It’s Un(Comfortable) When The World Keeps Spinning

A Death Anniversary: Part I

I’ve always been baffled by how well the world can carry on when any one person’s world stops.

I remember sitting on a bench by Flatiron District when I learned that a friend was going to die. I couldn’t think about the why or the when behind his death, instead my mind concentrated on the sneakers and boots that passed before my blurry vision.

The Nikes and Chelsea boots were all subtle reminders that the world keeps spinning, people’s lives keep going.

I resented this.

I resented it on the day I found out he was going to die. I resented when I looked down from the cafeteria to the hospital lobby where others were clearing security to see their loved ones, when on the 8th floor I’d just left my grandma’s body. I resented it on the night before my mom’s fourteenth death anniversary when I sat alone on my bed and cried over a finite number of pictures.

People expect sadness when you lose someone, and in the grief that follows. They expect denial. The expect anger at a larger spiritual entity. They anticipate lots of “whys” and “what ifs.”

They very rarely acknowledge the resentment. They look at you with a slight nod and a sad expression that says they see your “this shit is just unfair” look, but they view it as a bridge. It’s the moment right before you’re supposed to see how lucky you were to have them, their moments, at all.

If you’re in it, when you’re in it, it’s your stop sign.

I’m fourteen years out from the first time I lived that January 10th in real time. I’m at my stop sign, once again.

The world is viewed through the lens of the same number of pictures I’ll always have. I’ll never get more. I’ll never have a picture to frame of my mom and my boyfriend and me. He won’t have his arm around me while she sits on a couch next to us.

When I get married, someone else will stand in for the mom I lost when weddings were still a thing that only happened with my Barbies.

On big days, I’m forced to stop and acknowledge how unfair this is. I don’t have to see the silver lining. It doesn’t matter if others can see it for me or if seeing it is all others want me to do.

I know I have a good life and that I’m fortunate and loved, but this shit sucks. The prickle of awareness on your skin on big days reminds you that you’re different, that there’s something missing that was once there.

I never knew my dad so when people ask me if I miss him I always say no because how could I miss something I never had?

The same can’t be said for the person in the finite number of pictures in my desk drawer. There’s the time I went to Disney World and we stayed in a cheap hotel because it meant being able to afford every park during that single week. There’s the time that I graduated from kindergarten. It was the only graduation she lived to see. She stood stoically in her skirt and blazer, hand on the shoulder of the little girl she was used to sitting on cold floors with while Barbie swam in the pool at the top of her beach bungalow.

That little girl is the only one she got to know. So on days like today, she’s the one I think about. Because she’s on my mind it’s hard to marry who that little girl was with who I am today.

Tomorrow, to some degree I’m just another girl in Chelsea boots. I’ll walk out of my apartment and go to record a podcast episode. I’ll sit down and write an article, post a picture of my food on Instagram. Life will keep on going, people will keep on walking.

Today I remind myself that I don’t need the world to stop in order for me to stop.

I’m stopped.

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I’m the founder of toodamnyoung.com. You can find me talking about mental health, grief and work-life on Living Vulnerably: https://medium.com/living-vulnerably

I also host Creating Espacios, podcast for the next generation of Latina trailblazers.

Follow along as I condense essays into 140 characters: https://twitter.com/vivnunez