A few things in life disturb me, I don't get bothered easily and I move on pretty quickly from a situation or people.
Ok fine fine fine I'm lying, I procrastinate a lot.
A lot
I never move on when I'm supposed to, I have a constant need to know why, how and when. I overreact, I overthink and analyze everything and most of the time operate on assumptions- but only after I've acted out- and that's what I'm doing right now.
Overthinking and assuming.
I stood beside the gravesite I've not gotten the peace I longed for.
My mind was on the boy who was sitting in front of Nick's grave, who was he and what does he want??
Did he know my Nick?
For the life of me and all that was pure I couldn't find an answer to any of my questions.
Granted I was the one providing myself with said answers.
I sighed and set on the ground,
Blu's grave was in the middle, so I set there with my handbag next to me and my coat around me.
The drive to the cemetery has always been long, and it always made me anxious but now this boy who was here was adding to everything that I've been feeling and overthinking.
One more problem.
"This is not the time to think about that boy"
I muttered to myself, because as curious as I was this was not the time. Although something deep in me was nagging and gawking at me.
I ran my hands over both of my kids gravestones as I felt the the feelings of mourn overtaking me, I still couldn't believe they were gone.
All three of them were born on the same month, which will be coming up in a few months.
Blu would have been 6 this year and my precious boy would have been 11.
I was wondering what they'd look like!
Me or Nick, would Ash have my silly curls or would he have Nick's hair, and Blu?
How would she be, like her father or would she be mommies girl through this and through.
Just like everyday when I think of them, it's started of as a single image of me holding them in my arms or running after them when they could walk and I began day dreaming about how it would be to have them with me and how life would have looked like.
We would all have been happy, my kids would be growing up beautifully and becoming wonderful people.
My whole life of what should have been was playing in my head, it brought a smile on my lips and tears down my face.
The sound of their laughter was almost so real and their voices calling me to come play, all I had to do was get up from the damn cold grass I was sitting on and play with my babies.
But...
How cruel can this world be.
The heartache that was a dull ache now consumed me and reminded me it was all in my head, all I'll ever have.
It dragged me by the hair and buried me back to reality of what it was.
Without me even realizing it, I had started sobbing softly, felt the tears of longing and of being lonely.
Thoughts of how full my life was with my husband and kids in it.
As much as I wanted to move on but how could I even begin to move on?
When I can't even go a day without thinking about them, their laughters and cries, how they their hugs felt, cross my mind!
When I sometimes found myself thinking about the way Nickolas use to touch me, how he was so tender and made me feel so beautiful without him telling me.
How he looked at me like I was his world because him and the kids were mine.
Now they gone and never coming back. I'll forever end this broken thing that even Liam couldn't bare to sit across a table and share a meal.
I found myself being racked by uncontrollable sobs and I started fumbling with my handbag, I took out my phone and I dialed the last person I wanted to ever call again.
Or talk too about this again.
After two rings he picked up.
"Shay?"
However like every time with him I had gone quiet, words always failed me.
In the 5 years he had been my therapist I've only said a handful of things to him, out relationships has always been such.
Here I was yet again, and I didn't know what to say because no words could come close to what I felt.
What do you say when words pale in comparison.
"Shay, are you okay?"
As if the question had the power to break me I let out a small sob, it was just one of those things were by you are emotional and someone asks if you okay.
I hate that
"Shay, I need you to breath for me, like we use to do!"
As he said that, I had realized that I had been holding my breath,
I released it only for me to start wizzing.
One hand on the phone and the other on my throat, I honesty couldn't believe I was having a panic attack at the cemetery of all places.
As if panic attacks have respect.
The clothes on my body suffocated me, my heart pounded so hard I feared it would break though it's cage and my palms perspired.
I tried tagging on my shirt collar to ease the pressure around my neck and on my chest, but it didn't work.
Breath, I need to breath.
I closed my eyes and tried to calm down, but the pain in my heart, the pressure building in my head and the one on my chest and around my neck only intensified.
My panic attack was now having a panic attack from the lack of calming down.
I could still hear Dr Mavundla on the other side of the line, but all my senses had failed me.
Then my biggest fear came.
I always had the habit of fainting when I would have a panic attack and it looked like this would be one of those times, and what made me fearful the most was that not only was the sun almost setting but I was alone at a cemetery.
Alone.
See why my panic attack had a panic attack?
Black spots started dancing all around my vision and I felt my body dropping to the cold soft grass.
The grass seemingly clearing my black spots only momentarily.
"Shay, Shay you need to breath. God damn it. Where are you?"
Or at least that's what I think I heard and not too long darkness was pulling me in, but we all know as much as you try to fight darkness off, it always wins.
It could bring even the strongest of man to their knees, So who was I?
I placed my free hand on my chest and I felt it moving up and down, but I could still hear my breath going in and out in wizzes.
I knew that any second now, I'll be in darkness, just as the last light of sight was taken from me, there he was again.
