Tired Of Carrying Your Pain

I am tired of carrying your pain. 

I am done carrying your pain.

It has ruled my life, every aspect of it, for forty years.

I am done carrying your pain.

It is YOURS, and it was yours to manage,

and you bailed.

You bailed on me, you bailed on life, 

and most importantly,

You bailed on yourself. 

Now I see clearly that there is no easy way out.

There is no easy way out for any of us.

No quick fix.

Your actions controlled me, nearly destroyed me.

Your actions altered my perception of myself, of others, of my abilities, and of the world.

Your actions controlled all of my choices.

Or so I thought.

But is that really the truth? No.

No, that is not the truth.

The truth is that 

It WAS MY REACTION to your act of suicide that controlled me for so long. 

What controlled me was all of 

the stories I told myself about what happened 

and the lies I cultivated in order to avoid feeling it all.

The stories I cultivated to avoid feeling the massive pain you left behind.

The story of unfairness, of how I should have been able to make it ok for you,

The story of how I should have been able to save you. 

I have been outraged at your unwillingness to accept the most basic responsibility,

The responsibility of your life and the life of your child.

My skewed thinking and inability to accept what happened led to my outrage 

at the unwillingness of others to accept responsibility for their lives.

I kept trying to fix it, make it ok for everyone around me, 

nearly destroying myself in the process.

All the ways I tried to make it ok for you, and for them...it never worked and it never will. 

This is how life is. What happened is what happened, and that is it. 

Life is what it is.

It means nothing. What happened is just what happened.

You did what you did, and it had nothing to do with me.

Now I see it clearly. 

The stories I wove around your actions are what made me so sick.

So much of my pain simply a result of my own inability to accept what happened. 

People have to choose for themselves and do it for themselves, or not. 

It is not, and never was my job to fix it or make it ok for you. 

It was never my job to make it ok for anyone except for myself, 

But I bailed on myself, over and over again, trying to make it up to you.

That is not my job.

And so, I quit. 

I am done. 

I will not continue to carry the torch of responsibility for you 

Or for anyone else. 

I quit. 

I take my life back...now it will be a life lived for me, at long last.

I am tired of carrying your pain. 

I am done carrying your pain.