Turning Inward
(An assignment for my English class in Florence. The question was “what experience caused you to turn inward? I decided to write this story in the third person, offering a perspective I have not considered before. Writing about this helps my grieving process more than anyone can imagine)
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Standing on top of a sweetheart that suddenly was nothing but a vessel, the world became silent.
The silence was so loud that nothing but the pain of a broken heart was heard.
A face and body that was seen so frequently become horrifically unrecognizable. Found on the 5th floor of the parking garage expelled foreignness because the fourth floor was where the car was always parked. Dried blood spewed from the nose due to the impact of the bullet to his brain. It was the coldest body to touch with purple feet dangling behind the driver’s seat. With loud music coming from his phone and air-conditioning on full blast, the smell still haunts her to this day.
Will it ever not haunt her?
It was a car that they used to have a lot of intimate conversations and laughs in. Now, it is met with discomfort each time she sees that Land Rover Defender. Her stomach drops but not the kind of dropping you get from a rollercoaster.
Grief is a tough subject. Ignoring the pain or developing from it stretches through time with no final ending. She often questions the essence of time. What is time?
With no other desire than to immediately fly home, her father jumped on the next plane. Her family anxiously waited for her arrival. After hearing her voice on the phone call, they fear for her life.
They feared her future. They feared her desire to want to love again. They feared what her eyes just endured. They feared the road ahead that they must face together. Her friends left school to hold her for as long as possible.
The external world was completely put on hold.
The lucky one who was living juggled with deep-rooted issues of wanting to join the nothingness. It seemed easier that way.
Already being at the lowest point in life, the pain that barricaded the heart could only be broken down by diving inside.
Seeing the long road ahead, it was her decision to sort out the mess that was formed over 19 years of living.
She found serious body issues that left a question mark next to the way she ate, she found a defeated relationship with her father, she found how crucial validation was from her peers, and she found beliefs defined by everyone outside the inside.
She ultimately discovered that her life was lived for others, defined by others, and critiqued by others.
Deciding to move forward in a gentle yet forceful way, each piece of the missing puzzle was found with patience, persistence, and forgiveness.
Patience with time and herself; persistence with never giving up when the road got dark and scary; forgiveness for emotions she regretted or hated about herself.
Looping back to the essence of time, it is completely illusionary. Time is funny to her. Realizing that the only thing we have is this exact moment, the release of the past made these exact moments much livelier.
When she looks inside now, she sees peace, power, and immense love.
Peace with past mistakes and the stillness of the now; power to her worth and creation of her dreams; immense love to her heart for making it out of the tunnel, and to the universe for creating this world she loves to be a part of.
Dealing with the fragility of life so young, without this type of defeat she can boldly say her grasp of who she is and who she will become would not be nearly as strong flaming.
With each daunting and dreadful experience, we swallow the pain.
She healed with the notation that the universe presented this gift so she could grow and experience more life. This is exactly what she is doing and will continue to do.
Rest peaceful Charles. She will love you forever. ❤
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Xoxo, Chelsey Grace Jacobs #W2W
#CGJDictionary
