaming with tears running down my face I listened and saved those messages one by one. Years and years worth of messages. The intensity that I miss that voice is unbearable. My body was heaving with pain by the time I was done and I could do nothing but silently cry myself to sleep and hope my kids didn’t hear me. Time keeps moving though, and it wasn’t long before I had to gather myself and continue with my battle scars hidden inside.
All day, every part of me hurts and all I can do is plaster on a fake amount of “normalcy” to pass by and keep moving. No one sees the battle, they only see the mask.