I'm sorry for the emotional dump, I just have nowhere else to voice this.
One of the hardest things I can't get my head around is how do you live when someone you love is dying.
How do you live your life like go to work, go on dates, make new friends, make holiday plans knowing that someone won't be able to do it anymore? How do you talk to them about things at work, normal day to day things, when they soon won't experience it anymore? Stupid work drama that seems so pointless in comparison to what's in front of your eyes. Making plans to go away in the summer when they can't.
If you spend a day at home binging TV shows and don't go out, isn't it cruel to waste your life when they have so little left? But if you go out and have fun while they're suffering at home, isn't that just as cruel? So you stay by their side at home and keep them company as much as you can and try to enjoy all that time, but it's just a waiting pattern.
And what about if they do something that makes you angry, but you feel you can't get mad at them because it's not fair, because in a few months you'll be desperately wishing they were still there to make you mad, but you are still angry and it's just left unresolved?
And the practical side of things. Even when it feels like your world is ending, you're still expected to show up to work. You still need to, because rent and bills don't care if someone you love is dying. Most jobs give bereavement leave, sure, but that's after they're gone. What about the months and years leading up to it? When they're slowly deteriorating and you can only watch helplessly, knowing there's no coming back from each new symptom?
And part of me knows this happens all the time. We get so much news of so much tragedy around the world, yet we still go on and live our lives. But there's a huge disconnect there. When it's someone we know and love in front of us, it feels so unfair.
And to be told by people who've lost loved ones suddenly feel that the extra time is a blessing, that you get to say goodbye and prepare, which is absolutely true and I don't deny it, but seeing the slow decline feels equally as cruel.
I just don't know how to do it.
