Sleep Away!

It hit 90 three days in a row; very unusual for June.  Each day, the desire to crawl under an air conditioner and sleep away the heat, grew stronger.  Sleep away, like run away, except it requires no effort; that’s the point.  Wait it out, not by pacing, not in anger or worry, but peacefully unaware.  The past tells me this uncomfortably oppressive, intense, heat will pass, so I’ll wait it out, but wait it out doesn’t always work.  It worked for death’s arrival – sleeping through, too often, the people and moments I didn’t bother to cherish.  I try using it for things like test results – hard to keep worry’s flip flops out of my stomach each time it pops back up.  I try not to use it after discovering damage I’ve caused and character flaws; address, not to be ignored.  When “after death” arrived, there was nothing to tell me this uncomfortably oppressive, intense, heat will pass, because it won’t on its own.  It wasn’t my desire to crawl under reality and sleep away peacefully unaware, but grief’s; time needed to prepare for its passing, and the desires to get up, stop waiting, be aware, effort require to arrive.

Twitter post intro: Sleeping away peacefully unaware can be a useful tool, not meant for always. But sometimes its called denial, ignore, or an infinite delay.

A July 4th Sparkler

Anger has mastered the art of getting in the way, by being first to arrive.  It uses the combination shouldn’t and happen, and “not so great” actions of others to produce long lists of complaints and negative feelings, along with the desire to whine.  It’s funny that even though physical wounds qualify for the happen list, they’re not there, because the first to arrive is tend to those wounds.  But for every other kind of wound I let something incapable of tending arrive; anger – a July 4^th sparkler, burning for minutes, but also capable of starting a full blown forest fire.  Very angry arrived when I saw my husband for the first time after learning he died.  I was furious by the time I grabbed his flannel shirt and twisted it, thinking, how dare you leave me all alone – the deepest wound yet.  Thankfully grief knows how to tend, and did so until my anger ignited the “forest fire”  wound of living life without him.  I don’t see myself as carrying around a sparkly sparkler, but it certainly wins more races than a band-aid in coming to my aid.  Why is it so easy to forget I have a choice?

Whole Pictures

Life comes with a lot of pictures, whole pictures; events, experiences, start to finish.  The best of these “whole pictures” are easy to carry around; no consequences to get in the way as reality moves forward.  The worst are not; difficult to carry them whole and also manage the present reality.  A description of my worst whole picture: “. . . what happened is bigger than me.” (Waves of Grief, 2.16.21)  Is, meaning still, not was, meaning no longer.  It was bigger than the two of us; how could it not be bigger than me?  I carried some of it, a very small some at first, while grief carried the rest.  I’ve carried more and more of it over time, but how much, waxed and waned, like the moon, except far from gradually.  It’s more like, juggle my present reality, along with a few pieces of the whole picture, then drop reality and juggle the whole, then drop half of the whole to pick up half of my reality; every juggling scenario as I add more and more whole with less and less impact of the weight.  The whole picture?  Yup. No desire for pieces to go missing.  Still bigger?  Yup.  No longer afraid of its size.

Laid Out Before Me

(Influence My Spending, continued) What if life didn’t just unfold before me, but was laid out before me?  Teach is foremost in the minds of adults regarding children – you need to talk, walk, feed yourself, and be given facts and figures.  But life goes beyond needs to understanding.  Things like emotions, behaviors, qualities, relationships, why, how.  Looking back, my path to adulthood was missing this helpful information, like how to argue productively, not find, but be happy, or reach accept.  What to do with feelings like scared, lonely, misunderstood,  Where does perseverance and brave come from?  Big plates of encounters and experiences laid out before me; insights into what else is out there!  And the biggest plates yet?  What about love?  “Love is a many splendored thing”, AND it’s like a new copper penny, naturally becoming dull over time, which you can let happen, or “if you prefer to maintain the copper’s original shine, regular cleaning is necessary.” (Martha Stewart)  What about death?  Why, when, how, and more importantly, not to be feared, but rather a pocket-sized reminder that time shouldn’t be wasted, and when it comes for those we love, grief will also come as a friend, not an enemy.  Who knew?  Someone. Not me.

White Noise

Since I was a child, I’ve been a light sleeper; 5am birds, loud trucks, raining cats and dogs, and barking dogs.  To cover up these impulsively, intermittent interruptions, I use “white noise” – a sound so steady, once I got used to it, I no longer heard it.  An overlaying sound, making all that goes bump in the night disappear.  It’s being used to help infants sleep through nap time without, shhhh, don’t wake the baby!  There are things in my life I’ve allowed, all too often, to become “white noise”, things I get so used to I don’t hear them anymore, like unhappy;  an overlaying feeling, covering up interruptions of happy – not helpful.  I would describe the onset of grief as “white noise”, without the need to get used to it.  Bump – fear – nope, I can’t hear it.  Bump – anger, weakness, reality, blame, feelings, consciousness, the future – nope, I can’t hear them, enough to sleep deeply though those first few weeks.  Acceptance, oblivious, make-believe took their place, while, fearless, strong, calm, and capable overlaid everything.  Shhhh, don’t wake the truth!  It can sleep awhile, until she’s ready to hear the bumps, let them in, embrace them, and fix what’s broken.

