Life is a bitch

There are so many things that you don’t think about when you think of how grief might affect your life.

It is expected that there will be stereotypical grief issues such as depression, etc but I wasn’t prepared for the dropping off of support from my immediate family. I wasn’t prepared for the weight fluctuations because sometimes I can’t eat and other times I eat my feelings. I wasn’t prepared for how it would impact trying to hold a relationship. I wasn’t prepared for how fucking hard it is to balance my grief and Carter’s. I wasn’t prepared for how fucking hard it is to juggle life.

And I really wasn’t fucking prepared for how hard it is to be in this house. On one hand, this is still my comfort spot when I need to escape from the world to process my thoughts and feelings. It is where Bryce was mere hours before he was taken from me. It is where he slept at night. His room is still a little bit of a mess. There are still things sitting in the corner of the room where he left them. There is still a chaotic pile of extra bedding on the floor at the foot of the bed where he left it. There is still the broken tv that he found by a dumpster that he SWORE he was going to fix. There is still a box of random items that he never unpacked when we moved here 4 months before the accident. The bathroom still has his items in the cabinet. I love seeing those things.

On the other hand…

This is the house where he climbed on the roof for me to hang Christmas lights for his baby brother only weeks before he was taken from us.

This is where he slept at night but his room has now lost his scent. This is where my car and his bike shared a garage. This is where he so fucking excitedly worked on the truck he bought. This is the home that he pulled away from as he left on his bike for the last time, expecting to be back a few hours later. This is the home where I came home after work that night not knowing that he’d be taking his last breath only 30 minutes later. This is the home where I received the near frantic call from his dad in Tucson asking if I’d heard from him. This is the home that I drove back to in shock holding a ziplock bag with my son’s wallet and shattered cell phone.

This is the home I drove back to after my son’s memorial service where I saw him lying in a casket. This is the home where I’ve spent almost 4 months in so much pain.

Leaving this house won’t fix the pain. Not by a long shot. Nothing will. But I don’t know if I can stay in this house. Even if it would mean breaking a lease.

So now I get to balance life, balance my grief, balance Carter’s grief, wonder if I’ll ever have a mind healthy enough for a relationship, wonder if I should move to a new home to give us a “fresh” home, and deal with the feeling of constantly missing my son and wishing he were still here to experience his life. He should be here experiencing life.