Platitudes, Schmatitudes - Just be Present

I've had people ask suggest that my grief is living in the past or living in the future.  All I can say is that when I am experiencing a grief surge, I am fully in the present.  I feel the hole and the pain left behind by the loss.

It's funny how people just cannot handle pain - their own or another's.  When my husband was in the hospital, someone told me "this too shall pass".   Seriously, am I supposed to live in the future or the moment.  Because at that moment everything sucked.  So I guess I'm supposed to live in the moment unless it's too uncomfortable for someone else, then I should live in the future.  Another person blithely said "Oh, he'll be fine".   When he died a few days later, she avoided me like the plague.

What I've gotten to see this past year, is how people use platitudes to avoid being present for someone else's pain.  I know they mean well enough, but really it's just a way to minimize or avoid the raw emotions.  I was actually very grateful for the people who said "I don't know what to say.  I don't know what you're dealing with".  It was honest, it was real.  And they didn't try to put a bandaid on a gaping wound.  They recognized and acknowledged the pain.  Some of them were the best listeners.  Because what I've need is to just keep talking about my feelings.  It's the only way I know to let them flow through me.  I talk.  I write.  I cry.  There have been a couple of times where the feelings have gotten bottled up in me.  Emotional constipation.  And every time that happens, I end up in physical distress.  My IBS flares up, I have migraines, my rib went out.  So I have to talk and talk and talk.

Shortly after Jim died, a few people said "he's in a better place".  For someone experiencing the loss of a loved one, that is at the top of the list of wrong things to say.  Not just for me, but for others I've talked to going through their own grieving process.  Because at that stage, I didn't fucking care.   Good for him and fuck him.  He's in a better place and I'm left here dealing with a mountain of shit he left behind.  Grief is selfish.I had a part of my heart and soul forcibly ripped from me and it hurts.  It hurts more that you know until you experience it for yourself.

Someone I love and care about told me the other day that I need to let it go.  Well I am, just maybe not in a way he understands.  For me letting go is a process.  There is no magic "letting go" fairy.  Poof - it's gone.  There's the pain of holding onto something that makes me willing to let go.  Then there's the pain of the letting go - feeling something being removed from me with no anesthetic.  Finally there's the pain of the empty space once I let go.  Grief has been a non-stop process of letting the feelings surface.  Writing about them, talking about them, crying about them.  I let them wash through me.  Like I said, sometimes I get stuck, but I've done my best to walk the line between avoiding the feelings and wallowing in them.  Overall, I think I've done pretty good.  Sometimes the grief brings me to my knees, or I end up curled up on the floor sobbing my guts out.  And then I get back up and try to focus on what's in front of me.

I give myself points for not drinking this year and not ending up in a mental institution.  I'm grateful to the many people who have shared from their hearts their experiences with loss and let me babble endlessly.  The people who have read my writing and told me how I've touched them, that what I've written has stricken a chord in them.  I'm grateful for the people who have told me I'm strong, courageous and brave.  When I feel weak and afraid, I cling to those reassurances, I believe I can make it through.  I'm grateful for the people that tell me they admire my authenticity.  At this point, I don't have much of a choice, I don't have energy to keep up a front.  It heals my rawness that this too is embraced and loved.  I'm grateful to the many people with endless patience, that have told me and keep telling me that there's no right or wrong way to grieve, that we all have our own path and hold my hand  and give me balance.  I'm grateful for the many, many people who have patiently let me talk and given me the gift of listening.  Through this whole process, the greatest gift I've received is unconditional love.  The quantity and quality continues to astound me.

So thank you all.  The next several weeks are going to be difficult.  A time of reliving an awful period.  A time of reflecting on the journey thus far.  I'm feeling the grief settle into a new place.  I think it will always be with me, but it's settling.  Thank you for letting me share this journey with you.  xoxo

Lost in a Fog

It's coming up on a year since my husband died.  This is the time he started to be sick.  I expected to be in for a tough time this month, and unfortunately I was right.  Last weekend I had two meltdowns over small things.....

I've had periods where the rollercoaster ride from hell has seemed to mellow.  Sometimes it smooths out for a bit, sometimes it starts to feel like I'm going up.  But then it drops down again.  The worst is the corkscrew portion where I don't even know which way is up.

This morning started pretty good.  I woke up feeling optimistic, did my morning writing and actually did some yard work.  But then as I headed to town for a doggie playdate (a fun activity with a very nice friend that I was looking forward to) the grief miasma descended.  I showed up for a few things, but then was just so de-energized I came home.  I'm exhausted most of the time.  The rollercoaster has worn me out.

As I continue to move through the grief, I keep realizing how much is lost in addition to the man I loved.  There is no security for me in this new land.  Old beliefs have either been stripped away or are so in my face that I need to let them go.  Some of the old beliefs I intellectually knew didn't work and have tried for years to will them away.  Or I believed I had let go of them, but now, stripped to my essence, I discover they've still been there.  And now they're at the surface, not working and I can no longer hang onto them.

For the last 28 years, I believed that if I could align with the universe, tune into my higher power, everything would be okay.  I believed that everything happened for a reason.  I no longer believe that everything happens for a reason, sometimes it just happens.  I don't believe in some deity that randomly decides it's time for someone to die for some "purpose".  I just think we're born and we die and it just happens when it happens for no particular reason.  And it doesn't matter how tuned in I am, when people die, everything is not okay.  Nothing will ever be the same.  There's no reason, no sense.  It just is.

