I make people uncomfortable.
As honest and open as I am here, I'm the same in person and that makes people cringe. Not everyone but I have a pretty good knack at reading people, observing their behavior and mannerisms, noting when they are queasy after they've digested a bit of my reality.
This habit (gift) especially picked up after Christopher died. The majority of people I have encountered in the past 8 months have been strangers, acquaintances, people I haven't seen or spoken to in years beyond the realms of social media. In these meetings, it goes one of two ways, we are an instant connection or we aren't.
To the ones that I have made uncomfortable or uneasy, I'm sorry.
I know I'm intense.
My life is intense.
I say things without regret, and I try to live my life this way now. I'm sorry my pain and hurt is worn with ease. I've grown accustom to this hurt and instead of wearing it as a hooded cloak, I wear it as a cape.
You see, I want my two children to know that their pain, their agony is not to be determined by your comfort level. I want you to know that one day you're going to experience this level of pain and that you can still live a beautiful life. Side by side. Pain and joy. They can exist together.
That one day you may be just as intense as I am. It can happen in an instant. I don't say these things out of malice or ill will.
I was abruptly reminded of how quickly life can turn a corner and want to share my journey so if you ever go down this path, you'll meet a kind, friendly face.
Actually, you'll meet multiple friendly faces.
This is what I do know to be true.
Our paths won't be the same, similar but never identical. The hurt, the pain, the longing, the intense, overwhelming sadness that you thought you were immune to. That will be the same.
It comes, it goes but it will always be there. The quotes, the mantras, the books, the glimpses of grief that have been shared, it is all true.
Wear it proudly.
No shame or regret, after all "where there is deep grief, there was deep love" and as uncomfortable as that makes some, I will never stop speaking or sharing my deep love. It is vast and wide and we've only skimmed the surface.
This is it.
I feel it in my bones.
The rebirth has begun. If you aren't sure about what I'm speaking about, it's the awakening.
That moment where everything clicks. I can see things for what they are and the bull shit doesn't matter anymore.
I'm alive.
I haven't felt this way, ever. I didn't know I could feel this way. I had no clue that feeling this way, after everything I've been through, was even possible.
It is.
If you don't believe me, let's sit down, have a conversation and you'll start to.
The whole
"Life is possible after death."
guru, mantra,cat swinging from a tree on a motivational poster.
It's real.
There is deep, deep grief. There is pain. There is a heartache.
Heartbreak.
That I'll never be able to put into words, but it's there. I'm just owning it. I've "leaned into the struggle" as my therapist calls it and it is working.
I'm realizing the more I lean in, the more I pay attention and respond to those responding to me, the better I'm getting. This is what my life is now. I can't change that. The old Lindsey is gone, dead, nada. And that's okay.
I like
I love
this version MUCH MUCH better.
Even with the pain, even with the struggle. It's real and I'm real.
I'm alive.
THAT is what matters.
I didn't always feel this way, I also realize that the pain, it's going to return. Death, sadness, heartache, disappointment. Those all come along with the territory.
Love, imagination, devotion, sincerity, honesty, mindfulness, giving and receiving those feelings.
Even if for just a brief moment.
Those are all worth the struggle.
If it takes walking through hell to come back, feeling this way, and getting to live and love as much as I have and have been in return. I'd do it all again. Just like Bill.
So watch out now, we're about to change the world.
I have abandonment issues.
This ones a doozy so get ready. People are going to get a little angry at what I'm about to write but all I can say is wait till I write the book.
It's REALLY going to piss you off then.
My father is an asshole. Has been this way for a very, very long time. He is one of the most narcissistic people, if not the most, I've ever had to encounter.
Endure.
He left. He took everything I had as a small girl and left. My faith in men, my trust in humanity, my belief that there were other people out there not like him.
Just like Jim.
I've always thought I am an alien. At first, adopted. I had this feeling like something just didn't add up but then I found the prints of me coming into this world. Ugh.
I'm definitely my parents' child.
But things shifted as I got older and began to read more. The possibilities of me maybe being from another planet began to sit inside me.
It's never left.
I love my dad. I used to love him a lot more. I used to be his go to person when he ran out of adult resources. I always ran to him because I thought
He needs me.
He loves me.
He will change.
This time.
This time.
This time.
This time.
Never.
I spent the first two and a half decades of my life trying to fix him. He's broken. I failed. Well, he failed. I gave up.
He has drunk, drugged, abused and used himself into a pit so deep that he's convinced himself he's a good person.
He's insane. No doubt about it.
My brother and Christopher went hunting with Jim once. Chris had met him before because despite my feelings towards my father, every daughter should introduce the man she's about to marry to her father.
Father.
Our Father.
I've always been terrified of that prayer.
The repetition. The abandonment.
Jim had no idea who Chris was. Chris even told him that he was married, with a son and in the Army, stationed in Kentucky.
Not a fucking clue.
His children don't interest him unless he benefits from it.
He called me the day we were leaving for Mississippi. I was enduring Christopher's unit memorial at Fort Carson, about to drive across the country because my life had just blown up and I missed his call.
Except I didn't know because his number is blocked on my phone. It wasn't until a couple weeks later when I heard the voicemail say,
"I told Dee you wouldn't answer the fucking phone."
That is the first thing he's said to me in almost 3 years.
I have it saved if you want to listen. I have to keep it because when I tell people, it's so unbelievable I need proof.
I found love though. And now I'm going through all of those same abandonment issues again.
Fun fucking times.
There's been more than just this.
Way more.
Christopher's death was just the grand finale.
And I'm just getting started.
Beam me up, Scotty.
