Grief

Death is a stranger to me. I picture it as The Angel of Death in Supernatural: a very classy gentleman in a tux, an emotionless face with sharp cheekbones and pale skin, resembling a skull with an absorbent gaze. When you're time is due, he'll appear out of nowhere and simply touch your shoulder, signaling your heart to stop beating. I've had important deaths in my time on Earth, but none of them was devastating or life changing (compared to many other stories).

My grandfather died, but he had been ill for a long time, and days before it occurred, I sensed it. I had an urge to see him, to say my goodbyes, but I couldn't. I cried horribly, still. One of my theater mentors died from a terrible and out of nowhere heart-attack. I saw him the day earlier, the way fate wanted it to be, after not seeing him in months. We had a beautiful chat and he told me how proud he was of me, more reason for it to be so shocking the next day when I heard the news. Both events now seem so strange and blurry, I was in such a state I can't remember correctly how I dealt with any of it, mostly because death is something you never get really accustomed to.

But I do know grief. I've known grief my entire life.

When my parents divorced, I had to grief my childhood home, my family and the image I had of my father. It was raw, sudden and definite. My mental health back then was filled with absence. I had panic attacks and breakdowns all the time. The worse thing was not knowing where or when they would strike. It could be in a restaurant, in school (during teenage years), in your home watching TV, every now and then, it just happened. This black hole inside of me attacked again.

My therapist saved my life and she knows it. Constant and mayor therapy brought me back to life. But I understand now that it was grief because I was constantly holding on to the idea of what those concepts meant to me, rather than letting go and getting to know this new process that was happening in my life. I don't blame myself. I think I managed it the best way I knew how, sincerely. It changed my life drastically, and anyone that knew me back then can confirm that my way of dealing with life was always being defensive. I had a pair of invisible boxing gloves, thinking that I should wore an armor for all the things that were hurting me.

Grief came again the two times I finished my studies. Once when I finished high school, then when I obtained my Bachelor's Degree in Social Communication. This time in Venezuela has been so hard, that it brought the biggest emigration wave in the story of our country, so, I'm used to saying goodbye to my friends, having them spread across the world. And most of this farewells happen when you are done with your studies, so this critical time of self discovery and change, tend to merge with the blues of seeing your loved ones part; and I wish I could tell you all that it was one or two special friends, but no, it's normally in groups of 15 - 20 close and adored buddies.

But one detail made my university's graduation even more painful. We were in the finish line, almost a month left to graduate, some of us already having defended our Bachelor thesis, when communism attacked. Protests started again. Young kids were killed in the streets. Families wept, my colleagues in journalism filmed and reported everything, but the international community allowed another massacre to occur. The people cried and our human rights were crushed with their bombs and bullets, and yet, the government didn't change. Nothing changed. The rich and corrupt got richer. But lives were forever disrupted. Including us, a group of working students who spent 5 years struggling to complete a career in a nation of madness, who couldn't have an act. Who lost their last moments and beautiful ceremonies in the ending of a important cycle in life. And I can honestly say that my university did everything in it's power to prevent that from happening, but there was so much they could not control, so much at stake and so much they couldn't unsee of what was occurring in the streets. And we lost it. And I felt helpless. My whole life could be tangled, moved and arranged without my consent and there was nothing for me to do.

Breaking up with someone is also a mourning. You build a life around someone, you write to them every single day for three years and a half, you share and intertwine a delicate intimacy, and one day it all disappears. You love them and then you don't. "To watch a girl become a ghost before your eyes" says John Mayer on Never on the Day you Leave. Pain comes in new unexpected ways you've never experienced before. You travel across a spectrum of "negative" emotions and your whole vision about the relationship changes, becomes tarnished . It's not all bad. I felt free as well, I could see a lot of my friends again, I met new and loving people and discovered a new version of me that was hiding. But it's a complicated thing to grow out of habit. To let go of the comfort of belonging to someone, to talk, kiss, count on, to go to weddings with someone. I discovered many music albums and songs that were waiting for me, for that exact moment of my life to really hit home. I got headaches from having to repeat the same speech when asked "What happened?" and having to deal with a lot of confusing reactions from your acquaintances. Days go by and then Facebook brings hurtful memories exactly when you don't need them to. You move on, and get over, and someday find yourself feeling numb about it. But before that, it's a roller coaster.

To be sincere, I underestimated grief. I thought I understood grief. But now, now grief is my shadow. It never leaves my sight and hides itself under my bed when I sleep. Grief is, right now, ripping the skin from me, leaving me in this gut retching-solid-pain. I decided to leave everything trying to find a life for myself, away from all I've ever loved. But I can't stop crying. That's the price to pay if you love and feel too much. When you find something good and you have to abandon it.

I can't begin to tell you how much I miss my mom. How I miss her hugs and her sweetness. How she makes me feel in peace. What I'd give to be able to come home, find her in her bed, curl up in there and just talk about anything.

How I miss my best friends. How deeply it hurts to watch them have a life through social media, away from me. How much I'd wish to laugh with them once more. How crushing it feels to not know if or when I'll see them again.

What I'd give to see my dog, Maya, and just stroke her for 40 minutes straight while watching movies. If she was here, and she'd feel I was crying, immediately she would come and lick me, or just come real close, trying to comfort me. I miss sleeping with her, and how she'd never go to bed if I was awake, she would stay with me all night long If she had to.

Sometimes I get this horrid desire of something happening in Venezuela, so I'd have to go back. And I know that even if that happened tomorrow, I'd dread every minute being there. The situation is so awful that I'd be having trouble breathing again. I'd put one foot in Maiquetía, our airport, and feel the density in the general aura, everyone trying to claw their way out.

But I also grief for me. I am tired all the time, and sad all of the time. Guilty, scared, confused, anxious and trying so hard. And judging myself so much. And because I am alone most of the time, my head is all that I hear. My thoughts asking myself if I'll make it. If it's possible for me to be born again, to grow a new skin and to crawl from the pit.

One dialogue of the film "Under the Tuscan Sun" comes to my head while writing all this. It's Patti, Frances best friend, who's being left by her life long partner while being pregnant. She asks to her, "Oh Frances, how do you do it? How do you ever breathe again?". And I don't know the answer.

But I have to confess, Buenos Aires is a beautiful city to be sad in.