[internet cafe] fy calon i yn anafen

[likesthecoat]

I feel the need to explain myself a little. I loved a woman called Lisa. She died. I'm dealing with it--sometimes well, sometimes poorly.

Tonight has been one of the 'poorly' nights. I saw a woman on the street on the way home tonight who looked so much like Lisa I almost called her name.

Here's something they don't tell you about grief: sometimes it just hits you when you think you're fine, you're doing okay, you're going to get on with living. Just when I think I'm moving on and rebuilding my life, something small like this happens and completely wrecks me again. I feel blindsided by it, like I've been knocked down from behind.

I've been struggling with whether to leave this entry private, or filter it, or write it in Welsh just to say it without saying it--but I'm tired of hiding everything I feel even here.

This is really me, denizens of TIC, and in all honesty I'm not sure what I hope to accomplish by being open.

I miss her. That's all it is, and it's so much.

Comments

[morethanteaboy.livejournal.com]

[Private to Hakkai]
I would like to hear it, if you want to tell the story.

Lisa . . . I lost her before I lost her for good, if that makes sense. I held on longer than I should have--I believed I could makes things better, make it right again, and in the end I couldn't and she died.

I've tried reading about grief, I've tried burying myself in work, and it still gnaws at me every day. I feel guilty for being alive, and I feel guilty about not having been able to do more to help her, and I feel guilty about wanting to move on. And the only thing that I believe will really help me makes me feel guiltiest of all.

[chigong-master.livejournal.com]

[Private to Ianto]

Alright…this is the story of my Kanan.

We hadn't been married for very long, and I'd just gotten a job teaching in a small village. I was happy. My students were wonderful, I was with the woman I loved… I thought things were perfect. I shouldn't have tempted fate like that.

I came home one fall evening, not suspecting at all that anything was wrong. However, when I entered our home, it looked as though it had been ransacked. And, more importantly, Kanan was missing.

After pressing the others in town for any information at all, I came to find out that a demon named Hyakugan Mao, a fiend reputed to have an eye for attractive women, had spotted her. His 'thing' was to play with these women until he got bored, and then he would eat them. Anyway, he had threatened to destroy the village and kill everyone in it if Kanan wasn't given to him. Of course, the townspeople thinking about the greater good gave her to him without question. (I have come to understand their motivations for that now, and have even moved passed my own anger to forgive them for what they did, but needless to say, at the time, I was furious.) No one would come with me to attempt a rescue, and not just for the fact that it was likely a suicide mission. They believed that Hyakugan Mao had upheld his end of the bargain, and they didn't want to incur his wrath by disobeying him.

So, I went alone to his castle to rescue her. The journey took a few weeks, and along the way, so caught up in my own rage and desire for revenge, I killed any member of his clan that I came across. Brutally, and without remorse. But, as the blood stained my hands and my soul grew darker with the weight of my actions, I wasn't sated. I wanted to kill the monster who had taken her, and I wanted to see my beloved again. Once in his courtyard, no one was spared from my blade – man, woman or child. I killed every last one of them. I found her in the basement of the castle, in a cell. I was working on freeing her when she grabbed my dagger…

Mao had raped her, and she said she was pregnant with his child. As she smiled at me, she told me that she couldn't raise the child of such a monster and, despite my pleading, imploring her that we could find a way to make things alright again, she still took her life. Stabbed herself in the abdomen to kill her unborn child, and then slit her throat. Sometimes, I think I can still feel the heat of her blood. As I watched her die, the very last member of Mao's clan found me, and after mocking me for my loss, he attempted to eviscerate me. But, I managed to kill him, too. Badly injured, I left the castle, thinking I had nothing left to live for, and feeling beyond betrayed by her actions. I couldn't understand how she could do that when she supposedly loved me. Still, after I had convalesced, I returned to the site to retrieve her remains so that I could give her a proper burial, only to find that the castle had been razed, and there was nothing left.

I feel like I lost her twice, and twice, I failed her by not being able to save her. That is more of the guilt that I carry, and believe me, I so understand where you're coming from when you talk about your own guilt. I also want to let her go and move on, live my life, try to find happiness again.

It's very hard to move past that. And do you want to know what makes me feel even worse? I've come to realize that for as much as I loved her, and still do love her, I also hate her with a passion. I hate her for being so selfish to leave me as she did. I hate her for how she manages to still keep hold over my soul. But most of all, I hate her for still being there and reminding me that I should be feeling like shit whenever I have a chance at happiness.

So that is my story, as cynical as it is. I know the circumstances are somewhat different from yours, and yet, there are so many similarities, too. I hope that for both of our sakes that soon, we are able to let go of all that guilt we carry. It would be nice to be able to live and love for ourselves again, wouldn't it?

[morethanteaboy.livejournal.com]

[Private to Hekkai]
Thank you for trusting me with this. I'm so sorry about it all: what a horrible thing to happen to you and to your wife.

I think the anger you mention is part of grief as well: anger at the deceased for dying, no matter how it actually happened. I'm not a religious person: I don't have hope of a heavenly reunion after death, and I suspect that if I did it would be easier to find peace. But as it is I miss her. I miss what we had. I miss my girl, my friend, my sweetheart, and I miss having someone I feel utterly at home with.

And at the same time I get angry, because I miss her, and because of things she did and things I did for her, and sometimes I wish I hadn't done anything so it never would have come to the point it did, even if it had meant losing her sooner. And I get angry at myself for believing that I loved her enough to work miracles.

I think I've lost my faith in love. I don't want to love someone again. I just want to feel something other than this pain.

[chigong-master.livejournal.com]

[Private to Ianto]

Hm...I completely identify with what you're saying. The anger, the grief, the fact that with them gone, you just feel so utterly empty inside.

I hope that your faith in love isn't lost completely, merely misplaced for the time being while you work through things. It sounds like you need to do one of the most difficult things imaginable, and that is to forgive yourself - something I continually struggle with.

Perhaps our paths aren't that different; I'm just a pace or two ahead of you. I thought I could just exist without those hurtful emotions, but in doing so, I haven't been living. I think it's about time I started to live once more. It's frightening, to leave the comfort of this self-imposed spiritual prison I've dumped myself into, and it's just as likely I'll fail as I will succeed; however, as a wise Welshman told me once, love is always a risk...

I hope that you find yourself one day able to take such a risk of your own...

[morethanteaboy.livejournal.com]

[Private to Hekkai]
Thank you.

There are risks and risks, and right now all I really want is to just get through the grief. If I do something stupid at least it's my mistake to make, and if it ends up being worth the risk . . . well, I'll never know until I've taken that step.

Of course, that hasn't stopped me from backing down every time it gets too close to happening. I'm a lot more brave in words than I am in action.