This is a very sad, hurt, introspective post, and I couldn’t take criticism about what I have to say here, so please don’t read on if you don’t want anything weighty to consider, to read that I have uncharitable, selfish thoughts and feelings sometimes, or feel that I might need to be taken to task for what I have to express here. Please.

I Am Made of Grey

Have you ever cried so hard, so loud, for so long that your howls seem to turn into hollow, ringing echoes? As if all the selves you ever were, or might have ever been are keening in harmony and empathy? In the depths and damps of such chasms of pain, do you wonder if the world is the cavernous space into which you pour your screams, or is it your own arid, empty heart?

My own memories are shipwrecked on a desolate airless moon, where the seasons speed by in days’ time, flickering like time-lapse, either the purest blinding white light, or the blackest, coldest deepest night. There is no grey there but the shadows of scars caused by meteoric blows - vast craters the size of other planets’ living continents, visible even to the single-lensed eyes of the inhabitants of those green lands, light years distant - and the silvery grey substance of the moon itself.

When I howl into that vacuum, I tell myself that the echoes are the sounds of millions of voices joining mine, so that I won’t feel so lost. But when the tears run dry and I have no choice but to tune into the hungry silence, all I hear is my own ragged breathing, and the beat of my castaway heart.

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This Sunday was mother’s day. It was also the tenth year anniversary of my father’s death. Next Saturday will be 10 years since Robbie died as well. I can’t expect sympathy from people who aren’t near me, or who don’t know how hard this time is for me, but to be abandoned and placed second (third, fourth, fifth) by those who know, who live with me, or see and talk to me every day, is harder than I could have imagined. Left alone with my grief and all the memories, more work than I could handle at the best of times, a wreck of a house, money worries, work worries, the responsibility of a whole household and then some, I am hurt, angry, and feeling like I’ve felt since I can remember: a nuisance, a burden, a used-up convenience. If I’m not being useful or helpful in some active way, then I am invisible – or should be. Who, of those who know me well, hasn’t wondered why I feel this way over and over again? And I honestly can’t blame another soul. No one but myself has been responsible for me – beyond the very basics – since I was born, and not for anything else since I was able to handle the basics. There must be something in me, about me, that makes me so easy to abandon. I wish someone, anyone, even the people that I am most afraid to talk to, the people who are at the heart of who I am – the people who taught me to be able to walk away - could tell me why I can’t be loved completely, the way other people are. I can take the truth, however hard it might be, because it might help me change into someone who can be loved unconditionally. People say I am good, that I do good things, that I am a good person, and that I make the world a better place, why would they lie about that? And if that is true, why don’t I deserve the kind of unshakable, selfless love and devotion that others give to one another? What is it about me?
There are mothers who would give their lives, their souls, every thing and every last penny for their children; there are husbands and wives who would walk through fire for their loved ones; what is it about me that doesn’t inspire this kind of devotion? Why don’t people stand up for me? Why wouldn’t someone close to me put my pain before their own pleasure or safety? I can’t expect everyone to – other mothers have their own children, other lovers have their own spouses, and I have nothing but respect for those who put their own first – but what about my own? Or maybe that’s just it… maybe I truly have no one of my own. Maybe that’s my true birthmark, and I am meant to walk the world alone like Caine. But for what sin? And could I ever atone? It seems that my choices are to continue to try to be as useful and deserving as possible to earn the kindnesses I do receive, and/or accept the truth that I can only ever expect so much love from anyone, even my so-called own, and know that when the chips are really down, and the darkness is deepest, that I can truly depend on no one but myself – no matter how much that hurts.
I suppose I’ll never know how hard one has to work, how good one has to be to earn the true, total devotion of another human being, but I know I would die of grief if I quit trying to find out.

Honestly, sorrowfully, and apologetically,
-sam