Just Exhale

Inhale.

Exhale.

Repeat.

TV is based on a script. The lines spoken, the clothes worn, the good, the bad… and the heartbreak. It is all written down, rehearsed, and then repeated until it gives you that feeling of connection. The words have to mean something to each viewer or the show won’t last. No matter what we watch, we connect somehow. I truly believe this is because all scripts come from a place within where each and every word has a deeper meaning. Romances gone wrong. Friendships that grew into a love so big it seems like a fairytale. Truly, everything is real.

I connect to just about any and all shows or movies about parenthood. Being a mom is beyond hard most days. I feel like I can’t do anything right sometimes. What isn’t real, is the beautiful, spotless, always clean house. If your home is that clean, then you must fly to keep dirt off the floors or, to be totally honest, you just don’t have kids. My girls aren’t even home tonight and my house is a mess. Why not just clean up since they are gone? Why not take this time to organize all their toys and coloring things and clothes? Because the real truth of being a parent with a free night is sitting down on the couch, watching TV, and doing nothing. Nothing is the best thing to do on these nights. I just sit here. Watching whatever I want and not having to explain things; eating whatever I want without having to share; and looking around at my mess and smiling because I miss my obnoxious kids.

I connect to shows on a very, very deep level, that sometimes I can’t even explain… especially when the dad dies. Not a single detail surrounding the death matters other than the loss of a father. One of my more recent anxiety attacks came after a Grey’s Anatomy episode in which a man had a very serious brain injury due to an accident of some sort. As I grieved the unknowns of his outcome with his TV family, I began to build up a deep anger inside of me as his outcome changed. He had the greatest neurosurgeon working on him and like always, Dr. McDreamy was the hero. To everyone but me. I knew that this was a show. It was drama, meant to captivate the audience. The episode did everything for me the writer and director hoped it would. They couldn’t anticipate the numbness deep within my bones rising up and despite all of the emotions I was feeling, I couldn’t turn it off.

I’ve been watching This Is Us from the beginning. Everything about this show is captivating. We, as the audience, dream about love. Maybe we have that love, maybe we know someone we cherish with that love. Regardless, we dream about it and we feel every emotion right along with Jack and Rebecca. We experience the rollercoaster of having siblings all over again. I remember as a kid being told that someday I would like my brothers and I still shake my head, roll my eyes and laugh at that. Truly though, life without my brothers would not be the same. The show got serious for me when Kate began her relationship with Toby and their talks and dreams of their own wedding day.

If I got one to pick one moment to relive with my dad, it would be the moments leading up to him walking me down the aisle on my wedding day. When he walked into the room I was waiting in, he started crying when he saw my cousin and he couldn’t even see me. He asked me if I was ready knowing that he was not. Then we walked down the hallway and stood outside the doors of the church. I can see his face when I close my eyes. He was so proud to be there beside me as we went step by step towards my soon to be husband. When the pastor asked, “who gives away this woman?” you could hear his voice choke up as my parents responded, “we do.” Of all the memories I cherish with my dad, this one is the cherry on top.

Watching Kate struggle knowing she will never have that moment is really hard for me. I instantly feel anxious wondering how things would have been different had we waited till after the baby was born to get married. My heart aches knowing that our dad was not there to see my little brother get married and I know he would have cried like a baby at that wedding too. I often wonder if he had died before I got married, if his absence would have stopped me completely. It just would not have been complete. It would not have been my dream day no matter what else happened.

“If you don’t allow yourself to grieve, it will be like taking a deep breath and just holding it there.”

I think that I have been holding my breath for nearly eight years. My lungs hurt. My chest hurts. My body aches all over. I feel the overwhelming need to let the air out, but I can’t do it. What if I exhale and the memories go to? What if I exhale and things don’t get easier? I am stuck here, but I have comfort from the memories. Stuck but yet I can breathe a little; enough to survive on right now. I’m stuck here because I’m afraid I might disappoint him.