Love is an action, and I have stopped moving

I have never remembered my dreams. Even the vivid, impactful ones with what felt like an epic storyline. Even the ones where there was a dramatic conclusion, like me falling off the edge of a cliff, I will jolt awake, tears streaming out of the corners of my eyes with no memory of what had just happened.

I don’t remember the story, but I always remember the ending. I can remember how I feel during them, sometimes warm and happy, or sometimes terrified, but the ending is always me in tears. The part where I am sobbing and gasping for air when I finally return to my physical body. 

That’s what my dreams have been like since my aunt died.

Something you never anticipate about grief is how sleepy you are. In the days and weeks, even months after she passed, this is all I had to tell my therapist, “I’m fine, I’m just…very tired.” 

I would lie on my bedroom floor. I still call it my “depression pit”, where when I’m deep in the throes of sadness or anxiety or overwhelm, it's just covered in clothes, shoes, books, hangers. Honestly, just pure mess.

I would clear a little spot big enough for my body and lie there wondering what it would be like if I just…never got up again. Because really, why should I? The depression pit is where I belong. It is my home.

Death is change, and I never really understood how frozen that would make me. How the life that you once had is left behind, while off you go, forward into a future that you will never have with them. I just didn’t want anything else to happen now. The story can end here.

My Tita Chel died three years ago and then two months later her daughter, my cousin, died in a car accident. 

You try to remember the basics because everything else fades away into the background. At least for me. They say that traumatic moments, especially ones that are unexpected can give you memory loss. But with Tita Chel, I knew she was dying. And now, I couldn’t tell you our conversations off the top of my head. I can’t remember what I wore or what she wore. The mundanity of our lives together is what I try to grasp on to, but can no longer remember.

But I knew it was coming, she was dying and that was the sole reason for me flying back home. There's a lot of that time I can’t even remember now unless I go back to read my journals. My memory became a sieve, but also thinking of your loved ones in the most deteriorating, painful moments is just too much. She became unrecognisable to me and I was angry at my brain for not being able to process anything else but that.

I was overwhelmed with guilt about not being around my family enough. I have been living in London now for 12 years and all I could think about is how I need to move back to Virginia to be with my family. I’d been so selfish, so inconsiderate, how could I move across an ocean to just…do what exactly? I’m still not entirely sure what I’m doing, and most of the time I feel like a knot tied up into itself.

I’m not normally plagued by decision-making in general, but I find it hard to plan for a future knowing that it’s not something it can be planned for. Now that I know my cousin can just be driving home from the bank that’s five minutes away and the next minute she’s no longer here, now that I know my aunt won’t ever meet my kids (if I ever have them), I don’t really see the point.

It’s not to say I’ve given up on the future, not at all. At this point, I feel like less of an active participant than I once was. I’m just…letting life happen to me. And like with most things I do, I question whether or not this is normal. Perhaps it’s simply a by-product of grief. The fear and anxiety around how quickly things can change around you is so overwhelming that you just…stop. 

“Am I doing too much?” is what I ask my therapist when I think I’m overreacting. Or spiralling. My one thought leads to another and then to another, and then I think I’m just being dramatic. And more often than not I am!

Feeling like I’m too much most often becomes the reason I get so comfortable in my inaction. When I was little my mom said that I was running before I could walk. Constantly running ahead of her, full-speed towards something, god knows what. You couldn’t slow me down for anything. Absolutely fearless.

God, if that’s not a metaphor for the youthful vigour for life, I don’t know what is.

I came across what I believe is a poem on Twitter by Heidi Priebe (someone who I’m not familiar with, but the words resonated with me deeply).

What I really had never understood until now is that love is an action. And that I have stopped moving.

About me: I'm Nicole, the writer of The Noteworthy. I’m also a content creator and the co-host of the award-winning Mixed Up podcast. Having been chronically online since the age of 13, you can also find me on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and Pinterest. I’m working on my first book, The Half Of It, which you can pre-order here.