howcouldiknow

Back in Chicago.  Settling into my apartment.  Missing my sister already.  Washed all my clothes and bought 90 dollars worth of groceries.  I go back to work tomorrow.  Tomorrow.  And I am really anxious.  Hell if I know why.  It’s not a new job, it’s the same people and the same place and the same activities.  But maybe it’s because I’m not the same.

I feel different after my brother attempting suicide.  (I feel like use the masculine to address the past actions of my brother and using the feminine to address current and future actions.  This is confusing to everyone, including to me.  But I don’t feel like my sister attempted suicide, my sister is the person that has arisen out of the chaos created by my brother.  Or am I segregating them too much, trying to create two distinct identities to assign behaviors to.)

I guess I am just a little shaken still, a little in shock and still waiting.  Expecting something else.  Hell, I have flown six times back and forth between Chicago and Columbus since July 19th and every time I imagine my plane going down.  What it would feel like as it plummets, how I would behave.  Who’s lap would I unconsciously climb into in order to sob and panic?  Who on this plane is going to flip their shit completely?  Will the engine fall off?  That wing is wobbling a lot, maybe it will just start shredding into bits of shrapnel.  Is it the pilots first day?  I mean some day has to be their first day. I feel pressure, because I have become an important force in my family, my plane can’t crash.  It’s just not allowed.  So then I start imagining the random terrible possibilities in my path, and remind myself that there is no one limiting how much awful shit hits at once.

So I am trying to start over.  Or return.  I feel a shadow following me, it’s irrational and paranoid and scared.  And maybe its not a shadow but the personification of pain, of grief and I don’t believe its going to let go so easily.  And maybe I am afraid of work and feel awkward in social situations because I think you can see it.  Or see my scars.  Or maybe I wish you could so I would make more sense to you.  Maybe it’s time for my first tattoo.  That’s pretty silly.