…catharsis…

The last two weeks of 2011 were emotionally, spiritually, & mentally exhausting. Part of that I can chalk up to being the holidays & Elle’s birthday. It’s always a struggle, getting through her day, thinking of how old she’d be each year (34). There’s the stress of gift-buying, of travel plans, of hosting & attending parties. I don’t mean to trivialize the real struggles others are having: no job, no money, no home … just to say while there are definitely first-world problems I am listing, that doesn’t make the stress of them (& it’s affect on my psyche) any less real or valid. Less significant? Less breaking? Yes. Less real? No.

Now that I have sufficiently covered my ass & prepared you all for the moaning & groaning to follow, let me preface with saying there’s light at the end of this tunnel. Boom.

While I normally pooh-pooh my worries into “first-world holiday problems” or compartmentalize them into neat, tidy Container Store boxes, this year, they kicked my ass.

Was I more vulnerable this year? Was I hormonal? Were my compartments bursting at the seams? Likely all of the above. But I broke, ever so slightly at first, only to then crack open completely in a sobbing, chest-heaving pile of legs & arms on the floor.

Literally.

Something was missing in my life – something still is – & I have yet to identify what it is. Glue, perhaps, to keep me from dismantling entirely?

I thought I was doing alright until the night I got to my parents’ house in Iowa. It’s always an odd sensation, going back, because, as my mom told me that night, there, I’m the daughter. I’m the sister. I’m the aunt. What I’m not, generally, fully, is the independent woman I am all of the other days of the year. There’s something about going back that – I won’t say makes me revert, cuz that’s not quite it – it brings out my sensitive, nuturing, Earth side. I’m still fiery and opinionated, but just less-so. I’m less happy hour & politics, more sofa cuddling & education.

Anyways, that night.

That night, Dad popped in home movies. We all ended up moving our way into the upstairs living room to watch aunts & uncles falling into lakes, Gramps & Nano walking around as if they’d never die, & little child-shadows of ourselves twist our faces & bodies into the expressions we’d wear our whole lives. It was during one of those videos that she popped up.

Elle, in a cozy sweater, holding a baby brother, not a month old yet. Elle, free of the brace jail she lived in for so long. Elle, bright blue eyes & a maturity I’m not sure I’ve mastered even yet, in my 36th year.

I cracked. The bough broke and the cradle fell. The dam burst and the waters flooded. I watched for as long as she was on the screen. I didn’t dare look away. And when the screen went dark, I quietly exited the room, closed the bathroom door, & collapsed – just as I did the moment I first heard the news.

All of those thoughts you’re too embarassed to say aloud, the types of words that invite pity and admonishment simultaneously, all of those compartmentalized emotions came rushing out, in, around.

She was the better daughter, the better sister, the better person.
Why not take me?
She’d be dead less than three months after that video & there I was, pushing her away as I talked on the phone, annoyed with her, with the camera, with the people invading my private space. She’d be dead in three months & I avoided her.
I should have been right there, in the thick of it. I should have been hugging her. I should have been helping out my mom.
It should have been me.
It should have been me.
It should have been me.

It’s classic survivor’s guilt. It’s the kind of thing, if I heard me saying these words, would respond, “Don’t think that!” My brain, my big-ass brain, knows all of those things. I know them. But someone, anyone, please tell that to my heart … my big-ass heart.

That night painted the atmosphere for the rest of the holiday at home. Contemplative, quiet, appreciative, sensitive. At any given moment, I was a Cotton commercial away from melting into tears again. They were there, just sitting in the wells of my eyes, waiting, as I bit tongues & looked sideways & changed subjects.

Got a boyfriend in Chicago, Niki?

UGH. Can we please just stop asking that question? Please? On behalf of all single women everywhere, please PLEASE stop asking that question. I beseech thee.

My brother drove me back to Chicago. That’s a whole ‘nother thing … to know that a) it costs a lot to travel back home for the holidays but to also know that b) your kid brother is driving you back because of that very reason.

Anyways, he drove me back & he spent a few days here. I am not going to violate trust, so I will not go into detail about the long conversation we had one night, well into the wee hours, but I will say that all of the anguish I had at the beginning of the holiday was finally exorcised to my satisfaction at the end. We weeped, we mourned, we learned, we considered, we saw the world from an entirely different vantage point. & we discovered that we have more in common than we already knew.

Cathartic. It was. Cathartic.

I didn’t know I needed it until I had it. & how I needed it.

So now I go into this new year with a new appreciation, a revived sense of purpose, and a calm blanket of serenity. It may not be the best year of my life, it may not be easy, it may not remain calm … but I can survive whatever it is. See, that’s how we Conrads are.