But what if something does happen and I didn’t have the time to figure it out?

What if I am not able to do what I am supposed to do?

What if I didn’t tell everyone I love them that I love them and then they go?

What if they don’t know how much I love them?

What if they don’t give me the benefit of the doubt?

What if they don’t know?

They don’t.

That’s what I’m thinking in this moment and what I am afraid of the most.

That they don’t know.

So they make up stories about me.

Stories that I don’t care, that I don’t love them, that I forgot about them.

Stories that I’m this and I’m that and I’m the other.

Ouch.

I worry about this.

Do I do the same?

Yes I think I have.

And right now, what am I doing?

Well I am sifting and sorting through the stories.

Is it okay to have them in my life right now?

I don’t think so, because I’m still confused.

But what if that confusion lasts too long?

What if it continues through the point where something happens?

And by something… I mean death.

That is the biggest thing I fear.

What if she dies before I can figure it out?

Why am I so fixated on this? I’m not sure.

This morning I woke to the sight of my grandfather in the hospital on the last few days of his life.

It was the only few days I had with him since my uncle passed away in 2018.

He had one tear caught at the corner of his eye.

It really hurt me to see him that way and by the same token felt completely calm and peaceful in that moment.

I see that image in my mind’s eye now though and it really makes me sad.

What if he was scared?

What if he was worried?

What if he felt he had so much more to do?

What if he didn’t?

What if he was ready to go?

What if he was relieved?

I am suffering over all of the what ifs.

Because a part of me still wants to know the answers.

A part of me feels like anything and everything I do could be wrong unless I have the answers.

If I have the answers, I have a boundary. I have a structure.

I had a lot of boundaries and structures growing up.

Ones that kept me small. Ones that kept me suffering in relationships where I wasn’t being seen or valued.

Relationships where I was being treated like someone’s prized possession.

Relationships where I was put up on a pedestal.

Relationships where I trusted so hard, with all of my being.

And then people lied.

People cheated.

People swept things under the rug.

People pretended.

People said one thing and did another.

Ouch.

So what if I never get over it?

What if these things cloud my lens forever?

What if, huh?

What if I feel like it’s all a lie?

I kind of do you see.

So that’s why it hurts.

I really feel like it was all a lie.

A play.

A stage.

An act.

Because what is real now, is completely unlike what was real then.

How is that possible?

It all fell apart.

And I suffer so deeply over it.

Seven years of completion of a cycle and now I can find words.

Within that time I accepted things I would never accept now.

Now I am with myself in ways I wasn’t back then.

I am glad for that.

But there is still the little girl who is suffering inside of me.

Horrified at what she received and deeply saddened by what she did not receive.

There is still the adolescent girl within me who is questioning everything. Because actions did not match up with words and energy.

And there is still the mid-twenty something who is heartbroken over how it all fell apart.

And now there is me. Thirty-something B, trying to make sense of it all.

Ouch.

Finally I have a place where I can be with myself.

Finally I have a place where I can be alone.

Finally I have a place that feels like home.

Finally I can be with me.

I am scared about how long it will take.

Because I feel that I haven’t had this experience or this time in this way.

And now that it’s here, I’m not sure how to do it.

I’m not sure what to do with it or when to do it.

I’m not sure if I can do it, but I am doing it.

And in the meantime, my biggest desire, maybe a dumb hope, is that no one dies on me.

Because I couldn’t bare anymore, the thought of another person dying without me being able to share a moment of love with them that is appropriate to the love that is in my heart.

Is that a lifelong thing?

I’m not sure, but I am called on this path so I guess I will find out.

So to all who I write about and with and for, I love you.

So deeply I love you within me.

And I am hurting.

I wish I could tell you.

But you never ask.

I wish you’d ask, so we could exchange.

I am making my peace with what has and has not happened.

And through it all, I love you still.