Heart Freeze"That's the bruise the ice in the heart was meant to ice." -Claudia RankineGrief is an all-over bodily feeling, not just in the heart. I once saw someone describe it as a box with a ball and a pain button. Sometimes the ball is very large, slamming into the button with every little move you make. Sometimes, it is very small and only brushes against the button, washing a vague melancholy over you. And sometimes, your heart freezes, lest you fall over and shatter. It does this so the ice in your heart can numb the pain button like an ice pack. And, eventually, it will either melt or shatter, and you won't have a say in which. If it shatters, the ball will slam into your pain button with the force of a sledgehammer, the force of your heart shattering propelling it; sobbing follows. You try not to do it in front of others, but the sobbing comes. If you're particularly unlucky, if your brain was or is sick, well, your scalp will be very angry in the morning. The fingers in your hair not those of a loved one, but your own, for who would think to look for bald spots when they've been taught to look for not-cat-scratches instead. If it melts, you're just tired. Tired all the time. Maybe the ball will hit the button, maybe it won't. But you feel tiredness in your very bones. For so long. Because melting isn't quick like shattering. It's slow. It takes days, weeks, months. And then, much like the shattering, you feel terrible. No amount of sleep feels like enough. And you can't even relax, because you needed to freeze your heart in the first place. You wouldn't have frozen your heart if you could have just rested. But that's the ugly thing about grief. It comes at the worst time always. Never at a time where you can handle it (though who could truly handle grief?). As if life sees that you're busy and decides now is the perfect time to take away something you loved.
copyright Sam Garcia 2024 |