24 hours

 One day is the worst day of your life.

The day that the most unimaginable horror happens, and it happens to you.

The day you struggle to breathe. To survive. The day you pray for the night to come because that means this day, this worst day, ends. 

Then it's the next day.

You're still breathing.

You survived.

 

 

And then, you have to navigate the rest of your life. 

 

No one talks about the day after and then the day after that. When you wake up and you forget, for two seconds, about that worst day. Then it all comes back and it's another day and it's not over. You still have to face it. You still have to live.

 

Then it's another day and another. Time keeps moving and so do you. You feel like you are in molasses in Winter sometimes, but you keep moving.

 

No one talks about this. 

 

The trauma. 

The ripping apart. 

The folding together. 

 

And during all this?

 

You still have to be a person.

 

An employee.

A wife.

A mom.

 

Dinner still needs to be made. Dishes still need to be done. You still have to clean the bathrooms and get the groceries and sit in meetings and perform tasks. You have to pretend like none of it happened. Like the worst imaginable thing, the thing you most dreaded in the world, didn't just happen. 

 

You don't forget though.

 

You never forget.

 

Another day happens and then another week.

Another month.

Another year.

 

You don't think about it, this worst, most horrible day every single second anymore. It doesn't consume you the way it once did. You are able to sit in meetings and pay attention. You can make dinner without burning it. You can watch an entire episode of your television show, or read a whole chapter in a book. It's better.

 

 

It's not better.

But it's better.

 

People forget, because it's better.

 

You don't forget though. You never, ever forget. Your body keeps the score and sometimes you're okay. You're perfectly fine. You are laughing or driving or climbing a ladder and all of the sudden you remember the worst day of your life and you can't breathe anymore. You can't see. That day, that worst day, didn't go away.  

 

Other people forget, but you never do. They say ugly things about people who are drug addicts, or who took their own life, or who had bipolar disorder forgetting that you loved someone who was an addict, who did take their own life, who did suffer with bipolar disorder. They forget because it didn't hurt them. Even if it did hurt them, they still sometimes say things about others. Because it's so easy to "other" people you don't know. It's so easy to talk terribly about addicts who are the sons of politicians, as though they aren't people too. They talk about those "selfish" people who took their own lives, not realizing or understanding that it has nothing to do with selfishness and everything to do with pain. They say things like, "Oh I was being bi-polar" when they were simply upset and having human emotions. None of it's okay. People destroy you so casually. 

 

They don't realize what you had to do to rebuild after that worst day. That worst day of your life.

 

You forgive them though, or at least don't say anything. No one is responsible for your worst day. For your pain. For your grief. Your loss is your own and no one can take it. People exist that love you so much and they would carry it for you if they could, but they can't. It's yours to carry, forever.

 

But you breathe.

You survive.

 

People call you a snowflake, a bleeding heart. All manner of mean, ugly things because you care.  You understand that people are complex and no one is all good or all bad and not everyone does. Hate is easier. It's always easier.

 

But not for you.

You can't hate.

 

You understand what hate does. You can't hurt any more than you already hurt. 

 

You lived through the worst day.