Grief is an almost funny thing. I could compare it to a roller-coaster, but I feel it's overused and not quite what I'm feeling or thinking. I picture it more to be a small line following behind a rolling tumbleweed which swoops up, then back, then flailing down but forward. Much better than stairsteps or dramatic roller coaster swirls, but difficult and confusing and swirling like a tornado.
The interesting and most difficult is on that upward swoop, right before the step backward and downward slide...see, on that upward journey, you appear "fine" to the world around you. You start to feel fine, and others expect you are beginning to move forward and through the grief cycle. In fact, when that back step and drop come unexpectedly and randomly, it's almost as though the people around you--and sometimes even you--forget that it's another swirl of the grief, not a symptom of something separate. No one close to you would ever admit it, or even be consciously aware, but they have an expectation of you to be who you were, who they know you to be, and giving this new onset of grief an explanation can be comforting. No one likes change totally...when people change, it causes an upset to the balance of relationships and roles with the closest people. Those who were comfortable with the known will have difficulty allowing this change to happen in the grieving person and will attribute the struggles to a personal lack of the person or a way in which the grief is not being handled.
That's the trouble. You're not that person anymore. And on the lowest days, that person seems a distant fog. Petty things appear pettier, and frustrations larger, because your whole world has been altered, changed, dramatically. Your mindview views through a completely differently colored lense, seeing from a new perspective. And some days are numbing and apathetic. Some days are emotional. Some days are just a tease of the normal that used to be.
If I had to voice what my biggest need was, or how someone could help, I could not. I need love, I need to be alone. I need to be busy, I need to sleep. I need to exercise, I need to rest. I need to talk, I need to be quiet. It's an interesting feeling, this grieving. I know I have God, my husband, my family. And yet it's isolating, and I've never felt so alone. I always thought I could empathize to the full extent with people...it came naturally for me, and grew into a strength as I filtered it to counseling. But it was not until I lost my dad that I realized I had NO idea how my clients felt with the loss(es). It grew my awareness of its extent, but also of its isolating powers.
This blog tonight has no direction, no single point of emphasis. Just a rough weekend turned to words for the evening...
