I haven't written in so long it feels foreign because I do not feel like I am the same person I was even a few months ago. This summer I took time off from work to spend time with my girls and to get my bearings, to catch my breath and figure out what was happening with my soul. Now that the summer has ended and I am back to work, I feel like I was sucked up into a tornado and then set back down in the middle of a foreign country where I don't speak the language.
The first thing that happened when I went off on parental leave was dealing with my beloved uncle beginning to decline due to a second battle with cancer. I was blown away that he was so sick and then when we began visiting every other week, I saw the further decline and realized that I was going to lose him. I was scared to be left by yet another father figure, the only one I had left. I was scared to be orphaned, although I still (thank God) have my mother and she has me. But as we watched her only brother dying I knew that I was dying on the inside too and nobody knew it but me.
May, June, and part of July we watched this man whom our whole family still adores deteriorate almost beyond recognition. I rehearsed in my heart and mind all the others that had declined and then died the same way. And the truth is, I gave up. I gave up on life. I gave up on me. I gave up on God. I gave up on faith. And while this was happening, my heart stopped beating with the passion I used to have. I had already been hanging on by a thread as it was, which was why I stopped working for the summer. My passion for helping others and loving others was already fragile; then everything in me snapped.
My husband didn't understand what happened to the wife he used to know because she didn't know herself. Our babies, placed in our home, watched their mother crying everyday. The phone didn't ring and I felt like everybody that I had ever helped left me alone and never tried to be there for me how I had been there for them in times past. I found myself numb to everything and everybody, except for a handful of people that loved me anyway.
When I say this summer was the worst one of my life, I mean that. There is no comparison. My heart was broken and I no longer could be who I was. And the truth is NO ONE GAVE A DAMN. And as far as I am concerned no one does, still.
My husband and I fell apart. Without saying too much because the situation is still sensitive, we both mutually agreed that we are no longer compatible. Quite frankly, I will never be the woman he knew again. Too much in my heart and soul has been damaged and I need to live life a different way now. I have lost too much and I am empty. He deserves better, but I cannot give that to him at this point.
July 19, 2016 at 1:25 a.m. I received the phone call that made everything that was crumbling in my life turn to dust. My uncle died; he went to heaven and left me here. No one knew that I hadn't been awakened by the phone call, I was sitting in my chair in my bedroom, feeling anxious and restless, not able to sleep. And then the phone rang. I must have felt something deep down when he took his last breath. My soul felt him leave. And my soul still feels his absence.
So why don't I write anymore? Why am I not the same person anymore? I can't really put into words any of this. Why am I not the strong person I used to be and why aren't I ready to just jump right back into the life I had? Because I will never be the same again. This loss, after all the other losses, took a major part of my heart and crushed it.
The only thing I want, more than anything, is to be loved and understood by those that matter the most. But it feels very lonely down in this valley. I have no flowery words or feelings for all this. I want to love and be loved, but that feels very far removed, the more I reach for these things. Where do I go from here? I have no idea. I am trying to plan the rest of my life, reaching for love and hoping one day it reaches back, but not being sure. I am trying to move beyond an imminent divorce and living my life as a single mother in the Detroit area or in Grand Rapids.
But the truth is, after this summer of no rest and no restoration, I have no idea who I am now. And there is really no one around to tell me.
