I Am Not Okay

I am not okay.
I’m barely hanging on
I’m losing track of days
And losing sleep at night.
I am not okay.
I’m hanging on the rails
So if I say I’m fine
Just know I learned to hide it well.

I woke up today
I almost stayed in bed
Had the devil on my back
And voices in my head
Some days it ain’t all bad
Some days it all gets worse
Some days I swear I’m better off
Layin’ in that dirt.

So “they say” after a tragedy to try and think about something uplifting, concentrate on the positive, they say, think about what you have instead of what you lost, find something to distract yourself with and ignore the fact that this can happen again.  Realize that the paradise you thought you had is gone and you will never get it back.  You are homeless for the first time in your life and it is terrifying.  You have no clothing, no essentials, no paraphernalia you need to live and all the things you loved are gone forever.

They say, “it’s been four months, you should be over all this angst.”  Well I’m not so fuck off.  Grief and loss don’t have a timeline and they seem to come in waves at unexpected times.  Anger comes along with it and anger with nothing or no one to blame it for it will make you crazy.

His entire life my husband, who I met in high school, has wanted to live in his family’s cabin in Ruidoso.  Four years ago his dream finally happened and we moved to paradise.  Now he is angry, bitter, disillusioned and overwhelmed as am I.  Now we have to figure out if we will stay or go.  Ruidoso runs on tourism and that has obviously been disrupted which caused me to lose my job.  No one wants to buy burned land with no trees.

I ran into our neighbor yesterday while running errands.  We ended up talking for a while and she is in the same boat, she cannot rebuild as we cannot and she said she is just sad, literally overwhelmed with sadness and the loss of the dream.  I cannot imagine how hard this has been for them because her husband is a fire fighter as well.  Our other neighbor Melissa is just pissed off and I can’t blame her.  It just completely upends your entire life and you have no choice, this is happening like it or not.  It is enough to drive a person crazy.

It’s like a thousand little cuts, a few are bearable but the continous cuts wear you down.  Drive into Ruidoso, a lot of it is burnt and black and so depressing the cut hurts you again.  Keep providing FEMA with the non stop documentation they must have, it reopen the cuts again.  I don’t even go up to the property anymore because it is so depressing and reopens them again.  Small things like my favorite Ugg slippers gone, the most amazing one of a kind scarf my mother-in-law made me gone, the casino toilet seat my father-in-law had made from chips from Vegas gone, blankets made by parents and grandparents, books and picture albums and games we played in the cabin gone, missing my extensive wardrobe I collected over many years that is gone and, for me, the jewelry collected over an entire lifetime that is irreplaceable. 

I know that things don’t make the person but imagine losing all those things at once and how devastating that can be.  I am literally barely hanging on, I miss my parents horribly and my friends and family.  I need some of my moms tender loving care.  I am flying to DFW tomorrow and I cannot wait to be home.  We will get thru this somehow.