X-acto Grief

It doesn’t even do anything. It’s not sharp enough.

I remember one of the many times my dad went away when I was a kid. I think this time it was to California. I remember my mom telling me, “He dragged a thumb tack up and down his forearms and said he was suicidal so he could be put in a mental hospital.” I remember the disdain in her voice. I feel it now when I look at the chicken scratches on my thighs.

I feared my depression would come back this winter. But a real cause could be my under active thyroid, explaining my being always cold, the dry skin, the fatigue, the complete lack of desire to continue. They took my blood and told me it was so. This can all be solved by a beautiful pill, so they tell me, I will take it and maybe my body will balance itself back to bliss. But likely no.

I’ve been trying my best, you know, I’ve tried to draw my eyes up and blink away tears, a tactic I’ve been using since middle school. If you look up long enough the tears fall back into your skull.

I’ve tried to talk it out, tell someone I trust, spend time in nature, but no one understands, no one can respond in a way that satisfies, when I do speak about how I’m feeling it devastates. It devastates me because the intensity of my emotions is diminished by the simplicity of the language I must use to convey it. This all-consuming pain is turned into a few words, that float up and disappear as soon as I say it and leave me alone with the crushing realization that some things cannot be repaired. You thought you’d feel better after talking about it but all it does is reaffirm the notion you cannot be fixed. I thought I’d feel better after telling friends but they don’t know what to say. No one can help.

People tell me they care about me and that they’re there for me, but where is this care? I can’t feel it, I can’t see it, it only exists in words. People can like you but not care about you. They can enjoy your presence, want to be around you because you’re fun, but at the end of the day they don’t care, they don’t think about you, they won’t overcome their own discomfort to be a friend to you.

My family cat of ten years died on Valentine’s Day. My mom asked my sister and I to call her, which she never does, and she told us the news over facetime. She was my favorite. I had her for nearly half my life. When I was depressed in high school she licked my tears away and laid by my side. She was my only buddy. Other than seeing my mom, she was what I looked forward to when visiting home, the comfort and expectation that she would be laying on her back in front of the fireplace, warming her big belly.

I hate to think that this is the beginning of a new period of my life. Of one without her. I don’t want to enter it. I want to go back.

I know I'm doing poorly because I ripped my fingernails down to nubs in my apocalypse class. I haven't done that in two years. Today the tips of my fingers ache and I want to tear more off. I'm gonna be better soon I think.

Middle school me (hence the snapchat photo) and Finn, rip my girl <3