Chronicles With Coping...Or Something Like It. Chapter Two.

Okay Mind, I Don't Know What You Want Me To Do With All Of These Feelings...

     Coming up on three months, and I don't know that I've found my way to a good place yet.  I'm somewhere in between functioning and acknowledging. At this point, I kind of feel like I'm just getting through the days and hanging on to routine.  There is a growing stack of self help books next to my bed, and yet I can't even venture to open them.  The sight of one, honestly brings tears to my eyes.  Part of me thinks, 'No, you're not ready for this', but I think the more accurate statement is 'No, you don't want to deal with this, and reading this book is sort of dealing with this.'  Maybe it's not, I don't even know anymore.  As always, I'm finding comfort in music, some days it is the only place I find comfort.  My life is one big contradiction right now.   Somedays, I wake up thinking, I'm okay.  I understand and I have so much to remember about Ash, so much to be thankful for.  I mean God, I'm sitting here writing this, how can I even utter a complaint, or feel anything but grace for all that I still get to have?  However on most days, my whole being says, 'Are You Kidding?!  Get back in bed, and stay there, you are allowed, and no one will mind. The idea that someone is going to be able to tell me how I am supposed to be feeling and what I can do to cope, is lost on me.  I realize I'm not the only girl whose ever lost a twin sister, and yet all of me feels like, yes I am.  No one will ever know or understand this loss. This feeling.  A huge part of me has just shut down.  My life is a really awkward exchange of completely carefree times with my friends, to a complete lack of understanding of myself and what this situation has brought into all of our lives.  At times I feel like I have no connect.  My friends are having these beautiful dreams about Ash.  I am not.  I think I'm struggling with that a lot.  Honestly, I couldn't tell you the last time I had a dream that I remembered, but to not be dreaming about her, when I feel she is all that is on my mind at any given moment.  It's sad for me.  I want that to be a way I can cope,  to be laughing in my sleep with her.  I've never understood less about how my mind works and the motions I'm going through, than this moment now.
     My mom wishes I were dating more, to get my mind off of things, and all  I can think is that I am a girl with some serious emotional baggage right now...and who wants that?  Its a lot to ask someone to take on.  I don't even want to deal with it, but I don't get a choice.  I don't even know how to answer simple questions like 'How many brothers and sisters do you have?'  I go from juggling how to answer  little things like that to wondering how I will incorporate her into my wedding as the 'Maid of Honor' she was supposed to be.  I don't want to even think about how our birthday will be.  I'm not ready for it to just be my birthday.     I'm reading my journals a ton right now, and entries like this are keeping me going.
     'Ash is still amazing as always, and is coping well.  The girl is so so strong.  I really can't put it into any other words.  I love my days with her, even if we are just sitting in her hospital room...usually I'm watching her make jewelry or paint.  Mainly because she is simply amazing at it, and I can't compete.  I've tried, but while she's whipping out some fantastic, beautiful, necklace...I'm staring at an open box of beads wondering how I'm going to use every color in the box and still make it look cute.  And those stupid little tools you have to use to clamp together a tiny piece of chain...yeah, I'm not good at that either.  So I just sit and watch her, we talk about food a lot...haha.  Mostly about things we wish we could cook...and if the hospital allowed, I bet she'd be able to whip it up in her room.  I'd probably watch that too, and be the official taste tester of course.  We talk a lot about our plans for when she gets out of the hospital, and most days I force her to listen to stories about my class.  Most days she ends with a ' Thanks for sitting with me, I had fun with you.'  We are best friends, and we've honestly spent the last twenty four years of our lives together, day to day.  And yet, I don't know that we've ever been closer, or enjoyed each other more than we are right now.'
    I wrote this three weeks before Ash passed away.   'Ash' dangles around my neck daily, it is tattooed on my ribs forever, I have this unbelievable need to keep her spirit current, and reminders of her with me constantly. Testament to the place I know I am trying to get in my grieving.