The Things That Break You

In this second year of grief, I have found a tremendous amount of footing that I would have never known I was capable of having after that first year. After the utter hell that was that first year, it's easy to almost believe that I have escaped *relatively* unscathed, with all things considered. 

Then, out of seemingly nowhere, you get struck by a tidal wave that beckons you into the midst of an inescapable rip tide. It could be a found pacifier or a sock, your own birthday where you are painfully and acutely reminded that you have done the unnatural: you have survived your child yet another year.

 You expect their birthdays to be hard. You expect their special songs that were theirs to come on the radio to tear your heart to obliterated shredded remnants. You can begin to anticipate the more obvious triggers. But there are others which you could not have possibly planned for, nor anticipated. 

The wave comes when your back is turned. It crushes you in what feels like a mere instant under its paralyzing weight. It tosses and sputters you like a bunch of laundry making its way through the spin cycle. 

You spin. You grasp. You gasp for air,  all while trying to figure out exactly what's up towards the light and breath and what's down, dragging you farther and deeper into the unknown, breathless darkness.

And then, just like that...

You are eventually cut loose from the current.

You wobble. You stand. You find your footing. You shake the dust. You take a long, deep breath and begin to walk forward towards solid land. 

It's brutal.

It's humbling. 

It's a testament to human will and strength, in which you are always relieved to have made it out alive. Intact even. 

You walk forward, gathering the edges of your frayed nerves and quietly remind yourself of the direction you were traveling in before the wave crashed its entire weight upon you. You begin to feel better, more normal. Less disoriented. Even though, deep down you know that another tidal wave will strike again as fervently as the last. But that's ok. That's later...

So, you keep walking. 

The difference between the last tidal wave and the one that will inevitably and painfully follow, is that you learn new "tricks" each time. Above all, you know something differently, and more certainly:

That you always come out. 

And that you are always, however relatively, OK.

You learn how to hold your breath in that funny way that you did that last time to avoid water from going up your nose. 

You may get caught in the spin cycle next time, but you remember the feeling when it strikes. While you're holding on for dear life, you can begin to tell yourself, "Oh. This is that part where I can't tell up from down. If I just stay tight, don't fight the current, it will eventually "spit me out"."

While you can never quite brace yourself from these unexpected tidal waves, where your back was turned from it, you do learn how to hold yourself within one. You carry within you each hard earned and learned lesson in primal human depth and survival.

You know that you will do this again. And again. And again after that. 

There's a strange peace that can be found in knowing that these things will, however painful and inconveniently,  possibly happen for as long as you're alive. There's peace in this level of honest certainty. 

And you find that each time, it does, in fact, get easier. A platitude that used to only elicit internal eye rolls from me, but I feel "qualified" enough to agree with that sentiment now. 

And on and on it goes. 

And each time, you inevitably, however begrudgingly, 

decide to rise. 

I hope, more than anything, this brings even one person solace.

All my Love, 

Taylor