Another Feeling

 
This one's a long one.

 Feeling #7
                        
News first hits. Time slows down, and heart rate speeds up. Somewhere in your brain, it is decided that the gravity of the situation is too much to handle at the moment. So it lets it leak in little by little. You walk away, and time picks up its pace, but heart keeps its momentum. From the outside, its beats could be mistaken for happy or excited. But each heartbeat, instead of energizing and uplifting, just kind of echoes.

Life continues. But you are kept detached. How can everything go on as it should be, when inside my world is falling apart? You don't think your friends notice, but every pause in conversation you catch yourself staring out, lost in thought. You find the sick impulse to laugh. At everything, at exactly how it turned out. Maybe you are going insane.

You look back, and can't remember when. But you know it's finally dawned on you. You couldn't even call it pain, because pain brings clarity. Sometimes realization. First you try numbness. Grabbing onto anything that might bring the sweet relief of distraction. But while they used to work, that was before. Now nothing can stop your thoughts from tossing and turning.

Next you try wishful thinking. It's damn near impossible, but maybe it'll turn out this way. Or this way. You start taking the little things and distorting them, so that they'll somehow lead to something less devastating. This part's dangerous. Because you know that when it doesn't turn out that way, it will hurt that much more. Hope sets you up for a harder fall. But you can't help it.

Here is where you use your own unique coping mechanism. The burden on your back is inescapable, but you find a way. You get creative. And it always almost works.

Somewhere down the line from there is acceptance. Getting over it by finding that there are things much more valuable to live for. That to wallow in the past is a waste of life and energy.
At least I think so. I actually wouldn't know.

I'm not there yet.