Gone? Not So Fast

“Mick Jagger informed us that yesterday didn’t matter once it was gone.  (Ruby Tuesday) I disagreed.” (All the Fishes come Home to Roost)  I also disagree.  They shouldn’t matter, but there are times when “far reaching” shows up without warning, enough to affect the momentum, direction, and path of my life, enough to require major adjustments to my patterns, dreams, and how I walk through life.  Times when my world is turned upside down and I’ve got to figure out how to live upside down while I turn it to a different right side up.  Yesterday brought me donuts and I ate too many; yesterday didn’t matter once it was gone because the donuts are also gone!  A day arrived many years ago that ended completely different from how it started.  Not gone because of it’s overflow effect on so many days that came after.  He was gone, just like the donuts, but unlike the donuts, that gone would impact the next day, and the next, becoming lots of yesterdays, bringing lots of unwilling change that takes time, especially when realization keeps filtering in, and can’t immediately filter out.  Yesterday’s mattered, but so did tomorrows where the healing process happens; mattering greatly, because they include choices to let them.

Twitter intro: Does yesterday matter? Some say no, others yes, I say shouldn’t, but sometimes it can’t help itself. The sometimes that require life size adjustments. But tomorrow’s matter too, providing distance and the healing that comes with it.

got grief?

Want: baby boy, first rodeo.  Got.  Want: baby girl, second rodeo.  Got.  Want: a college degree.  Got.  Want: love him from 19 to 90.  Got: 34 years less.  So many wants, needs, desires, followed by the gots of living.  Gots, like the Christmas gift debacles of not one, or just some, from my well thought out, widely publicized list.  Gots, as in exactly as expected, or better yet, something better.  Gots, like getting something I didn’t want, that surprisingly turns out wonderful enough it becomes wanted.  One such want/got went like this.  Want above all else, until the end of time: him.  Want without saying or acting so: same him.  Got taken from me before the end of time, without my consent: same him.  Want back above all else: same him.  Got: grief.  Remember the slogan, “got milk?” (Goodby Silverstein & Partners), used to promote the dairy industry?  Well how about using “got grief?” to promote grief’s saving grace?, turning didn’t want into want by showing me unearned, undeserved support for the pain I gladly earned from loving him, and offering loving arms wrapped around the pain I sadly earned from losing him.  Wanted far less than wanting him back, but wanted nonetheless.

No Inkling, No Reason

After hearing a song sung in Hindu, a young American girl commented: “I hadn’t yet learned any Hindu . . ., so I mentally translated the lyrics into Paranoia.” (All the Fishes come Home to Roost)  Her translation was hilarious, and led me to declare, I too, speak Paranoia; I haven’t yet learned the best way to interpret my crystal ball, so I mentally translate my not so great inklings about the future into Paranoia.  The future after my husband died fell into, not only no inkling, but no smidgen of an inkling of what happens when grief and the future meet; stuck looking into a malfunctioning crystal ball with a temporarily malfunctioning mind.  But grief is a great filter, managing the pathways in and out of now, therefore I never got far enough ahead of now to even attempt a Paranoia translation of what the future held.  A synonym for paranoid is unreasonable, and grief has a way to deal with that too.  Unreasonable doesn’t mean the absence of reason, but rather choosing, in the midst of reason, to do/think just the opposite.  Grief simply removes reason, and manages that pathway in as things start, once again, to become sensible.  Perfect time to say it again!  Good Grief!

The intro to this blog on Twitter: It seems impossible to manage the future and reason after death removes the best of both, but then grief arrives and snatches them away, and then lets them trickle back in at a manageable pace.

Like No Other

Is it true, grieving is a place like no other?  Set apart from so many other places: sadness, depression, mourning, despair, sorrow, despondent, unhappy, misery, hollow, drained, darkness, hopeless, and burdened.  Each one individual places, each one impactful, but not necessarily including any of the others, although all can be encompassed in the single word, the single feeling of grief.  I’ve experienced sadness, but it never impacted my life 100%, never changed my total existence, never involved the cutting away of how I was loved, how I mattered.  I can say the same about all the other places.  But grieving isn’t the worst place in the sense of harmful, for although it includes destruction, disruptive, and dangling, and excludes any preemptive lessons, it does come with both healing and transition processes, and even though it takes the most, it gives back the best things I don’t even know I need or want.  Grieving includes movement in all sorts of directions; downward spirals balanced by rides in hot air balloons, full steam ahead balanced by slow down and switch tracks.  Grief hands out one way tickets; no harm in staying on.  The same can’t be said about all those other places.

Stay Undone

Are you done?  A common enough question when something is in progress and it’s not obvious the finish line has been reached, like a puzzle with some missing pieces – done or still looking for those pieces, or a waitress asking because of the french fries left on your plate.  Done – finished, completed, fully executed, reached the end, nothing else left to do.  I’m done, as in yippee, not as in, I’ve had it, I’m giving up, but rather I can go no further.  The adverb, finally is associated with done when reaching it included a long-haul.  Already is another adverb associated with done when reaching it was short and sweet.  The words done, finally, already aren’t associated with grieving.  I will never answer the question, are you done grieving, with a yes.  Not done is evidence that the relationship I lost was deep enough to impact all aspects of my life, that how I once engaged with life, how I once moved through each and every day has been changed forever.  Not done isn’t something I want anyone to be sad about, so don’t feel sorry for me.  It’s an integral part of who I am so I’ll stay undone.

Today’s Twitter Post: I’ve answered yes to the questions, are you done, are you finally done, and done already, but I’ll never say yes to, are you done grieving, because it’s far from a disconcerting thing to stay undone.