092. Cold Dark Spaces

tldr: on vulnerability

This is are rewritten thoughts about this blogpost from a year ago.
content warning: miscarriage

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I used to get these blistering headaches as a kid. After years of experiencing this form of pain, I developed a routine for dealing with it that I still practice today. Drink a cup of water. Find a bedroom with an overhead fan. Turn off all the lights– even the lights coming from the red LED display of an alarm clock, and unplug the plug-in childhood night light built for keeping the monsters at bay. Then, just lay there. Shut your eyes tight until you hear this ringing in your temples, and try to sleep.

You might wonder how one finds rest through that pain. I don’t know either. I think, long after the mind gets tired of hurting, the body eventually wants to give in too.

Before that routine developed, when I was even younger, I had a different routine. I’d grab a heavy, cold, quilt-like blanket, go up to my mom, and curl up in her lap beneath the blanket in total darkness. I’d lay there until the headache went away. One day, a family friend said something along the lines of “Really? You’re [insert age here] and you’re still doing this?”

I remember thinking to myself, “yeah, because I can depend on my mom when I’m dealing with pain.” But out of spite, I left, found a dark room, and developed what would become my now routine for dealing with headaches. I don’t know if that moment was the last time I ever laid in my mom’s lap while I had a headache, but I do know that I eventually stopped. I think I stopped because I felt too old? Or maybe, it was because I felt too vulnerable.

Somewhere between that moment and October 2014, I learned to hate being vulnerable like that. Emotionally and physically. I know this, because that was the month the first of my two sisters were miscarried. And I don’t remember ever curling up in my mom’s lap to deal with that pain.

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One of the few times I ever cried over my sister’s passings, I was in Boston. It was after that kid fell asleep on me on the airplane. For days afterwards, I felt this aching in my chest to write about it, but I didn’t know how to. It felt like it wasn’t my place to write about it. Then one of those nights, Kip, the free listening guy, was out on the steps of the little dome, and I told him. I said “I need to write about this,” and I thought– I thought he was going to ask me why I needed to write about it, to which I wouldn’t have had a response because at the time I didn’t know why. But instead, he asked, “Have you told your mom?”

So after that conversation ended, I called my mom on the brink of crying. She was at some work dinner or something but asked me what was up, and I told her that I needed to talk about Emi and Piper. She said she’d call in an hour when she was free, which gave me time to go home, drink a cup of water, and lay in bed in a dark room.

When she called, I told the story of the little girl on the airplane, and as I was telling it I just started sobbing and choking up. Like, the kind of sobbing where you can literally taste the salt from your tears. After talking back and forth for about an hour, my mom said I could fly home right then. I could quit my summer program, hop on the nearest flight, and just be home.

I knew that was a little bit crazy, and I knew that Boston was where I needed to be that summer. But I also knew what she was trying to say: “I wish I could be with you right now.” That made me sob harder because I couldn’t remember a time before this phone call when I actually grieved with my mom, and now this was over the stupid fucking phone.

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It’s been nine years since Emiko, seven since Piper.

I tried to picture how I felt when this all was happening, but couldn’t remember much. But the more I’ve talked about the time with friends though, the more I’ve recalled, and the more I’ve felt. It’s funny how that happens. My mom used to say that I never felt things fully. I just let things develop.

I was “mature”. I could see the bigger picture, or at least feel like there was one in motion. But more than that, I hated being so vulnerable. So, I would let my feelings wash over me, holding my breath til it passed, hoping to see the image at the end. But when this didn’t happen, the dam would come crashing down. And I would feel everything. This dam was strong. It stood for eight years.

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A year ago, my therapist said I was grieving. My mom agreed. I didn’t. I felt like grief was supposed to be over memories you have with a person and the moments you spent with them. But the more I thought about it, I realized I had a lot of memories about my sisters.

I remember when my mom told us she was pregnant for the first time, and then for the second time. I remember feeling so excited to be an older sister in a way I didn’t get to be with my 11-month younger sibling. I remember creating a board of baby names, and I remember erasing the board not too much later. Even the dreams I’ve had about my sisters in some ways are memories. Little snippets of who I thought they would become, and who I would become for them.

And sure, these aren’t quite the same as spending time with them, and seeing them grow up. I unfortunately won’t get to have those memories. But I can and do fell a sense of loss over who my sisters would’ve become, and that I think is a part of grief.

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Grief lives in a cold dark space of the mind. A place filled with loss; a place to feel alone. But I’m learning how to make room for others in that space. I’m learning how to be a little bit more vulnerable again. This doesn’t make it any less cold or dark, but it does feel a little less isolating. It’s made me feel a little less alone in feeling alone.