Its a fine art, balancing in a plank. Just kidding. In life and grief. (Is it weird that I made a joke. Because to me it feels both wrong and right.) I have some experience with it. I guess that's one of those stupid silver linings to Kimmy's grief. Its a guest who has been in my house before.
Things that used to bring me joy, are not right now. And that bothers me. Because if I had to lose this other joy, why is it robbing me of the other joys in my life. And on the other side, if something does bring me joy, like laughing over the WORST therapy appt, its quickly overshadowed with guilt. Its a roller coaster of constant emotion. I mean one of those roller coasters you built in those computer games in the 90's. You literally don't know whats coming next, even if you think you do. And sometimes that alone feels like it could kill you. You just want to get off already and throw up for days.
I posted that picture on instagram with my honest feelings, and a new friend reached out. She had been there. Walking that tight rope with the same balance. And she sent me her blog post on it. I felt like she understood me completely. I want to share her words from Somethingrosier.com
"But this, I believe, is simply just a "new normal" – the sadness will never go away, one just becomes accustomed to its presence. Often the "black dog" metaphor is used to represent depression (which I don't quite agree with because black dogs get enough bad press ey), but I think that for many this black dog is something one works on getting rid of, whereas those of us that have experienced this kind of loss instead learn to live with it.
Let's, instead, use it to represent our grief. It's huge. It's a tiger. It sits in our laps and we're not used to that. It crushes us, we can't breathe and we don't want to deal with it. We push it away and we don't want to look at it, don't want to think about it, but it's there, regardless, and we feed it and we water it every day, all the time. Then weeks pass and we become used to its weight, it no longer crushes us as it once did. Its weight hasn't changed but we're just used to it. And then, soon enough, we have lived with it for long enough that we learn to plan our steps around it. We're not tripping over it anymore, it's not so much in the way as it was when it appeared. We have learned that it doesn't need to be fed, but it will come for us when it wants feeding, and we can do it, or not do it. It's quiet, and it comes and goes. It pads alongside us all through life whether we see it and engage it or not, and, for me, I think it helps me to feel closer to my baby sometimes." - Farrah
It was so comforting to hear it from a fellow mom. She's ahead of me on this journey, and has graciously reached out during her grief to help me. A stranger across an ocean. And she spoke my language. The tiger is still suffocating me, its brother sitting in the corner, because hey two griefs are different and require different time. And he is on a time out right now.
with love, lissa