Grief vs. Man

Grief owes me 20 years of my life.

I've demanded transparency and received questionable guidance. I've cried out, every day, for an understanding of the mishandling of the heart of a boy who was born to be King. Through every act I've committed since the night innocence ripped through my skin - my hate has grown in parallel with the debt I now understand that needs to be paid.

The scars I bear are of my own doing - blistering hot on my cold, worn skin. I was never told it was not a punishment, what happened that night. That it was not my cross to bear. That things in life happen to us, not because of us. I never knew that my pain was no more important than another - and by staking claim that it was, I electively destroyed the chance at being who I was born to be. In a flash of light, the ideal version of my life was now the only image that I could be measured by. The problem with ideals, however, are that they become a measurement of success without empathy for the journey.

The work I have to do in order to win the battle of my will is not humanly possible. When your will to live was held in contempt the night it cried out to be saved, you understand what a great undertaking it is to rise out of the depths of pain - alone with the responsibility of the life in your hands.

How do I navigate the responsibility of my own life? Held in contempt to open my eyes in the morning, without a compass showing me even the most general direction to walk - How do I resurrect the child inside myself that seemingly died in the moment I watched the life go out of my mother's eyes? The child whose sole responsibility was to live fully, but was too frightened of the meaning of life in the eyes of my mother dying?

I tried leaving. As soon as I could, I started running as far away from the setting of the pain in my heart. I transferred schools. Chose a different major. Found a different partner. Found a different roommate. A different best friend. I speed dated mentors like I was already in the New York City dating scene. I sought out people in pain and listened as they told me their story, and I selfishly kept mine inside. I won every challenge set in front of me, but it cost me everything, every time, in the pursuit of the trophies I received at the “finish line.”

Grief doesn’t care about accolades. It sells pride and buys shame. It accumulates shame. It buys the dip on shame. It sells your self-worth as you move through the world to make more room inside for its own self worth it has built inside you - until its business reaches a point of expansion and it has no more supply inside you to support its demand. Its a failing business, and it always has been - and when I understood how I was keeping it afloat with both my physical and emotional currency - a flash of light poked through the shadows and I saw the form my grief has created inside. And, once I see the form - I knew my enemy.

Shh. Listen. He's starting to trust himself, that little boy inside. Don't scare him. His grief is not scared of the dark, but of the vulnerable spotlight it craves. Peel back the layers, let more light in. Let him tell you his story and he may never know darkness again. But be kind - he is terrified of what he might say after twenty years in the shadows.

Faults and All