This Zombie Life

Ever since the shit hit the fan last spring (in a trifecta of disasters including witnessing a former lover's wedding on Instagram, being betrayed by a former employer, and getting rear-ended on Fountain), I've been a bit of a zombie.

I've been out amongst the walking wounded – injured emotionally, mentally, physically and financially, but not really bad enough for anybody to pay that close attention to.

I look OK.

To the casual observer, the stranger or acquaintance who doesn't know me very well, I seem OK.

I'm conscious.

I'm breathing.

I'm talking.

I'm walking.

I must not need help.

Out of all the disasters, traumas, crises, plagues, and perils in the world, my little problems are of relatively low priority.

I'm expected to be able to work, listen, and help others.

But I am not OK.

And sometimes, like the others who are wounded, staggering around, and neglected, I think I'm doomed.

When it all first happened, instead of allowing myself to heal, I plunged myself into various jobs, professional tasks, and pro bono work, and failed miserably.

Instead of trying to put my heart back together alone, I dove into another romantic relationship – a rebound which was probably doomed from the start, and which may have broken me completely and irreparably, for the final time.

So now, for the last seven months, all this trauma has been eating me from the inside-out like a voracious zombie – starting with my brain, moving down into my heart, gnawing away at all my guts,  my motivation, my moxie – leaving me a mere shell of a living corpse, a living human host body for the zombie within.

I probably could've recovered from any one of these traumas by themselves, as isolated events, cushioned by the successes and joys I could find elsewhere. But, in one fell swoop over the course of a month, every aspect of my life took a hit. And although no single attack would strike a fatal blow, I wonder how many more of these relatively minor punches I can take, before my shell collapses into the vacuous space inside.

I am grieving for the life and the loves I have lost. I am grieving for the life and the loves I'll never have.

In the meantime, I can't do much of anything else.

I don't know what will happen. I don't know anything. I don't know how to help myself, or heal myself. I don't know what to do, because I don't trust myself anymore. I keep making the same mistakes over and over again, no matter how hard I try to do better, use good judgment, do the right thing.

I am not in charge of my life anymore.

And maybe that's a good thing.

Related Posts:
The Forever Now
The Things I Used to Love