I grew up with this woman. We had fought when we were younger, made our peace as we got older and she was my sisters best friend, God mother to my nieces and nephews. I respected her as someone who really had her shit together and I counted on her to keep an eye on my sister.
When my sister called to tell me, she was understandably devastated and confused as to why her friend would do this horrible thing, but then she started telling me about what all had been going on in her life and I started to understand. The chick had always been, "The strong one, the tough one" and the person everyone looked to that would keep forging ahead when things got bad.She was the one everyone counted on to fight back the monsters and clean up the mess. She was battle weary.
Im not excusing her. But I understand her. Its scary to me though, because she had so many more reasons to keep going on and to keep fighting. Yeah, her family was just as fucked up as mine, but she had a great husband. She had a great career that she had just gotten promoted in and she never had to worry about money. I am constantly struggling and cant even afford a car. She had friends that she lunched with and went places with and regular human contact with a live man. I have a couple of friends I talk to a few times a week, and though its slowly getting better, I sometimes have gone for days on end without talking to another adult. As for contact from a man? Its been years. Pressure to perform...she was in a high stress job with demands on her time that involved peoples lives. If she didn't do what she was supposed to do and do it well, people could suffer and die. She traveled a lot and was under a lot of pressure caring for a sick family member as well. Believe it or not, that eats you more than anything else. That daily push to keep bringing in the resources to keep your world afloat, to keep everyone fed and clothed and alive, and to care for people who depend on you absolutely for everything...sometimes it leaves you nothing of yourself. The loneliness just builds and it becomes harder and harder to snap back from each loss or each stress. You begin to see yourself as a failure and as weak for not being better at what you do and you start to dwell on all the sins and mistakes of your past and you wonder about all the,"what ifs", you begin to dread the start of yet another day and another battle. Its not that you hate the people around you, its just that you hate yourself more for failing them.
It could be parents that made you feel like nothing you ever did was good enough, or peers that always seemed to be after your job and trying to stab you in the back, or that brass ring that was always just out of reach, something was missing. She had lost loved ones close to her and that takes a huge bite out of you. Not having close family connections and then losing the few that you are close to, can leave you feeling like you are adrift in the ocean with sharks underneath and nothing to cling to. Friends or family cant save you. You have to save yourself and finding a reason every morning to get up and keep breathing is sometimes the hardest thing to do. Laying in bed, thinking about how lonely it is, how much stress you have to deal with, all the demands on your day with no resolution to the problems unless you come up with them, is sometimes a horrible feeling. You dont want to face it. Even if you do have someone next to you, you can feel alone and lost, and if you are alone, its all the more difficult. Some people just have it in them to keep getting up and putting on their boots and facing the daily battle because they know its the right thing to do for the ones depending on them. She, I think, had reached a point where she believed the ones she was getting up for were okay on their own, and she was weary of facing it.
I am sad she quit. It scares me because if someone like her, who had her shit together and had it all, quits so early in the fight, then where does that leave the fuck-ups like me?
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