Avoiding

Photography, blogging, friends, family, facebook, food, life.

I am avoiding it all.

I lay in bed at night and I think about everything I want to blog about. I blog in my head about it all. The pain, the sorrows, the eating through my feelings to the tune of 15lbs. The broken heart at feeling like I am losing my mother, to once again, at age thirty, watching another set of parents get divorced, the fourth such circumstance in my lifetime. I see this and I long so much not to allow my life to end up similarly. I never want my children to know this hurt or pain that I am feeling, even at thirty years old it stings. Trying to rebuild a marriage from the brink of divorce is hard. I feel like I am building a house out of toothpicks and Elmer's glue and it has to survive a blow from The Big Bad Wolf...I think of these things, and I cry.

A lot.

Mostly when I am alone.

I cry and I am not sure why I am even crying.

The emotional weight and toll of the last two years is almost too much to bear at times. This is why I hide. I don't want to be weak. I don't want anyone to know how utterly difficult almost every single day is. I don't want anyone to think I am not strong, or that my attitude is not in the right place. I don't want anyone to think I am not grateful. I don't want anyone to judge me for feeling the way I do, because, people do. I avoid sharing who I really am right now because it is scary. It is frightening to not feel connected to anything you have known all your life. To the only person you ever loved with every fiber and ounce of you. To your parents. To your religion. To feel completely and utterly empty and overwhelmed despite all of the trying in the world.

The tears come.

In waves.

In sobbing heaps.

Grief.

In. Out.

Sobs.

I avoid sharing that my mom almost succeeded in taking her own life earlier this year. I avoid it because people think because she is sick, I am sick. I am not sick. I am well. I am just sad. I am sad because when I see my mom now, I am worried if she is taking her medicine. I am worried that she won't forgive herself. I am worried and wonder if she really is okay, because I know she doesn't tell us things because in her mind she is protecting us.

I avoid answering, "No, I am not okay!" Instead, I say, "We are good!" "Things are great!" "Much better!" When. When? When...when it comes down to it, I am not good, things are not great, things are not better. Things are a millimeter better when they need to be miles and miles and miles and miles better.

So, I avoid. I lie. I cover up...just because, I don't have it in me to do anything but. Until I can muster the strength to do otherwise...I will avoid, avoid it all, because I have no idea what else to do.