broken compass moment

moving slow inside numbing pain with a broken compass.  grief is like some sort of demon that takes ahold of your mind and heart and feasts on everything in you that used to work. 

I think of this short story called Eleven by Sandra Cisneros in which the main character realizes that even though she is now eleven, depending on the moment, she is also all the years that came before.  She is sometimes the three year old who wants to climb into the lap of her mom and cry, sometimes you say something dumb and that's your ten year old self. 

I keep thinking right now that I don't know how to find the energy to do anything, let alone anything right.  and I'm lonely and reaching out.  but what if you reach out to the wrong person?  what if in reaching out, you hurt someone, wreck something?  then what?  all I want is for the pain to stop.  I want to not feel so alone. 

all these people keep saying I am not alone.  but here i am in my bed, crying, feeling horrible, and where are you all?  all these people who say I am not alone?  John was the one who made me whole, made me not alone.  and I didn't have enough time with him.  I have traveled so many hard paths.  I have done so many things, some incredibly stupid and thoughtless, and some amazing and powerful, kind and generous and wonderful.

I keep saying "lost".  I am so very lost and I feel like i can't even see where I am going, or who to look for to give me direction.  Everything feels so broken.  My past has always felt that way, littered with so many betrayals and losses it's hard to remember the good things.  but now my future and my present seem torn to pieces, a beautiful painting that was hanging on the wall during some sort of mini-war and ended up shredded to the point that whatever was there is now totally unrecognizable. 

I am nothing.  I am lost.  I am spinning out of control.  But if you reach out to offer a hand to hold, well, just don't expect that I won't just crash into you and tear you to pieces too.  I got in a hot bath, to melt away some of the shame and pain and sorrow.  I don't think it helped.  So I am writing here.

And I'm scared to post it.  But this is part of my journey too. 

I don't know why, but I just feel so sorry.  I'm sorry I reached out to the wrong person.  I'm sorry it's John and not me that died.  Not that I want to die. Just that I don't know where the hell to find the strength to go forward and be who I want and need to be!!  And I think he would be doing so much better if he were the one left behind.

I wish so desperately that I could believe in god and beg for help....I just don't know how to do this and I don't understand why it is getting so much harder...maybe it's just a moment.  but it feels like a really long one...

someone please fix my compass and put a new battery in the clock so time can move forward, would ya?