How Much Trauma Can I Hold?

CW: mention of abusive moms (not mine!), power outage, mental health, death of family member

Hello dear hearts,

I don’t even know where to start this.

Those of you who follow me on Instagram know that my train trip back last Monday was HORRIFIC. Abusive moms yelling and threatening their kids, a drunk guy who was dancing in his seat for HOURS (it was literally making me nauseous to see him rocking and moving in the corner of my eye, I know there is a word for that), and then the cancelation of my second train while in Chicago.

After a family member picked me up in Chicago, we got home after midnight on Wednesday, I slept for six hours straight, and then had a lovely relaxing day…until we lost power in Michigan at 6 PM.

We got our power back just a couple hours ago (that’s four days of no power) and the first thing I did was make coffee and a hot pocket.

Next up, cleaning and organizing my camper, lighting some incense and candles, getting a hot shower, and then sleeping.

Photo by Christy Mills on Unsplash

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But first, for those of you who were following along when I found out my aunt was dying and then my reflections on being around family while my aunt was dying, I wanted to update her actual death here with dates.

My aunt died on February 3rd at roughly 7:30 PM, her viewing was on February 5th, and her funeral was on February 6th.

I seriously always forget how quickly things happen in small towns. And then I remembered it followed the same pattern when my grandma died in 2019. Died on a Friday, viewing on Sunday, burial on Monday.

Honestly, it still doesn’t feel real that my aunt is gone (or my grandmothers, still not over that either) and what that means. Not to mention “What is time”? She was buried twenty days ago and I just now have been able to write about, have the energy to pull out my laptop and type this letter.

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This feels like a shit letter to be honest, not at all cohesive, and random traumatic things (because losing power while trying to quarantine is it’s own kind of trauma). I have been in survival mode since January 5th, when I was told my aunt was dying.

There is so much I want to write about these past several weeks, but also don’t want to look at yet. I’m not sure where I am in the grieving process, except that I want another cup of coffee and want to finish watching Only Murders in the Building.

I will probably need extra therapy sessions for this next month. Might try to schedule some virtual watch parties with folks too. Maybe some writing sprints. Who knows? not me, evidently.

Until next time,
-Ash