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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 1 of 1. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by Shame on June 26, 2008, at 12:27:45
Again, you rest in my brain. Everything I have railed against, everything I have beaten back, everything I have managed to push aside. Again you dare me to claw you free of my head.
This time you will not take me. I have lost a child; I have uprooted my small family and started us again; I have settled for a mediocre job so we can have the illusion of security; I have nearly lost my Mother, my Father and my Father-in-Law; I have cared for my wife, the other half of me who has been sick for so many months, hopefully now well; I have suffered through two miscarriages silently, a pillar for my wife in her time of need; Even our small ones, our animals that bring us so much joy and love, gone now, taken too soon. Still, you will not have me, weakened as I am, hurting, grieving, and tired, all the way to the soul.
I look back and see the things I have written. Written to YOU, a vile thing you are, things I do not even remember writing. I only have a vague impression that I was ill and that you were there and that I wish it had never been. An exhalation of what you do to me. Poison out. Emptiness in.
I have built a life around you; the way I behave, when and what I eat, when I sleep and when I wake, the television I watch, the music I listen to, even the things I think about. All of these things twisted around a single reality: I f*ck*ng HATE you, and I have no wish to accidentally brush against you, to hear about you, to talk about you or to feel your presence. You are anathema to me and if it did not mean my death, I would kill you if I could. Sometimes it seems almost worth it.
Everywhere I go you stalk me, a dark and twisted sketch of myself shadowing me and pacing my trail. When the world is still and all I should hear is silence I hear your whispers instead. When life takes something from me in its place I find only YOU. And during some of the best times, quiet moments with my wife where all I should feel is contentment, instead I feel you looking over my shoulder.
Nothing in my life is outside of your grasp. You own it all. All of my dreams are tainted with the knowledge that you will be there. All of my hopes weighted with the thought that, even if victory comes, I will find you too when those hopes are finally realized. The fact that half of my dreams are that you will go away and never come back makes it even harder to take. The fact that I don't know what a life without you would be like makes me want to weep.
When does it become too much for me to hold back? When do I grow so tired that I give up again? My coping skills are strong, long since tempered and honed on your anvil, but saturated with grief as I am how long will it be before I have no choice but to yield? My life stretches out before me so much more complex that I had ever imagined, so much coming far later than I had planned wished. Hoped for. But what are my wishes against your will?
My head down, meet firmly under me I push forward, one 10 hour work day at a time, one doctors appointment at a time, one meal at a time, one disaster at a time, each crisis dealt with methodically, mechanically, with never a chance to grieve, never a chance to reflect upon what I have lost and what I have gained. My only respite? When its all too much to bear I sit in a bathroom stall at work and I cry. I cry for my son, I cry for my wife, I cry for my loss, I cry for my evaporating dreams. I cry for the future. Silently. When it passes I wipe away my tears and breathe until there is no hitching when I inhale, no moan when I exhale, socially fit again. Then I go back to my desk and work again. Really I am waiting. Waiting for that moment where the tide turns and my life begins to mend. But there you are still, waiting with me, your grasp on me undeniable, immutable, uncompromising. Unwanted.
Please go away. I am nothing now, the nothing you have always wanted me to be. Your work is done and so am I. There is only one thing left for you to take, and its not mine to give. Thankfully I promised that to another long ago.
This is the end of the thread.
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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
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