“Grief’s tough,” I tweeted the other day, along with this quote, “He did not say: You will not be troubled, you will not be belabored, you will not be disquieted; but he said: you will not be overcome.” Julian of Norwich
I am amazed at how people manage to survive grief. I know they must because I’m not the only person in the world who’s ever lost someone they love. And if I’m having this much trouble…
Sometimes I don’t want to say how badly I’m doing, because I don’t want the people who are just starting this journey to get so disheartened they want to jump off a cliff. But grief and healing takes a long, long time to…..well, I’m starting to wonder if it does anything except clunk down in the middle of one’s life, and not move.
And yes, I do have good days. And some days I feel really, really good. But lately, it seems the “downs” are more down than ever before. What’s with that? And there’s a new ingredient thrown into the mix that wasn’t there before – the feeling that I want to give up. I’ve been so good. Tried so hard to keep going. And now, I’m just tired, and want to give in.
Everyone hits a wall. I know there was a moment when my husband was sick that I worried that I wouldn’t be able to go on. And now I feel that wall firmly entrenching itself in front of me again. But this time there’s no rope to pull me over.
One of my widow friends just went through a bad spell. And on the spur of the moment, she rented an apartment and moved to a different city! I know why. While you can’t “run away” from your feelings, it’s worse, much worse to just stay there with them. Engaging in distractions, retail therapy, organizational stuff…are honorable attempts to make it through the day. Valiant ways of doing our best to survive. And I say – whatever gets you through the night.
Another widow friend mentioned that she was worse than ever right around the time that I am now. She kept on thinking to herself, “I should be better.” She wasn’t, and she was beating herself up for it. She had to just let it go, and accept where she was.
I wrote in my journal the other day, and below is an excerpt:
Hideous, and hurtful.
How long do I have to live with this loneliness.
How do other people find the strength to go on?
Wish I could speed up the process,
Feel like I’m just ticking off days until I’m gone.
I’m weeping again,
And again,
And again.
They say it never goes away. It’s true,
Practice does not make perfect,
I’m two and half years into this,
And I’m too slow a learner
In learning how to live without you.
I don’t think I’ve ever run into anything that I haven’t been able to change through good intention and attitude. Grief laughs in my face at that. It’s its own entity. That leaves me with just trying to find a way to carry this heavy burden as I go through life. And I’m thinking…if grief is going to keep me this close a company, I’d need to learn to respect the beast.
