Life After Upheaval

Sometimes, things just don’t go according to plan. Mistakes are made. So many mistakes. The kind that you don’t even recognize as mistakes until they’re over and you’re left with a feeling of dread that resembles a bead of sweat rolling down your back. Unsettling, but passing nonetheless.

Things are done with good intentions, or bad. There are misunderstandings the size of mountains and words said without any meaning behind them—these can be good and bad as well, based solely on context and whether or not you’re actually paying attention when they are said.

Feelings are hurt. No one apologizes when they should, even when asked to. People are left behind—usually in pieces.

You grieve. You grieve or however long it takes. Because a loss is a loss no matter how silly it may seem. You experience the void, something is missing, and it is practically tangible inside of you. You don’t eat. You don’t sleep. You call your best friend and cry because your body can’t produce the right string of words to describe how that knot in your chest won’t go away. How it throbs at night when you’re all alone—so, so alone.

You take long showers, sitting down, that eventually go cold. You smile like everything is just fine when you’re around people who don’t know. Who were never informed. Who you will never explain anything to because of the overwhelming shame of your own stupidity. Internally, you’re screaming. You’re screaming so much it becomes its own form of white noise in your mind.

Every moment of your passing days begins to resemble a checklist.

Don’t snooze your alarm.

Shower for no more than fifteen minutes.

Brush your teeth.

Think about eating breakfast. Settle for coffee. Make it strong.

Get dressed.

Catch the bus if you have to. Thank the driver when you get on and off.

Go to class. Or work. Or wherever it is you need to be. It doesn’t matter what it is, just get there.

Think about eating lunch. Drink water and have some yogurt instead.

Go home.

Cook dinner. Even if it’s instant mac n’ cheese. Make something hot.

Talk to a friend if you can.

Cry. Cry and cry and cry.

Watch something that you enjoy. Something on YouTube or TV or Netflix. Anything that you can draw some kind of joy or intrigue from.

Go to bed. Even if you’re just lying there in the dark for hours until the sun starts to come back up again.

Repeat the list until it becomes a habit. And don’t be mad at yourself if it takes “too long.” There’s no such thing as taking too long to heal. A wound is a wound is a wound is a wound.

Sometimes you have a good wallow—stay in bed until 3 PM, change out of your dirty pajamas into clean pajamas, eat cereal out of a mug for all of your meals—for a day. Or two. Or five. Other times you go to dive bars with friends to watch them sing karaoke while you struggle to drink a beer you don’t even like. That knot in your chest, that all over pain that seems to be holding you down against the floor, it will fade. Slowly. It will fade.

Count the days until it does if you have to. Keep a tally on your phone or in a notebook or on a sheet of paper taped up in your bathroom. Anything to show yourself that you are making progress. Count each day and don’t think less of yourself for however many it takes for that hard, solid pain that’s lodged in your chest—behind your sternum, between your lungs—to go away.

Mine took 119.