Grief Becomes Her

Grief is messing me up. First of all I'm tired of talking about it. I'm tired of everything about it. The answer to "What is wrong?" is that "My parents died." It remains the answer when I fall apart at the table, or when watching tv, or when the wind blows, or when the leaves fall, or my daughter looks at me and says she loves me.

I can't communicate with other people how bad this is, in my mind it feels crazy. Other people need me to be better. They need me to be better because I have responsibilities and things to do and sobbing isn't something that gets things done. Other people need me to be better because, quite frankly, it's just tiresome to deal with someone who is falling apart all the time. Other people need me to be better because they don't know how bad this hurts, how devastating this feels, and watching me go through it tells them what it's going to be like for them and they don't want it to be this bad.

It is this bad. Sorry. It is.

I go whole parts of days that are fine. Then I am suddenly not.

I can clarify the things I am not. I'm not depressed. Not what I think of as depressed, anyway. I'm not suicidal. I don't have any great need to end it all in a fit of sadness. In fact quite the opposite, I want to never, never cause my children this pain. I'm also grieving the fact that some day my kids might feel like this. I can't believe I'm going to cause my children so much pain some day. I need to live as long as possible, not only just so I am not dead, but to delay this feeling to them as long as possible.

The stages of grief are crap. The story about grief being waves is crap. Everything everyone says about grief, including me, is crap.

Grief is loss inside you that no one but you can ever feel or understand. It changes you.

Other people know what grief felt like to them. But no one knows what it feels like to you. That's too bad because the people who love you could probably be more helpful if they understood your hell. But they can't because it's YOUR hell not theirs.

I keep saying I'm going to focus, and get back to doing the things I need to do. Instead I keep not working out (so far only once this week), and eating (weight gain is not good).  I keep not doing it. I need to do these things because in a very real way both of my parents died from things that weight played a terrible part in (hey people who think you are healthy fat, you aren't....heads up, it's not pretty), and I'm 47 and omg I have to get the pounds off.

I wouldn't mind so much this grieving if it weren't so debilitating. I wouldn't mind if it didn't knock the wind out of me just when I thought I was on my feet. I wouldn't mind if I just could find the air, if I could just get my head above it and stay there. But I can't. Not yet anyway.

My best friend Cajsa called around and found me a grief counselor that met my requirements and I finally picked up the phone and got an appointment. The first available appointment is on Mom's birthday next week. I'm not sure what I will get out of it, if anything, but I suppose it can't hurt to go and see.

I just miss this woman so much, I took the past 47 years for granted in a way I can't even believe.

That's her with Louis, when he was 1, at Halloween in 2003.

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