I've discovered there is nothing I can count on.  There is no stability, no security.  Jim promised he would never abandon me.  Even as our marriage got worse and worse, he said he would never leave me, because he knew how abandonment was what I most feared.  And then he died.  And left me forever.   While logically I know he didn't "leave me", emotionally I wonder if I made him so miserable, he just wanted to escape me.  If he just gave up.  If it was my fault that he left me.  Which brings me face to face with some beliefs I've carried for most of my life.  I think I can control the world I live in.  If I just do things "right", I can control the outcome.  I really thought I had accepted that there are things I can't control, but now I've discovered how deeply held that belief is.  Tied into that belief is the "nothing I ever do will ever be enough".  Because of course, I can't control the world, I can't control other people, I can't control the outcome of anything.  And of course, things will not, cannot, work out the way I want and I feel it's because I'm not enough.  For years I've said the platitude (and thought I believed it) "Just do the footwork and leave the results in God's hands".  But at a deep core level, I still tried to control.

For years I believed I was a strong, independent woman.  Before I met Jim, I was single for 12 years.  But now I keep discovering how dependent I had become on him.  We were so entwined for 16 years as life and business partners.  I keep tripping over how many small things he did for me to make my life better, to make me happy.  Now that those things are gone, I realize how much I took for granted and how dependent I was on him for my strength.  And now I feel weak.  And alone.  My business is failing.  I thought I make it work, but it's not and I don't know what to do.  I worry that the success I was able to have was because I had Jim next to me and that without him, I'm destined to be a failure.

 Everything I though I could count on is being removed.  I know I can't count on anyone.  They could die at any minute.  Or they have their own lives to deal with and aren't there for me the way I want.  They have their own issues and something offered, that I thought I could rely on is removed.

Lately I've felt like I am lost in a forest in the fog.  I've wandered off my path, it's been closed off to me.  I can't find a new path.  I can't see, I can't hear.  I'm directionless.   I've always had a direction clear to me and now......

I just don't know anything.  So I'll keep doing what I've been doing.  I'll do my best to show up and do what's in front of me.  And trust.  Trust that at some point the fog will lift, a path will open.  Hope that something new and beautiful will arise from the ashes.

The Maze of Grief

Grief seems to be a maze.  A maze with different rooms in it.  Loss, Pain, Sorrow, Guilt, Regret, Remorse, Anger, Self-Pity - to name just a few.  You follow the paths.  They inevitably take you to one of these rooms.  If you keep avoiding that room, you never get to move on.  Sometimes you go into one of the rooms and want to stay there.  Anger is a great place - you can avoid feeling the pain and all the rest.   Self pity is good too.  Just crawl under the covers and escape life.  There are also the happier rooms - Acceptance, Serenity, Gratitude, Strength and even Joy.  They're a resting spot, a time out.  But eventually they kick you out, because it's time to keep moving.  There's the avoidance rooms - Busyness, Denial, Rationalization.  If you want to stay in them, you have to keep slamming shut the door that leads out.  Sometimes you think you're done with a room.  You've explored it, found the door out and moved on.   And then you move through the maze and it leads you back.

My husband of 16 years (well, we weren't technically married for that, but spiritually we were) died just over 8 months ago.  You'd think the grief would be easier by now, but it's not.  It is different.  I feel like I'm moving through the maze, but it's getting progressively deeper and more real.  At first, it all seemed surreal, with periods of "Oh my God, it's real".  All my energy went into keeping my head above water.  Sometimes just breathing was a challenge.  I've kept moving through the maze.  But right now, I feel like I'm bouncing between the Sorrow room and the Guilt, Regret, Remorse rooms.

We had an amazing relationship for 13 years.  We used to joke that we were the same person in male and female forms.  Most of our difficulties were his man/logic view vs. my female/emotional view.  And for 13 years we were able to find our way with lots of love.  Which was especially amazing since we were together 24/7.  We were not only married, but business partners working together.  We were soul mates.  And then something happened.  I'm not sure what exactly.  I had health issues and because of them started doing some emotional/spiritual growth and changes.  And since I was new to it, I didn't do it very well.  I made a lot of mistakes.  Business was tough and we were traveling a lot - so there was a lot of stress on both of us.  But we'd been through those challenges before and were able to tackle it together.  And I just have to wonder if that's when the diabetes (which eventually led to his death) kicked in.  Because he became much more irritable and the connections we had began to strain until neither of us had the energy to make our marriage work.  So there we were on the precipice of divorce and then he died.

At this point, I feel like I'm grieving the end of the marriage as well as his death.  It's a double whammy.  Lately I've had memories of the good times.  And realizations of how much he brought to my life, how many things he did for me.  I was sick recently.  When I got to the store to get my prescription filled, I just sat in my car and sobbed.  I felt so miserable and all I could think was "If Jim was here, he'd get my prescription for me.  He knew what I could eat and what food would make me happy.  He'd take care of me."  And all I wanted to do was call him, tell him how sorry I was for being unappreciative for the wonderful things he did for me.  But he's dead and I can't.  People want to make me feel better and tell me that I can tell him.  I just want to scream.  HE'S DEAD!!!!!  I know they mean well.  But I can't call him.  I can't talk to HIM.  I can't make amends.  Maybe I can, but it's not the same.  I can't wrap my arms around him, I'm sorry, tell him he's a wonderful human being, maybe heal some of the pain I caused him.  I can tell the air.  And sometimes I do feel him, hear him.  The other night I saw a fireball and I knew it was him.  But most of the time, there's just an empty space where he used to be.

So I'll just keep moving around the maze.