the hellfire of the mind

“Grief and despair, heartache and humiliation, rage and regret — this is the hellfire of the mind, hot as a nova, all-consuming as a black hole. And yet, if we are courageous enough and awake enough to walk through it, in it we are annealed, forged stronger, reborn.” Maria Popova, The Marginalian

She’s not wrong but I couldn’t be reborn. I wasn’t enough. It has consumed me.

Grief is like a hard fall, to smash head-first into the cement repeatedly. Bruised and bleeding, utterly destroyed, but still getting up and on with life.

But what is there to get on to?

I made a grave mistake in the “getting on,” an amateur foolish error, believing I should be strong…

For the children, for the company, for my mother, for my sisters, and more children.

All these minutes, hours, days, months, years, and decades, I’ve been devoted (beyond what’s humanly possible) to those who needed me. I thought that was a good thing. I thought I was superhuman. I was lauded. I was built up as “amazing.” I had no boundaries. And I believed being superhuman was achievable.

But I’ve paid a price. I’ve traded for strength and lost my soul—as tragedy, suffering, and heartache collided inside me. And I’m left Empty. Hurting.

I’m done crying out to God who is all-powerful. Got it. YOU ARE GOD. I don’t disagree. But fuck it. Help already?

I tried the Church and a few people to tell my story.

And I found no one cared.

Where was a container wide or deep enough for the ocean of tears and heartache? No one could receive my fury, my destruction.

I have found comfort only in solitude and in the great cavern of nothingness.

My body, the vessel of nerve endings, hurts. My brain holds an ache. Calling it a headache is too benign. My brain was broken by pain. I can no longer think rationally. I told my shrink I won’t kill myself. And I won’t, I don’t (think I) want to, but sometimes I want to be there, with them, less alone. 

I live in the void where sorrow lives, where life has no purpose.

When others try to understand, reaching for me, I cringe and pity them. I am defeated.

One can’t get to me because I am gone. This physical vessel that you see with your eyes and touch with your hands, she is empty.

I am no longer courageous. I am no longer strong.

The void is surrounding me and those who know seem too frightened by my weakness. They leave me be. And I am grateful because my body, heart, soul, and mind are destroyed. It’s too late.

I was strong. It broke me. Now I am vapor.