This is a phrase you hear a lot after tragedy. You can't go back to your old self. So you should find a new normal. But here is the thing. NOTHING ABOUT THIS IS NORMAL.
There are pockets of time where I can act normal. But most of those are because I am so numb that my body has discovered you CAN actually run out of tears. Your mind can go into shut down mode and just go through motions without you.
There are also pockets of true peace. My heart can do the same shut down mode as my mind, and pause its brokenness. Letting me breathe for an hour. I can laugh at something stupid Brandon says. He tries SO hard sometimes to bring me to those pockets. Laughter is his medicine, always has been, and sometimes it is the only thing that works.
I can enjoy sitting with my book club discussing a random read, and feel like I remember that this simple way of spending a night, used to be my normal. I relish it, and I wish it was still true. Because right now they are just small pockets.
Most of the time it's a different constant. It's not normal. I can find something to fall under the category of all the things that describe normal. It's average, typical, expected, and usual to feel how I am feeling. A therapist says, well that's a normal reaction to grief. But this life is anything but normal.
It's not normal to sign a child's death certificate. It's not normal to cry all the time. It's not normal to survive on a few calories a day. It's not normal to avoid the people you love. It's not normal to be so tired and not be able to sleep. It's not normal to exist after losing a child.
Texting my friend that I've only met in person once, a picture of my blood clot, accompanied with "Am I dying, is this normal?" Is it normal for this size of blood clot, because they told me I'm not out of the woods and to watch for this. And is it normal to send photos of this graphic nature to someone I didn't know a year ago.
Is this feeling I have of a blood rush in my arms normal? Its like having a shiver, but opposite. Its a rush of warmth and minuscule pin pricking running over me. But my arms are cold to the touch, because Im still trying to recover from that much blood loss. Am I dying, is this bad, is this normal?
Being both genuinely happy for someone announcing their new pregnancy, and devastated at the same time. What would have been the absolute best timing of having babies at the same time, now becomes the worst timing possible. So you feel love and hate in the same moment. It's something your brain isn't supposed to be able to do at the same time. Is it normal I can cry while laughing? Smile while breaking. Live while dying.
All of it is normal. And none of it is normal. And there is no normal to go back to. And there is no normal ahead of us.
The word normal doesn't exist in my life dictionary anymore.
We've replaced it.
Its just different now.
A new different.
with love, lissa.