I Wanna Be Joan Cusack

2003-09-30 - 4:54 p.m.

'"this is the face i make when i'm sad"'

For the first few days after someone you love dies, your skin is suddenly not your own. And you're not quite sure how you happened to slip so easily into the one you're wearing now. But you do know that from inside of it nothing is real. Because if it were, you think you'd probably feel it. You'd probably feel something. As it is, though, there isn't anything. There's no feeling whatsoever. And everyone you come into contact with, even if he holds you, barely brushs against you. Every word spoken runs together and becomes a foreign language. Until it just stops registering altogether and there is no sound. So suddenly you're not only numb, but deaf besides.

And you kind of know that if you could feel anything right now, you'd be glad for that. Because feeling the nothing means floating instead of dragging. It means not knowing the effect of being stabbed with so many prodding pins. So many sharp questions and insensitive ramblings.

You think maybe, in a day or two or a year or two, when the feeling all comes back you'll be floored by it. But then you start to look forward to it. And to think maybe you should be kind of terrified. To want the pain more than this numbness. To know that the pain is the only real thing living under this new shield of thick, fake flesh.

Penny's still in that floating place. She called me this afternoon from Walmart. She'd be standing in front of the eggs with her shopping list overwhelmed by the choices. Eggs. Large. Extra-large. Jumbo. Grade A. When her numbness fades, she'll probably look back at that very second and get angry. For being forced to interact. And to be normal. To act normal when suddenly nothing is normal. And nothing probably ever will be again.

It makes you wonder, doesn't it? How many people you passed at the grocery store today who suddenly forgot how to pick out eggs. Whose worlds had suddenly ended, but who found themselves standing in the middle of one that just kept right on spinning. Spinning. Spinning.

I don't remember anything about the day after my mom died. And I think I have the numbness to thank for that.

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