Death in the Family

I never really talked to anyone about the death of my grandfather. well, that's not entirely true. I tell Allison about it. Sometimes. I don't know, it's hard to talk about it still. There are some moments when it all feels too real. Like, I'll be walking down the steps and the house will feel like 2000x more empty than it does normally. Sudden waves of crushing grief that he is really gone.

I miss him. A lot. I don't let it out, because I don't think I can deal with it all at once. I think about having lost him, and then I get scared. I haven't felt this way since my mother died, and I wasn't even that close to her. I'm scared of losing people I care about. I make a cocoon around me. Very few people get in, and when I do lose someone. its like an entire part of me was shredded through to get get out.

Moving on is rough, and I dread that fast approaching day where I will have to. I don't quite know how it will work out. I don't know how my grandmother will react, I don't know how things will play out. But it has to happen, the stress levels in my life, worrying about Allison and Me, my grandmother, my brother, my job, and the changes I need to make in order to put everything back into balance, something just has to give. And I'm scared it'll be my sanity. People think depression and anxiety are caused by someone being weak, but I never thought that, maybe it's because I've fought with it from age 10 onwards. It's a symptom of having to be strong for long periods of time. The anxiety has been manageable, but the depression is seeping out in other ways. I'm irritable, more than usual, I'm up and down like a bipolar, and I rapidly lose interest in things I was initially excited for.

All of this has so much to do with my grandfather. It's weird, but I feel like if he was around, I'd be able to ask him, and he'd be able to tell me what I should do. It's fucked up, but I rarely asked him for his input, and now all I want is some of his advice.

-J