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They secretly wonder when things will get back to normal for us - when we will be ourselves, when the tragedy of (date) will cease to be the grid that we pass everything across. And I have to tell you the old Rick and Kay are gone. They're never coming back. We will never be the same again. There is a new "normal". (Date) has permanently marked us. It will remain the grid we pass everything across for an indeterminate amount of time...maybe forever.
Kay Warren
I read this article this morning by Kay Warren who in April, along with her husband Rick, will pass over the grid in time that marks the anniversary of their sons suicide.
When Kay wrote about the grid that marks that day I couldn't help but stop and acknowledge the existence of that grid. Do we each have a date and time that is indelibly etched on our lives? That specific point in time and space where everything in our world stopped, including our own heart...and then, with a great shudder, it all started up again.
The thing is though, that when your heart started beating again after that eternal moment it was beating in a different chest, in a different body that had different thoughts, new emotions and a whole new reality. From that moment on you became an entirely different person living in a totally different world experiencing a strange, new reality.
And there was no way you could ever return to being the person you once were. That person existed on the other side of that specific date and specific moment. They are no more.
But you look around and the world still looks the same. You peer into the mirror and the face that peers back certainly looks the same as the one you remember but you wonder how can that be? You wonder how it is that your face hasn't changed too because you certainly don't feel as though you should look the same. Something inside you has changed irrevocably, surely your appearance would too?
And for the rest of your life, every year you come around to that grid marker. You pause and remember the person you once were. Maybe you've changed for the better. Maybe you are wiser, more cautious, sure of yourself. But maybe you still feel that void and that hurt and confusion; and you miss your old self as one would miss a departed lover.
Sometimes I miss the old me. Sure, I like the new me. She is stronger, fitter, more assured of her beliefs and convictions, less likely to be bullied or pushed around and tends not to seek the approval of most others.
But I miss the old me who ceased to exist after a specific date and a very specific time on the clock - such was the trauma of it. She had an innocence about her, a naïveté you might say. She was more willing to take things at face value, less hard and stubborn. There are times I wish I could just go back and hug her, change her plans for that day, assure her she'd be ok. I miss her so much my heart aches sometimes.
Only those really close to me and know me from the beginning know how much I've changed - that this is Leisa 2.0. Most people in my life only know this me; and I'm ok with that. Leisa 2.0 is pretty cool. I like her. She's learned a lot, and experiences peace, joy and fulfilment that the first Leisa only ever dreamed possible.
I cannot deny however, as The Grid looms in the distance each year, that I reflect on how much my life has changed since that day...and how impossible it is to go back, no matter how much I might want to at times.
