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I've been drowning in an ocean...

Everyone knows by now in our social circle and no one else really "cares" or "needs to know" but I feel like I still need this outlet because the one person I used to be able to talk things through with is no longer here. Porch passed away on November 6th and left a hole in our hearts and in our daily lives. The girls and I are doing the best we can to figure it out and find some kind, any kind of peace. 

This feels ramble-y already but like I said, I have no one to sit on the couch with at night and chat with so... if you make it through this, I'm sorry.

Suicide is such a bitch.

I get it - I get mental health and will forever sing the praises for taking care of ones mental health and advocate for taking the steps (medication, therapy, etc) to live a healthy life. But I also get that sometimes, our demons cripple us. In a way that we just can't come back from. I have been describing this to C as daddy's brain being so sick that it couldn't hear his heart shouting how much we all loved him - his brain told him that he was too sad and too troubled to stay here with us. Ever had that kind of "chat" with a six-year-old? 0 stars.

Meanwhile, V is wandering the house calling for him. She refuses to let me leave her line of sight while we're together and if I do dip into the bathroom or to the laundry room, she cries like I too have left her. So that's where we're at in the processing and grieving arena. 

I am doing the things. I am waking up every morning and taking my own medication so that I can continue to be here for the girls. I do the things that I have to so we can survive and someday get to that thriving part again. My parents have been incredibly helpful, coming over to help often.

But the part that hurts the heart the most?

The silence. 

If you knew Porch, you know it was never quiet. His laugh could fill the room; his drinking voice (if you know, you know) could fill a HOUSE. Now when I get the girls to sleep at night, there is no one to tell me about an article he read, a show he thinks I would like, or to make me an old fashioned (to make the show he thought I would like more tolerable). After 13 years of being together constantly - there is a void.  And damn is it a big one. I hate that I didn't get to say goodbye. That I couldn't save him from himself. It makes me feel like a failure in so many ways; I failed him, I failed our girls, and I failed our families. I'm watching the ripple of destruction/disruption and feeling some big feelings about it.

I randomly started crying in a Target this week as I realized when I got home, my mom would be there, not Porch. That he would never again tease me for seeking sanity via a solo Target run.

I'm showing up. 

I won't leave my babies.

But damn. It's hard. So hard. Arguably the hardest thing I've ever done or will do in my life. And everyday, there's some new, fucked up way that it hurts.

xo

Mama Porch

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