Another Morning After

August 19, 2012

I was so smug. When friends assured me how desperately I’d miss R., I’d scoffed: I was too hungry for respite from our tensions and clashes, the needling irritation of her incomplete chores and ignored curfew, the worry for her safety.

But missing her has hit me like a truck. I am flattened, grief-stricken, lost.

Yesterday, I sobbed for several minutes in a friend’s arms in the middle of Starbucks. I could feel the hush of others’ concern, but I didn’t care. My heart was breaking apart and I was helpless to do anything but weep until the wave of pain passed.

It did and I was good for the rest of the day, relieved and proud that I had survived the emotional tsunami. Then, around 10:30 p.m., after one too many glasses of wine and a movie with F., the next tidal wave hit and I was drowning again, this time in F’s arms. Half an hour later I drank a cup of tea and went to bed. I didn’t care whether I slept. I just wasn’t capable of anything other than laying down in the dark.

If I weren’t feeling the agony behind these words as I write them, I’d probably dismiss them as overly-dramatic. But as I sit here, not even 12 hours later, with a knotted stomach and wet eyes, I understand now what every friend who has bid their child farewell meant when they said I’d suffer the loss of mine, and I am humbled.