Guilt

I think this is guilt. This heaviness that pulls at me when I think of the life I had before and the life I have now. 

Three years ago Ryan and I moved into our new apartment, the one he chose. He helped decide where to put the furniture and carried boxes up the stairs. It was a space where we could make a life together, and we did. It wasn't easy for all that we loved each other. We had different ways of living. Parenting teens is never simple. Connecting with Ryan was particularly hard. 

Yesterday I walked out of that apartment for the last time. I thought of all the life that happened there. And the death. I remembered the pain of being unable to connect with him both before and after he stopped breathing. I remembered meeting Jamie in that same space and thought of the joy and partnership in my life now, of the ease of living with the man I love. 

Who wouldn't choose the easy joy of newlywed life over the struggle of raising a depressed teen? A mother wouldn't. I didn't. Ryan isn't here because of his choice, not mine, but just now it doesn't feel that way. 

I wonder how much difference it would have made if I hadn't been building this new life in the last months of his life. How many more conversations would we have had? Might I have seen what was coming? How much more might I have attended to him? Might I have done something different? Might I have found some help, some direction, some hope for him?

The night he died I was in the next building over starting this beautiful life I have now. Would it have been different if I'd been in the room next door? Would I have asked the right question? Would he have told?

Most days I stay away from the "what ifs". I haven't chosen to torment myself with what I would have done if I'd know the things I couldn't have known. In the pause for reflection at a time of transition, guilt finds its day.

This new life was a thousand bits in the making, but this day is the biggest bit. We left the space I'd shared with my son. Now I live in a place that he's never seen, a place where he will never be with me. How can that be? I'm starting a life full of joy and love and happiness. Something is wrong. Something resists ease and joy. I think it's guilt. 

Drafted 11/29/2022

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