I've decided that the month of April is just a sucky month. It used to be my favorite, when I was young and didn't really know what pain felt like. Now, it seems this month comes every year to haunt me with things increasingly worse...worse than I imagine things could have been.
Let me give you a little bit of background:
Last April my Aunt died on the morning of April 8th, my half birthday, and the day of my prom...my senior prom that didn't at all go as planned and just made a heartbreak more heartbreaking. My Aunt was old, suffering greatly, someone who had been so sick for so many years that she'd escaped death's grasps many times already. My prom date was supposed to like me back and we were supposed to discuss that. Fun fact: he's been dating the girl he went back to college to hours after I dropped him off after prom.
This year, I don't even know where to begin, it started before April with the sudden and senseless killing of a close friend. Now, my cousin, who was happily pregnant has found out she had a miscarriage. This doesn't even take into account the amount of loss I feel for our global community right now...so much senseless killing of the things that make our world the most precious. All of us.
Me, I am healthy. I am thriving in school. I have a roof over my head and food to eat. I have two beautiful cities that I call home. I still have so many friends and family members that make my heart so happy. I am good. I am the lucky one.
But when do we stop denying ourselves suffering just because it's not us that the bad things are happening to?
It's funny, yesterday I had a conversation with my aunt, my aunt who was preparing to welcome her new grandbaby who is no longer on the way. She said to me that it's good to let ourselves feel so that things don't get bottled up and we live an unhealthy life. All I thought was I wish I knew how to do that, how to attack my feelings head on instead of keeping them inside forever.
How did I get this way? Let me fill you in on that too.
12 years ago I was a first grader who had a few really good friends. One of them was named Gino and we spent time in the after school program that my mom ran. He was a ray of sunshine and I like to play with him because he was so positive and that's something I have always lacked. Happy by nature, yes but positive, no.
One day my parents came home from something and I remember sitting on the arm of our couch and hearing my mom say to me "Gino is dead." I was 7 years old and I didn't understand what dead meant really. I knew the word and definition but someone just being gone forever? No idea.
The next morning I was in my first grade classroom and somehow Gina had come up, as does when a student dies and I remember crying (side note: the biggest pride of my kindergarten year was that I didn't cry once). Then remember almost as quickly as the tears started a girl said condescendingly, "Why are you crying?" I remember fleeing to hide behind this giant stuffed animal penguin in the cubby next to mine. I remember feeling it was so wrong for me to mourn and be sad.
I don't think I ever got over that feeling because I still felt like that little first grader all week while my friend was fighting for her life, when the news came she was gone, at the beautiful prayer service surrounded by our friends and classmates. I always need to be the strongest and there are always people who are out there who have it worse. Somehow that's engrained into my being more than anything else.
I've come to call this my self destruct complex, because that's what it has turned into. The thing is though, when you've not been properly dealing with emotions for 12 years, it's hard to remember what it is like to have a healthy emotional process. I have no reference point or a before when I felt like my heart and mind were in order. It's been a mess for years with peaks and valleys with the only shining light being "time heals all wounds."
Well, I don't think time can do all the work on its own. So, as I am less than 6 months out from my twenties and feeling again that suffocating grief and shouting reminder that I am the lucky one, I am searching for a way to let myself be unlucky for a minute. Let myself feel the pain and heal from it so that I can truly be that strong person for others.