The boy who set at Nick's gravesite, he looked at me in the eyes and there was that feeling again and this time it hit me like a ton of bricks and ripped through my mourn and mixed with it, all I could do was wiz and stare at him.
I don't know what to call it, but it was a pull, as though I knew him in a different life, a live I would love to live and not this one filled with pain, loss, depression and rejection.
He took my phone from under me and all I saw were his lips moving as I succumbed to darkness.
One thing that kept running through my mind, who is that boy?
*******
My sense of touch was the first to come back to me and the first thing I felt under me was softness and warmth, which confused me because was I not supposed to be outside on the grass?
So when did the grass start being so comfortable and warm!
Winter in South Africa was no joke, but even with it being almost summer it was still cold outside.
Granted that we don't get snow and whatnot.
Still....
The dam next to the cemetery made sure of the coldness.
My sense of hearing was what I got back secondly before I was able to even opened my eyes.
"I can't believe she had another one after so many months of doing so well."
I could not see my sister but I heard the pain in her voice, it broke my heart to know I was the reason.
Again, you mean
"But what was she doing at the cemetery all by herself?"
I recognized the voice as Katie's
"Now is not the time for that"
Ave said and I tried to open my eyes, they were so heavy for a second there I thought I might have needed to be sedated.
I finally managed to open them but everything was just a blur.
My whole body felt heavy and sore, did I have a panic attack or was I hit by a damn eighteen wheeler.
A light groan from my slightly parted lips echoed in the quiet bedroom when my eyes opened to a slightly lit room, which then got the attention of my sisters. I heard their footsteps before I saw their blurry shadows coming into view.
"Oh God, Shay!"
Ave spoke next to me, saying this in that sadness in her voice and it broke my heart.
Ave and Katie helped me sit up on the bed with pillows propped up behind me against the headboard.
My headboard and my pillows on my bed, my room.
How?
Katie gave me some water and I took only a sip when my stomach churned from it, being so long since I last gave it anything and who knows how many hours I've been out this time.
"Are you okay?"
I just nodded and tried to give her a smile but I'm pretty sure it came out as a grimace.
Katie placed the glass back down on my nightstand and set next me and Ave set at my feet.
I looked down at my hands and I swear I could still feel the gravestones I had touched. If I concentrated a faint feeling of my kids warms skin still lingered under the feel of the cold gravestones, plus my body still felt like I was ran over by a track.
Last time I had a panic attack this big was when I'd come to terms with this being my life.
A time when all of this, I believed to be a dream.
"Why were you at the cemetery sweetie?"
Katie asked her voice also pained, I hated this, hated that I put my sisters through all of this.
Again.
"Not now Katie! Honey, Dr Mavundla is still here, should I call him in"
I nodded my head as my hands touched the comforter, palms first.
An old friend this was, a dark time it came and stayed.
After a few minutes Dr Mavundla comes in, It was just him and I in my room and he set on the chair not so far from my bed.
"Katie said you glazed over again, wanna tell me where your head is at."
Life passed me by the first year after the invasion, and I don't want that to happen, but what do you do when you just don't care to say anything.
"You wanna tell me what happened?"
Again I nod after a few seconds of hesitation.
"Words Shay, remember what we talked about."
I took a deep breath willing my thoughts to come through, after a few struggling moments i told him everything that happened, that has been happening, and I found myself telling him about Liam as well.
It was like a dam was open and all I wanted to do was talk while I cried here and there.
"I've got to say I'm proud of you, for even considering dating again, but you need not let that affect you and your progress, he is just one guy. Not all will be like him"
I didn't know how to answer and I had not known how much Liam leaving would affect me.
Maybe my first mistake was brushing it off instead of facing it.
"I don't know how much longer I can live like this. Is this what my life has been reduced too?"
I could feel angry tears stinging my eyes
"Because of my pain, my inability to cope with my pain I have to put the ones I love through pain. How fucked up am I??"
Everything was blurry and I realized I was crying again, I hate what my mental state does to my sisters.
Since your teens, can't change now.
"Shay we all cope differently with pain, and what you went through is not a small thing. You need to understand that"
I shook my head, I knew what I went through was huge, but my sisters did nothing to deserve the pain I've put them through.
"I can't see them in pain because of me, the worry and the pity looks they give me, I can't stand it."
I grab one of the pillows and hugged it to comfort myself, resisting the erge to pull the comforter over my head and burying my sorrow under it.
"I'm gonna bring in your sisters and Luke, this is a family session now."
Not even waiting for my answer he left and brought back my sisters and Luke, again those looks I hastd and the pain on their faces.
It tagged at my heart painfully so much so I got the air almost knocked out of me.
They all set around me and Dr Mavundla set were he previously set.
"Shay, now is the time to say your peace, and guys please no interruptions"
Dr Mavundla said.
I know what I want to say and I think it has been a long time coming.
But my problem is that I must have felt entitled my whole life, because I was "sensitive".
So here goes nothing.
"I'm moving out"