Love and Loss

Do we ever stop missing people? Does it ever not hurt? Are we ever able to just not think about someone anymore?

I've been so consumed with missing people lately. I wish desperately that I was one of those "out of sight, out of mind" people. I wish that once someone was out of my life, they just ceased to exist. But, I'm just not that person. I just look back on my life and think of all of the people who used to be there and now they're not. It doesn't matter the reason. Whether they're dead, moved away, or simply stopped being my friend for one reason or another, I just miss them. I used to be able to be angry at people for long periods of time. I used to be able to say that if that person screwed me over, or treated me badly, then they weren't worth having in my life. And I believe that. That's definitely true. But, it doesn't take away all of the good memories. It doesn't take away the missing. It doesn't make me feel any better about that particular presence no longer being in my life.

I experienced a lot of death at a fairly young age. At nine, I lost my stepbrother to a drunk driving accident. In early high school, I attended five funerals in six months; two for grandparents, two for fellow students, and one for my cousin's stillborn baby. It effected me far more deeply than I realized at the time. I've carried it with me my entire life. By the time the sixth one came around, I was completely numb. I didn't even cry. She was a friend of mine, and she was killed in a car accident in the middle of the day while on a break from summer school. One other person died with her that day, and two others were injured, one permanently, the other minor. I remember going to a concert the night of her funeral, which felt so weird to me at the time. Like, I shouldn't be out having fun after I just put my friend in the ground. But, I think I also knew I deserved that night. I think I also knew that after the year I'd had, I'd earned that night out. It was weird for all of us who went, because we were all friends with her. It was somber, but it was a needed fun night out.

My grandfather was buried on my 15th birthday that year. He was the third of the year. I'm still annoyed by the number of people who wished me happy birthday that day. Seriously? I think you're allowed to skip it this year. That was the last year I stopped counting down until my birthday.

I found out my grandmother died while I was at school. She was the first one that year. I was supposed to go to a diving meet after school to see my then-best friend compete. On my way there, another friend stopped me and told me I should probably go home. She'd heard from my cousin that my grandmother had died. I went home, saw my mom (it was my dad's mom who died), and then went back to the meet.

The second one was a fellow student, who I didn't know well, but who was good friends with my brother. He was active in many extra curriculars, including marching band, which I was in, but he was suffering from cancer, so wasn't participating that particular year. He died before the year was out. I found out while I was helping my school host the annual jazz band championships, which was an excuse to hang out with friends all night.

And the fifth one of the year was my cousin's baby (I did not intend to talk about all of these, or go in a random order, I'm just kinda going with what I'm feeling). She was six months pregnant. I found out she lost the baby the day I got home from a camping trip. It was exactly a week after my grandfather. She was only twenty years old, and was getting married in two weeks. I have never seen someone so distraught in my entire life and I'll never forget it. Even then, I was confused about how something so beautiful and exciting could turn into something so sad. It was a shit year. Which started off with me breaking up with my boyfriend at the time. He was loss #1. Then the rest followed. I can't believe I survived that. I don't want to say I've gotten over any of those deaths, because I haven't, but I did eventually learn to live with it. However, I do wonder if that's because there were so many of them, that I just became numb after a while. I obsessed over that ex-boyfriend for years after that, because it was easier to try to win him back than to focus on the people I couldn't get back. Of course, I didn't know that's why I was doing it at the time, but you know, hindsight, etc, etc.

The deaths slowed down after that, but obviously didn't stop. There was an uncle, another grandparent, an aunt, and some other people I knew through friends and family members. Some of them hurt more than others. And then there was my stepdad on New Years Day 2013. I would never have considered us close, but Jesus H. Christ, I miss him. And the thing is, I knew I would. He was always sick with something, and I remember thinking to myself so often how weird it would be without him. I remember several times telling myself to be more present in his life, because he wouldn't be around forever (he was about 15 years older than my mom). I knew he'd go before we were ready to let him. And he did. And I've thought of him every single day since then. I drive by the cemetery where he's buried almost every day (it's about five miles from my apartment). Every time I look at the shoddy job I did hanging the shelves in my living room I think of him. Every time my niece and my nephew reach a new milestone, I think how proud he would be and how much of their lives he's missing (God, he loved them). I wonder if he'd be proud of me. I wonder if my mom's okay. I get consumed with her loneliness sometimes, because I simply can't imagine losing someone you've built your life with. It terrifies me to think that I might be in that position some day, too. Every time Ben goes out for a cigarette, I think that I could someday live the same fate as my mother, when I bury my husband with decades left to live without him. He's irreplaceable, and his loss has made waves in humanity. In all of humanity. He is missed by so many people, more than he could ever possibly have believed.

Sometimes, though, the hardest losses are the ones who don't die. They're the ones who simply fade away. They're the ones who choose not to be in your life, or the ones you choose not to have there. Those ones hurt, because they are personal. I lost an entire second family, and a whole set of friends when I got divorced. And while I won't go as far as to say I miss them all, there are certain presences that I miss. There are certain people who have left a void that can't be filled. There were family members who felt like I'd known them my entire life. Sisters who felt like my own. A nephew who will never, ever know how much I adored him. Those losses are heavy. There are two or three of those friends who I'm still in touch with on Facebook, but who I don't see. I knew how much I'd be losing when I got the divorce. I knew I wouldn't make it out without any casualties. What I didn't know was how much it would still hurt three years later. I didn't know there would still be repercussions from that three years later. I didn't know I would still be having people tell me, "I don't want to hear from you anymore." There were two in the last two weeks. One not so surprising, but still agonizing in an infuriating way. And one, much more painful, because her feelings were a mystery to me. Why do I care, though? Why do I still care about these people who haven't been a part of my life in three years? Why do I still think constantly about the ones I lost? I feel like it prevents me from truly appreciating the ones I do have. I say all the time that I don't have any friends. And when I'm in a pinch, and need someone to talk to, I can't think of anyone to call or text. But, when I calm myself down, I think, "there are so many people I met through school who would totally be willing to talk to me about this right now." I look around sometimes and wonder if Ben and I broke up, what would I have left? Who would there still be in my life? Most of the friends I have now are his. The people I see on a regular basis are either my family, or his friends. I don't have any regulars in my own life. And that terrifies me, because that's what happened last time. I built my life around the person I was with, and when that ended I lost everything. All of it. And I feel like I'm still picking up the pieces.

When do I stop missing those people? When does it stop hurting every single day? I've heard people say after losing a loved one that you don't get over it, you just learn to live with it. But, how? I think of all of the people I've lost in the first 30 years of my life and I can't imagine the amount of hurting and loss and emptiness I'll feel in 30 more. How does anyone survive to old age? How do we keep getting ourselves up every morning knowing that it's just one less day that we have with certain people? I don't want to be the person who only has her significant other and the family they build. Because, I know better than anyone that that can change in the blink of an eye. I need more than that. But, that can all change too.

How do we live with it? All the loss and the missing and the emptiness that builds and builds over our lifetimes? It's immeasurable. How do we not drown in that misery and let it consume us? Sixty years of loss seems like too much to me.