The Loneliest I've Ever Been

What comes to mind today is how my decisions have led me to the place where I am. I think of all the choices I've made and where they have left me. I think about this town and realize how alone I am. I'll go home at the end of the day today and won't have anyone to call. I won't have someone to come console me. I am a hundred miles from anyone who would come to my rescue at 4am or realize that I'm a ticking time bomb. I've let all of my friends go over the past two years. Were they ever really friends of mine anyway? Today is the first day I've ever felt lonely in my own home. I've always enjoyed my solitude and independence. People have asked me numerous times, "Don't you get lonely living by yourself?" And I've always thought that that is so absurd. I've never felt lonely...until today. All the shit that's happened this year has made me question being so far away from home, but not until my mom asked me last night if I wanted her to start looking for a job for me did I truly consider moving back. Why should I be so far away from the only people that have ever truly and wholly loved me? What am I proving? What am I giving up to be here? It's obvious that I can't make it on my own so why keep trying?

Saying Goodbye Is The Hardest Thing I've Ever Done

I have put off writing this entry for some time now. I don't know why I thought it might get easier with time, so I guess there is no better time than now. Back in June I lost my grandmother. She was only 75 and in such good health that her death came as such a shock to everyone. She had gone out to dinner with some people from church, something they were doing every other week and she was so happy about. When she got home that night she was having what she thought was really severe heartburn. She suffered all night in pain and finally called my cousin to take her to the hospital around 6 a.m. It turned out that she had had a massive heart attack. By the time she got to the hospital, the doctor said there was so much damage done to her heart tissue that he didn't think she would recover. They took her into emergency open heart surgery to put in a stint and the next day she was alert and talkative and making jokes and we all got to go in and talk to her. She looked so good that we got our hopes up. But later that night she went into cardiac arrest and was in a coma for the next few days. My mom and her siblings finally decided to take her off the respirator and she passed with her kids right there with her.

I guess I just didn't expect to be so affected by her death. It was so unexpected and so sudden that I kind of couldn't believe it. I still haven't really grasped the fact that I'll never see her again or talk to her again or have Christmas Eve at her house like we have every single year I've been alive. I still expect to go by her house and her welcome me at the door. And it really hurts to realize that I didn't really know how much she meant to me until I lost her. I'm afraid that I'll live the rest of my life with regret because there is so much I could have done to be a better granddaughter these past few years. She'll never know how much I loved her. Or how many amazing memories I have because of her. I think she always felt second best to my Mimi and I'm not sure that that wasn't my fault. I'm afraid she died never knowing how much she meant to me. Having to live the rest of my life with that thought is what I fear makes me the saddest.

But the thing that has been the hardest to deal with is how sad my mom is. My mom, my pillar of strength, is just absolutely broken-hearted. I don't know how to act around her and that's the worst feeling. For example, we stopped by my grandma's house to pick up some things my mom wanted to get and the house was just torn apart. My family had already gone through her stuff and taken a lot of it. My uncle was redoing some flooring and getting ready to rent it out. It just wasn't my grandma's house anymore. I was trying to hold it together because I didn't want to make my mom upset, but I couldn't. I started crying and was trying to hide it, but she saw. It made me feel so bad. I feel like I have to be the one who is holding it together for her sake.

I know that this is the kind of thing that only time can make better, but it just feels like it changed a lot of things. It makes me want to be home. It belittles the importance of pretty much everything else in my life. I just want to be with my family. This whole year has been rough for my family. It just makes me feel guilty for being so far away. It makes me feel more alone than ever...