Preparing

I'm supposed to compile a list.
To deal with the past, you have to return to the memory. What triggers? Where is the grief? Where is the suffering? Here, let us precisely remove the pain. Desensitize you.
But there is no specific place where I may return. Not one event. One trauma. Just the gradual realization, tiny sparkling frozen crystals settling out of the air on your face and hands and coat until you are frosted over, that everything you loved, everything you thought you knew, is changed. Altered. Lost.
I've gotten better at managing pain. Certain things hurt too badly and I folded them neatly, tucked them out of sight.
The trauma and grief come - not to recall the revelation, the moment of awareness, but remembering the thing you loved, the hope and future, and compare it to the reality of now. Not trauma in a single incident. Not a frightening noise. Just the hollow and empty corners where there should be joy.