i tend to fight these small battles every once in a while. small details of daily routine that trigger a foul part of me that doesn’t seem to stop until it grows tired of hurting inside. i never seem to get a grasp of how long it lingers in me until i finally feel the sun on my face again.

the point is, i get sick. i try to pretend as best as i can to jump and smile to show the happiness i enjoy in everyday…but at the end of the day…all i want to do is curl into myself and try to swallow the bitterness that eats me up inside.
my mother termed it “the funk” and it tends to come sporadically. it became obvious to her that it will always be my inner struggle to conquer. she lovingly and patiently lets it play on in the daily routine while standing on guard from the sidelines. she’s been through this before and will get through it right there with me. she’s a soldier and i pointedly take after her. i am her daughter.

i’ve discovered through experience what triggers it most of the time. it’s him. the lingering thought of him. once again coming into focus from a blurry image from my lens of perspective and i spot the difference. i sense the change. i see what’s missing all over again. and feel that familiar pain. soon the rain starts to trickle down from the angry cloud forming quickly above my head. and i’m gone.

snippets of images recorded in my head are then returned to me. words and phrases repeated from another that doesn’t match the baritone or time it was once said. that he once said. to the lady in charge, or to the siblings…or even to me. and i become confused. then hurt. then lonely. then angry.

never ending process that has become all too familiar for the girl who has enough estranged thoughts swimming around in her already chaotic, messy mind. once the thoughts are set in, the pain settles a little longer in the mess of my heart and the images become all too painfully clear to see.

he becomes everything. he’s sitting at the dinner table. he’s watching the basketball game in the room. he’s fixing the washing machine. he’s driving in from working a 14 hour shift. and i can see it all and even hear it sometimes. i hear him humming the songs from the oldies station. i listen for the quiet chuckle after mum attempts a joke at the kitchen counter.

you are correct when you say i seem to be a little off. to imagine someone who has not been in my physical presence for years and yet can appear at random times of my day to painfully remind me…that he has not been there. it hurts too much to even breathe.

you are also correct when you say that i have not found that closure yet. but searching for an answer, all the while re-affirming the steps to the plan of salvation…does not fill in the rest of the time of my day when a memory intertwines with this very moment. and whatever i say to myself, the mantra i give myself daily, cannot justify the emptiness echoing within the confinements of my funked-up imagination.

however, i am trying. i am improving. instead of the flashback brushing against me in spite. i allow it to remain. i allow it to connect. to coincide. to remind me of all the many great things that can become of this past reflection of him. i invite it rather than despise it. i turn forward and welcome whatever else my mind can remember of him. i learned to cherish it. i learned to cherish him. his past with my now.

songs, smells, places, time of the day…i watch for them most carefully and take a moment to myself to learn from it. raise my face to the sun and finally feel the familiar warmth again.

i know there will be more bad days. more painful reminders. more hiding under the covers and suffer in silence. but i know for myself that there’s always room for improvement and a chance to take that single opportunity within stride. it’s still here. he’s still here.

**and i’m finally okay with that.