You had to run with a night like this so the sadness wouldn’t hurt

Ray Bradbury

So much of the time since they died I’ve spent running. (Not literally of course, running is awful. Seriously, it’s the worst. Thank god for skating and literally any other form of cardio). Yet I keep myself busy, stressing myself out about meaningless things. Because if I’m busy being stressed or working on some silly thing I don’t have to feel scared, or sad, or angry, or lonely. Until I do.

And when I do feel it, when I stop and acknowledge the loss, it breaks me for a while. Leaves me inert. Unable to process, unmotivated to be. Just stuck, frozen in all the lead-ups to and never-will-be moments of grief.

So I have been running, moving, distracting myself in a million little ways to keep the truth at bay. Although I feel the absence always, work to keep myself from stewing in that broken space for as long as I can. Fact is, Im still alive even if they aren’t.

And while I may still have a life that needs living, I no longer have a job as an excuse to be busy. I find myself starting and restarting cover letters, trying to say something worthwhile in hopes someone finds me employable. All the while in the back of my mind I wonder…

I wonder what comes next?

Is this the job I want ?

Is this the life I want?

Maybe there is something more, something else. Then again maybe I’m too scared to look.