The World Spun While Mine Stood Still

I recently watched the series Breaking Bad for the first time. Everyone I told that I was watching commented “Oh, I loved that show, I wish I could start it all over again”. When it was first released, I didn’t watch it for two reasons, one, we didn’t have HBO, but the second was that I didn’t think I needed to watch a television series about a high school teacher who found out he has terminal cancer and decided to become a meth cooker. I was watching Colin die and as much as the suspense might have given me a distraction, the premise was more than I think I wanted to get into.

We were living our own Breaking Bad, shit falling apart, maybe I wasn’t cooking meth, but my daily was full of enough plot twists.

I did end up loving the series

It reminded me, however, about how lonely it can become caring for someone who is chronically or terminally ill. It is like everyone else’s life goes on as it always has, but for you, it stops. 

I never faulted people for necessarily living when I felt like both Colin and I were dying simultaneously. Unless you have lived it, you can’t possibly understand. Unless you have watched Breaking Bad, you can’t “get it”. That is the same as watching someone you love pass away slowly.

I would occasionally hear people talking about how great the show was when they would stop by to catch up at the house with Colin and I. But, they would quickly read the room and stop talking about it. Everyone was completely engaged, enjoying talking about the show, watching it unfolding in front of them, wanting to know more, but I think they would sense that we were not so enthralled by the HBO show, truth be told, we didn’t have a clue what they were talking about. 

So, we just sat on the sidelines, or perhaps I did. Colin was too sick and in so much pain and suffering, he didn’t notice that the world was spinning while ours wasn’t. 

I did. 

I was painfully aware that he was in pain and I was painfully watching everything on pause, hold even, and I no longer fit in. I didn’t belong anywhere. 

I wasn’t up on current events, I hadn’t watched an episode of television, little less followed a saga, I was sitting, waiting for Colin to find peace or be cured, and it depended on the week, the day, sometimes the hour.

After he died, the show went on, as I guess the phrase says “the show must go on,” but I had missed the critical parts and I was too lost to pick it up from where everyone was.

It wasn’t just that I had missed entire seasons of iconic series and shows, it was that I missed birthdays, weddings, funerals, Christmas parties, Thanksgiving’s, pretty much every random get together. Even worse, after coming off of Tayt’s crisis and finally starting to feel like I had rejoined life any way I could, I was back to feeling like everyone was watching a Netflix series without me.

Going “ahead” if you will. 

I felt guilty that I had missed everything, sometimes knowing that I could have gone, but also knowing that I couldn’t have gone, and there really was no difference.

Once Colin passed away, when I would join people who we used to hang out with, I had missed inside jokes, funny tales, big events, and I had also missed small nuances like two friends becoming best friends, someone no longer in the group

The world spun, mine stood still.

From the outside, it probably seemed that I was vacant. I would get up and excuse myself and pretend to get a drink while watching something on television at someone’s home, or at the bar, I just couldn’t stand the hurt that life had gone on so effortlessly without me. Even worse, as people talked, I could hear Colin’s humor and comeback jokes in the back of my head. He always had some comment to make, and now there was nothing in that space but quiet. 

Colin was missing for everyone else. Everything including my best friend Colin was missing for me.

You can’t be angry that people moved on without you; they had to.

But you can’t help feel like you aren’t a part of the group anymore either. 

When I was a part, it was a group effort, me and Colin. After he died, it was me, silent me, surrounded by the same couples, being so incredibly kind and thoughtful, but I was resentful that fate took Colin and that life had gone on without us, and now it felt like it was going on without me because I didn’t fit in anymore. 

I didn’t know where I belonged.

If there is someone out there that feels like everyone’s watching a series without waiting for you, they are. People can’t put their lives on hold, even if they wanted to. 

But you need to know this; it isn’t you, it is just life, loss, and the way it is. It isn’t fair, but you will find your own series and either watch with the same people or find your new people who are on your speed. 

People didn’t leave you behind, illness kept you there, it wasn’t your fault and it wasn’t their's, and sometimes that is harder than having someone to blame.

Just don’t blame yourself.