I’ve been struggling all day. Fighting reality. I’m coming to realize it’s harder to know that changing my thoughts is a choice, ending the suffering is a choice, and being wholly unable to get there.
It’s not that I had a bad day. I got to hang with my two favorite people. We went to the farmer’s market, the sun was shining, there was nothing wrong. Except I wanted to be curled up by myself with a book, my journal, hot tea, and ridiculously dark chocolate. I’ve been taking time for myself lately, and I wanted today to be with my family. I was rarely present for it. Mama, I want your attention. I was sitting beside her but she could sense I wasn’t there.
Right after Benjamin died, I wanted a cave to retreat into where I could hole up and fast track my grief. Where I could cry, write, draw, read and sit without interruption. I found the cave in stolen moments. I needed it again today and couldn’t find my way. It’s easy to berate myself for this limbo, this in-between space where nothing is wrong and nothing is right.
There will be no 7 month anniversary as February has only 28 days, but I can feel my body’s memory awakening. My monthly cycle reminds me of the horror of those last weeks. My body aches. My heart aches. The tears lie in wait.
Tonight I am grateful to be alive. I am grateful that tomorrow is a new day.
sometimes it’s easier to be in the throes of grief rather than moving through it. maybe you are in the spring of your grief, pushing out of the darkness into the light. here in dc, the buds are coming out and the flowers are pushing out, but it’s still 30 degrees somedays and i am so aware of the pain of this growth, this reaching out, only to find cold and darkness instead of light. but it’s coming – be patient with the darkness and your sorrow. the light is coming!!!!!
xoxo
I understand. It is so hard to grieve, to be sad even, when you have to be out in the world, with others. I wonder, though, if that is part of it. The pushing away and the pulling towards.
And how interesting that, seven months in, there come a month when there is no anniversary. And as Pamela pointed out so beautifully, at the time when spring is almost here, when we can sense there is a new beginning, but we can’t quite see it yet.
Love to you.
I am always glad that tomorrow is a new day. (((hugs)))
I never cease to be amazed at how much the body knows. Big love to you.
Huge hugs and more love being sent your way, Alana. As Pamela said, the light is coming.