The Night My World Ended

The morning after the world ended, I woke up in my best friend's basement. It was Christmas Eve Day, my family was in shambles, and I had never felt so alone in my entire life. The sun was up and beaming obnoxiously through the tiny window above my bed. I cursed the sun for rising.

There is a difference between being suicidal and just wishing you didn't exist. You think that maybe you'll fall asleep and the sun won't rise again because it makes no sense that it would. It's hard to contemplate other people's lives going on like nothing happened to you, like you weren't drowning. 

But despite my muddled brain and full-body ache, I did exist and the sun did rise so I had to do what I did every other morning, albeit in my own house.

I sat up. I put both feet on the floor. I stood, I walked to the bathroom, I showered. I did my hair and my make-up just like it was any other day. I went upstairs and made small talk with my best friend's family over grapefruit and cereal. I laughed.

Because the sun was up. Because I was alive. Because this is What You Do and not doing it would be so much worse than anything that had happened to me. Because all I had were the motions and I was determined to go through them. 

Because, because, because, because.

I sat on the couch and talked to my friend and her mom and made jokes about their evil cat. I made plans with my boyfriend. I ate food. I tried to breathe.

But after two hours of pretending that I had myself under control, I stumbled back to my basement bedroom and flopped gracelessly onto the pull-out bed. My headphones were still hooked up to my iPhone, so I hooked myself up and listened to Coldplay's Fix You about 20 consecutive times, trying to induce the tears that seemed to be stuck somewhere in my stomach. Nothing. I fell asleep with my music still on. 

I woke up to my phone ringing and tears pooling up in my eyes. It was my therapist. We talked for an hour. I found out later that she didn't charge us for that session. 

I was finally crying and it felt good, except for the moment of terror when I wondered if I'd ever be able to stop. For a few moments, I felt bad for myself. I saw myself from the outside, a crumpled young girl on a pull-out bed, mascara smeared all over her face, trying so desperately not to absolutely shatter.

Then I dropped from the bed to my knees and started pleading with God to let me survive this. I made promises, I got angry, I cried, I tried not to scream. I was so caught in between my rage that God would allow something so terrible to happen to me, even though I'd tried so hard to be good, and my desperation to feel some comfort and peace in the midst of my world ending. It was the first time I realized that growing up didn't mean it was easier to manage my emotions, but rather it made it possible for me to juggle so many conflicting emotions at once that I felt vaguely schizophrenic. 

That night, my world continued to crumble. The police picked me up from my boyfriend's family Christmas party. I spent Christmas Eve and early Christmas Morning in a police station, clinging to my little brother and my dad. I spoke to a judge via Skype, and at 4:36 on Christmas, we walked into my house. The tree was lit, the presents were gone, we were finally safe, and we had somehow survived the last 72 hours with shreds of Christmas spirit intact. We went to bed.

And that year, our Christmas miracle was being together. I woke up with the words of the Grinch in my head:

"And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow,
stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more."

And it had come, despite the end of my world, despite my mother's betrayal, despite the fact that I wasn't sure I wanted it to be Christmas.

But it was and I was alive and for a few hours that day, I felt it.

Life goes on and moves forward at a sometimes relentless pace. Sometimes all you can do is wake up in the morning, put your feet on the floor, and tell yourself that you're going to make it through another day. And maybe your world ends, and maybe you have to pick up the pieces and start all over, and maybe sometimes it makes no sense that you would have to do that. And maybe it makes you want to quit.

I'm not going to tell you that eventually it will be over and your life will be wonderful and you can just forget all the bad stuff that happened to you. What I can say is that you is that time will pass, the sun will continue to rise, and you have to continue to get up and give 'em hell.