Saturday, June 29, 2013

On being real.

I feel like a fake. A fake with a fake smile. A fake attitude. A fake person who doesn't really care. A fake.

When you ask me how I'm doing and I say ok, then I feel like a fake. You don't really want to know and, really, I don't really want to tell you cause what I really am is a fake. I can fake being excited for your new haircut. I can fake smiling and talking and caring about your plans. I can even fake being happy for my children. But it's all fake. Cause, really, if you really want to know, I'm doing damn awful. But I don't want to tell you that and you don't want to hear it cause were all a bunch of fakes.

And one day last week I told someone who asked me how I was doing that my whole life was a fake...it was probably the most real thing I've said in awhile. The truth is that I'm a fake.

My grief counsellor asked me a long time ago if I could fake it...he said sometimes you just gotta fake it till you make it...but I wonder when will all this fake start to feel real? When will faking it end and real begin?

The only time I feel really real is when I curl myself around Nathan, breathe him in with love and remember Eva and weep. Cause that's what's real in my life. Love and sadness and Jesus. Everything else is fake.

I've been faking it for a long time...when will I get to start making it?

15 comments:

  1. Sorry you are feeling so awful ...will pray for you:)

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  2. It will sneak up on you when you least expect it and you will feel so guilty and so sad and just wish you could be back to day one to feel that level of the pain again.

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    1. The pain was real. The pain still is real. The pain is the only thing that I'm really sure is real, all of the time. The pain is real.

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  3. Oh Em. This post just made my heart ache for you. I often feel like I am a fake too, everything in my life is just a pretence apart from my children and the love I feel for them all. I don't know when it starts to feel more like 'making it', I suspect that is something that is different for every individual and every grief? I feel like I flicker back and forth between the two states, perhaps I always will?

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    1. I imagine that the flickering will always be...however I'm hopeful that one day I'll be more real and less fake...one day, sigh

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  4. I think that the more you allow yourself to weep and be "real" --being able to share your true feelings in a safe place with close friends, then you eventually get more "making it" moments and less fake ones.

    I can see it in your posts that you are going forward, never forgetting.

    Still faking it here at times...five years later in Massachusetts.
    Hugs and Hope,
    Cheryl

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    1. I know I am going forward but it all feels so fake. Not my blog...just everything else.

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  5. I get this. I live this every single day. Everything feels fake.

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  6. Because I hate the dishonesty, I find myself separating myself from other people. Last night I finally accepted a dinner invitation (only the third time I've been out socially with friends in over a year). It was pleasant and I didn't cry (an accomplishment for me), so they probably thought I was okay. Internally, I thought about my son the entire evening. All of the conversation was so superficial.
    So what can we do? If I continue to refuse invitations, everyone will eventually give up on me. But when I'm with others, I'm not really with them. My heart and my mind are always with my child.

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  7. Hold those real moments in with Nathan. Your love for your children is real and it pulses in every post you write. The other stuff is fake for almost all of us any way. There are so few real things in life. Eva is real, Nathan is real, your older boys are real. You are real. Sending you love and light and hoping that there are some lighter days ahead for you.

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  8. I agree with Graham's mom - when I am with people, I am not really with them BUT (BUT, BUT, BUT) I can honestly say that almost two years later, I am not ALWAYS faking it. Sometimes I do feel genuine happiness. I hope it will become incrementally more and more real until it just is my "new normal". I hope that the same happens for you. I can relate to this post - as you know - all too well!

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  9. I think Grace's mom is onto something, saying that most of the stuff other than family is fake for almost everybody. It's hard though, isn't it? I have felt particularly fake lately because I have been so busy I feel I haven't had time to 'spend' with Anja the way I like to, and with a newborn, it is so easy for other people to just breathe that sigh of relief and think everything is ok now. Sometimes it's easier to go with that then to try to explain to them how M being here doesn't solve everything...and much fakeness ensues. Sending a big hug your way.

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