Location Withheld “I’ve Been Scared”

“I've been scared for much longer than I realized, the tension in my shoulder blades sitting as a dull ache, and the cold, empty feeling in my stomach sitting there like a mouth, chewing upon the inside of my body...I have been scared, and for once I really can't find something to do to treat it.

I am either scared or I am not, and nothing else matters in the world no matter how much I try to distract myself or find new tasks and issues to focus on. All that work has mattered, but it has also all led up to this, with me sitting in the room, and it looking at me from the place it resides.

It has been here the entire time, waiting for me to notice it, and I think that my dad has known this, which is why he tries to talk to me, to keep me informed about how things are going. I listen in a half sort of way, but my attention is usually elsewhere.

But not tonight, because tonight I am focused and I am aware and it is sitting there in the space it has been. It has been here all along, waiting for me to acknowledge it. It is the thing that was lingering, the thing out of sight and out of mind, but always there as a darkness, an empty hollow feeling of dread that refuses to go away.

Even when I look at it.

If anything, staring at it only makes it worse, as the panic rises higher and higher. I can hear it breathing, an empty, chuckling sitting upon its every breath, less like a threat and more simply as an amusement. I have taken so long to look at it, and I cannot tell whether it is humored by how long it took, or if it is somehow unable to feign surprise as I feel the fear come due so much quicker than others.

I know how this is supposed to go, and I wait for it to start.

"How have you been," he asks, blackened gums framing the white teeth that flash with every word spoken.

"I have been scared, and I know he doesn't speak to me as much as he would like. I judge him...because that is where I am right now. The things that make him hurt aren't things I can look at, so I judge his opinions and his thoughts, because that is safe for me to do.

But it hasn't been helping."

"You are in great pain."

"Yes...and I want to hurt more. I want to have his pain so he can heal right, and I simply can't because I don't have anything left. The spaces inside where I carry others are overflowing, and I miss the days when dad and I would simply sit by a bonfire and talk about camping and women.

I have forgotten how much I have missed spending time with my dad, before things changed for us. In a way he is still my father, but...I can't help but put a distance to it. Not because I don't love him. Gods know I do. But because I want him to be happy. As happy as he can be.

And I won't be able to make it easier, not matter how much I want to.

Because I judge, when there is no more time for judging...And I am strong when there is no more time for me to be strong. He will get better. I know he will, and I know he isn't scared, or at least he says he isn't, and that is how I say I am.

I say I am not scared, because I am my father's daughter, and I am more like him than I would ever care to admit.

And I love him more than I could ever really say. Because he has been there for me and taught me how to have endurance and how to be strong in the face of horror.

Like he is being strong now.

And all I want in all the world is for him to not hurt anymore, to not feel the sick sitting inside of him.

And I want him to know that I care, that he matters to me and that even though I am such a bitch to him most of the time it isn't because I don't love him or I think he is evil or stupid or anything. It is simply how I keep a distance, and how I have been able to cope, as I have so much else to look at, and I know he doesn’t want to linger in my mind as a burden.

I sit in judgment of him, and I love him.

I just want him to know that I don't mean to upset or disrespect him. I am doing it because I am scared, and I am trying to find a better way, but I haven't found it yet."

I am silent for a while, listening to his chuckling breathing and the waves of cold that fall off of his form like a winters concrete. And he looks right at me, and he smiles in a way that is far far too large...and I am colder than I have ever been before...

And I am so so sorry.

I have been scared, and I have been for a long long time.

And I wanted you to know.”

It was my dad's birthday recently, and even though things have not been great between us, I took him out to eat somewhere nice, and afterward we went back to the house and had a fire out back. After a few hours it started to rain, and I excitedly ran inside and grabbed the ingredients for our cocktails and positioned myself outside on the porch.

He never came out, and I went up to my room shortly before the rain really started going.

I think I may have triggered something in him. The last time we went to that restaurant together was when my mom was still alive.

I am glad that you are going well, and that your family is safe, and that you are managing to get all the sleep that I seem unable to get for myself. I would write more, but I was told something about learning my limits and about letting myself rest even when I have something I want to do more.

Like write to you.

I wish that was all I had to do anymore.

With all my love and affection.

I'll talk to you again soon.