The Grief Season

Seasonal Allergy is the URL name of my silly little blog for a reason. I hate the constantly changing seasons of life. In fact, ever since the day I became a mom, I have been aware of the internal sound of "whizzing" as the calendar sheds it's pages. With each calendar season changing and a billion pictures that prove that another year has altered my baby, turned toddler, turned awkward-toothed pre-teen, turned young adult, turned MAN, I have always deeply craved a circling of my wagons and had the desire to hold everyone I love close. I neeeeeeeed things to stop, to BE STILL.

My personality works against me on this in some ways and facilitates the whizzing by in other ways. Because I am highly relational, I tend to hang on too tightly to people and special moments, but I'm also a mover and a doer that wants to see and experience the world. I've spent my adult life trying to reconcile those to attributes. I am still an infant at "stilling" my heart and mind while the "whizzing" changes my every day reality.

Today I took the day off from the salon. Internally I feel the practical pull to use my one day alone wisely. I KNOW (yes kids, yes Honey, I see it all) I should be re-filling the refrigerator and the snack cupboards, processing mountains of laundry, dusting, mopping, sorting stacks of mail, doing the bathroom mucking... or at the very least, teaching someone else around here how to do those things correctly- to avoid my having to re-do them later. I've been gone from this house for too many days and we've all seemed to slip into a "camping out" mode. Internally I also feel the emotional reality that I have absolutely nothing to offer. I don't believe I can muster the emotional energy it would take to get out of my car in the rain, wander through the aisles and make choices, then to stand in line at the grocery store, Costco, or heaven-forbid, Walmart. Sadly, I'm out of milk, eggs, bread, all meats for lunches and dinners, vegetables, contact solution, cotton balls and my toothbrush is in poor shape- those are just the things I can think of off the top of my head. I haven't polled the rest of the family, it's absolutely possible that they've completely given up on brushing their teeth and washing their faces, and I. DON'T. CARE.

So this morning the dog and I are sitting together in the still-dark living room, avoiding making the rest of the shopping and to-do lists. While Moses sleeps next to me, I'm envious of his cozy rest. How am I going to purge a grief that I can't even really feel? I am aware of Grief's presence- it has put nearly tangible weights on my heart, my mind and even my body, yet I am numb to its pain.

I am irritable. I want everyone home and near me, but I don't want to hear a single sound. I want to hear about their day- their perspectives, but I cannot concentrate on their words or needs. I want my hand held, but I feel suffocated by being touched by anyone and everyone. I want my children, their smiles and joy, but I'm annoyed that they aren't aware of my numbness and desperate emotional depletion. I want to talk about him, but I'm tired of the sound of my own voice. I want to remember him, and the final 6 important days I have yet to blog about, but I cannot force my mind to think on it anymore. I want life to carry on, but I cannot stand that life has moved on. I want to discuss all of the things like bike racing and politics and summer plans that my husband has been contemplating for weeks, but I hate trivial conversations and cannot even handle overhearing the bickering at the sink as the kids load the dishes, much less the bickering of politicians and canned antagonism on the stupid TV. I want to be a friend, but I wrestle with simply not caring. I don't like this version of me. I assume I'm not always going to be this way, but then I also know that I was changed forever in April 2016.

I'm pretty sure my life today, on the outside, looks pretty normal. I look like I'm coping well and that we are all back in our routine of work and home and kids' activities. I shower and dress well, I put on my make-up and pick out a smile and an attitude suitable for each and every day. Except, I want to scream and cry and rage, but can't find the energy or that particular voice.

I envy my mother's tears. My sister's sobs look almost cozy, I've reviewed those pictures a time or two since a week ago Saturday...

I am numb.

I am exhausted.

I am alone, yet I am surrounded. I'm starting to understand what little I know now about the grieving rituals of the Old Testament. Smart people, they were, I think...

I can imagine a good "aloneness":

In my daydream I see me sitting on a beach. Waves of grief are rhythmically washing over me. There is a pattern to them; each make sense and soothe even while the salt and sand hurt my open wound. I crave those waves and the stillness in between them. I crave the expectation and the ability to make room emotionally for the power of the next one as I anticipate it washing over me. There is a cleansing in the power of those waves that my imagination tells me I need...

My emotional reality is a different kind of "aloneness":

What I'm experiencing is more like a bustling sidewalk. There are low, strong tsunami waves washing in from every direction, clipping me at my ankles as I hurry along. There's no predicting the next one, no anticipation and no routine to any of them. There's no time for embracing them in any kind of productive or useful way, they are simply another annoyance for me to cope with and behave myself through. My feet are wet and cold; I'm slipping and slopping and keep stumbling along, still hurrying. Maybe I'm getting somewhere, but the ankle deep water doesn't let me measure distance. I don't have time to fall, so I keep myself righted and try to keep "it" all together. There's no rhyme or reason to any of the madness; nothing feels productive, not the grief, not the busyness, not the water swishing through the streets of my imagination. I keep seeing mud and debris being brought in by the surges, but nothing is being removed or resolved by these ridiculous waves of grief.

"Make sure you take care of yourself."

It's the advice I keep hearing over and over. Although I've said it a bazillion times to other people, I can't help but wonder: What the heck does that even mean? How is that supposed to that look for a person in my situation? I'd love to check out for a week, or two, or fifteen... But that doesn't do anything except prolong my responsibility and ruin my relationships and destroy my business and obliterate my finances and abandon my children in their needs. None of those options are fulfilling the advice to "take care of me", really. So, in this season of grief, mixed with the season of motherhood, and the season of great responsibility to my family and career... how do I find that emotional beach, and how long is sufficient for me to sit there if I ever to find it, and how do I express my beach-needs to the people who don't understand that I haven't really "moved on" to anywhere and I'm not now, nor will I ever be, "over it"...?