It’s been a year.
A whole year.
365 days.
525,600 minutes. *
That’s how long I haven’t had a dad for.
That’s how long it’s been since the worst day of my family’s life.
Looking back now, a year later, it’s crazy to think about that day. I don’t think about it too often for multiple reasons. Obviously, there is pain there that I do not wish to revisit. I also managed to block out a lot of the smaller memories. What I do remember is how normal the day was. It was a Thursday. We didn’t have any fun plans or something to do. We just wanted to come together as a family and spend a weekend with each other while Dad healed in the hospital. When that didn’t happen and our world ended, “normal” days became terrifying to me. I began to have panic attacks on Thursday afternoons. I would have chest pain and not be able to breathe and not understand what was happening. My body would automatically go into panic mode like muscle memory, and it was so scary. I still don’t love Thursday’s, but I’ve gotten better with rationalizing that not all Thursdays are going to be the worst day of my life.
I’ve learned a lot about myself in this past year. I have learned that I have a lot of will power, I will do absolutely anything to keep my family safe, and I will sacrifice myself to make sure everyone else is taken care of before me. I think all these traits are both good and bad.
I think having strong will power is good because I do what I say I will do. I make promises and I keep them. I say I’m done drinking; I stop drinking and actually enjoy being sober. I say I will find a job; I find my dream job in the most insane way possible. Which is a story for another day. I think the downside to having such a strong determination to follow through with things is that I get disappointed when the universe intervenes and says no. I don’t handle change well. At this point, I am definitely afraid of plans changing. I think it goes back to the fact that I had a plan to spend a weekend with my mom and siblings and my dad would be home soon and that did not happen. The universe said no and I can’t alter my reality from what it is. That’s it. It’s an irrational fear, but it’s there. I don’t like it. I don’t handle it well and I’m working on fixing that.
I don’t believe there are many downsides to knowing you will do whatever it takes to keep your family safe. I think that’s a natural feeling and instinct. However, I know that sometimes I overstep. I can be too much and too involved in my sibling’s lives and even though I know I’m doing something out of love and protection, it can feel suffocating. I hope that after this year of my neurotic “mothering”, they all understand where it came from and to be honest, where it will continue to come from. I don’t think I will ever be able to turn off those feelings. I need my family safe at all times and I will do whatever is necessary to make sure that is my reality. Sorry if that’s selfish.
My ability to take care of others before myself is one I used to pride myself on. I was always so proud knowing my friends and family would always have me to lean on. They could come to me about anything, and I would drop whatever I was doing to be there for them. One of the biggest lessons I have learned and am currently still battling is accepting that I am not okay and letting other people take care of me. I think in the exact moment that I heard my mom scream that we lost my dad, my brain kicked into a mode of “take care of them”. I was holding my screaming mother. I picked my brother up off the floor and helped him into bed. I held my sister as she cried. I called our friends and family and told them what was going on. I listened to them cry on the phone and I comforted them. I listened to their grief and their pain, and I consoled them. I ran errands the next day because they needed to be done. I made sure we were functioning. I moved into my family’s house because I felt as though my family needed me. I took on this role because it was there. But it wasn’t mine to take. I could have left it empty. I could have let myself feel and process what was going on. I could have stayed in bed, I didn’t need to walk 4 miles every morning, I didn’t need to cook dinner every night, and I definitely didn’t need to push all my grief away so I wouldn’t feel it. I should have welcomed it. I should have embraced the pain and fear and sadness and experienced it.
I want to touch a bit more on this idea of people being “strong”. What makes a person strong mentally or emotionally? I have dealt with this question for a huge part of my life, but this last year has really opened my eyes. I may get out of bed every morning. I may have a morning routine. I may workout, shower and go to work on time every day. I may not cry every day. I may not have anxiety every day (its close but not quite). I may be able to talk about my dad, look at pictures and videos of him and not breakdown. I have gotten through birthdays, holidays, and vacations without him. I may also appear to be happy, smiling and enjoying my life. None of those things that I may or may not be able to do have any holding on whether I am doing okay inside. Because I’m not. I can do all those things; I can seemingly have “moved on” and am “holding up so well” but I’m not. I’m realizing now that all those behaviors are defense mechanisms that my brain forced me to do because I had no other choice.
Watching your world fall apart is a scary thing. Watching it fall apart and needing to try and fix it has evidently been scarier. When I look back at my actions in the past year there are none that I regret that I did towards anyone else. I look back now and know that I should have treated myself better. There is no right or wrong way to handle grief and what comes with it. Every person deals with sadness, anger, fear, and anxiety differently. I just know that for myself, I chose to ignore a lot of my emotions and tried to help everyone else who was going through it instead.
I posted a while ago that I was going to start therapy. I did do that, and I was proud of myself for taking that step. However, I immediately knew that I was with the wrong therapist and instead of doing the work and finding the right fit, I stopped altogether. I took on the responsibility of helping plan my dad’s memorial. It is going to be held the day after the one-year anniversary of losing him. (So tomorrow if you are reading this the day I post) Personally, I didn’t think having the memorial that close to the anniversary was a good idea. I thought our emotions would be WAY too high, it would be chaotic and too important of an event to want to be working on and planning all while trying to cope with everything else. I don’t know if I was right or wrong with that feeling since it hasn’t happened yet, but what I do know is that I have broken down a little more in the past few weeks because of this planning. I have been the “strong” one in the family for this whole year, so it made sense that I take the lead with this. Thankfully I have some wonderful friends who have stepped in and taken over so that I don’t completely lose it. Even though I have them now, there is still so much pressure to make sure this day is what everyone wants and needs it to be for their own personal closure. Which, as I’m writing this, is a perfect example of me putting too much stress on myself to make things good for others instead of me.
I know the day will be perfect. I know it will happen and we will cry and be sad, but we will also laugh and tell stories about the wonderful man we lost. I am prepared to be overwhelmed and under prepared for what is about to take place. I know I won’t be ready for the intense out-pouring of love and sadness people are going to share with my family and me. But I know we will make it through that day together. I also know that we will get through the one-year anniversary of the worst day of our lives. We will wake up; we will survive it and then we will go to bed and sleep just like we have done every day since. Time continues to go on even when we wish it would stop. Just for a second. We want to skip a day or a weekend because it’s going to be too hard, but we don’t get that luxury. Facing the pain is good for us. It’s good for me at least. It’s going to help me accept that there are so many people who love me and want to make sure I’m okay. I don’t need to keep treading water on my own when there are lifeboats all around me.
I think now, a year later, I’m still very much at the starting point of all of this. I do need help. I need to access my pain and sadness. I need to address the problems this has caused in my need for controlling all aspects of my life. My control issues have proven to be the most detrimental to my well-being and that makes sense. I can’t control everyone I love. I can’t wrap them all in giant bubble wrap to make sure they never get hurt. I can’t control when or if I lose another person that I love. I have to learn that this is life and I need to let go and live it.
It’s been a year. I’m still just trying to survive.
*Rent is responsible for me always knowing exactly how many minutes are in a year. It is also responsible for my love of musical theater but that’s not what this is about
