Breakdown

Ever feel like you’re hurtling towards a breakdown? It’s pitch black and you have no idea where you are, much less where you’re going. Maybe you’re pulling a trailer load full of horses and the road you’re on is unfamiliar, and dark and windy and just downright scary. The lights are on but there’s just simply not enough to really see by. Doom is coming and you know it. You’re just thisclose to crashing and burning but somehow you manage to hang on to the wheel if only to keep from spinning completely out of control.

That wheel is the key but it’s stuck. It’s either letting you go only straight ahead at a ridiculous pace or it is so loose that you can’t figure out if you’re about to head straight into the ditch or up against the retaining wall. If only you had some control over that steering wheel. And the brakes! Oh my God, the brakes. Do they work? You pump them and nothing happens, you press down for dear life and the whole rig starts shunting sideways and before you know it you are in a SPEED (the movie) like situation and all you can do is keep your eyes on the road and pray.

And that is what is ultimately comes down to. To just pray. And hang on. And pray some more. God will surely come through for us, again, just one more time, I swear God, and then I can take the wheel for awhile, I promise. Just don’t fail me here, God, I still need you. One more hour, one more day, one more week and then I’ll have it together again and you can move on to more pressing matters. Please don’t forsake me now, I know I’ve been extra needy these past few years, but I’m sure it’s just a matter of time until I’m strong again. Isn’t it? Please say it is.

I reach out, for the hand that has always guided me and I find nothing but air space. I reach out, for the voice that was always in my head, always on the other end of the phone, but there’s static. I reach out, for the love and support I could always rely on, but it’s receding into memory, into the back of my brain and what feels like planets away. I reach out, looking for that laughter and I only find unshed tears. I reach out. But they are gone.

Lonely and loneliness are not the same thing. Lonely is waiting for someone to come, loneliness is knowing they never will. How do I cope? I don’t really. I wait. There must be a day when it gets better than this. I watch my husband weedeat outside the window, and I know that I am not lonely. I am not alone. But loneliness is pervasive, it is in my pores, in my veins and I am hurtling towards something that I cannot see, be it disaster or salvation I can no longer tell.

To all who have loved and lost, I am you. In an effort to psych myself out of melancholy, I tell myself “it could be worse.” But to imagine worse is to admit defeat. Imagining worse also defeats the purpose of giving myself permission to mourn, to grieve. Only more reason to be afraid. Not having “worse” isn’t better than what I have now. I must remember that. I am not sure I could handle worse anyway, I better just stick to the reality I have.

I haven’t felt like writing lately. Haven’t felt like doing anything. I forced myself to sit down and write this today. Grief is agonizing, and I can’t say there’s a rainbow on the horizon. I don’t see it yet. All I feel is that breakdown looming, and on a wing and a prayer I’ll stop it from coming. Pray with me, friends, because this is not a situation in which I hope that you ever find any of yourselves. Loneliness is not for the weak of heart, I can tell you that. Pray with me, please, and look after yourselves for my sake.