I haven’t been through proper loss since I last went through proper loss. Only to discover I’ve never really known how to get through loss properly.
I was just newly settled into a normal. I was recovering from an emotionally damaging marriage. And before that I was a teenager. I was accepting the anxious parts of me. I was off medications for over 3 years after being on for not even long enough to know if they would help yet long enough to know they wouldn’t help.
My sister told me you aren’t supposed to start a new paragraph with the letter I. To state you as the I. I can’t always figure out how to not and if to care. Proper forming of sentences and paragraphes are sensible rules and desires for serious writers who strive to write for those of us who may criticize their sentence structure. I love to find the one editing error. Sometimes there are two. You are not looking for them, you are reading fluidly and suddenly it’s not fluid. Because it has too many r’s. Making you question the word intended. I’m an editing nightmare. I am also not a writer.
I’m mad today I can’t use remotes.
I feel like I’m being stung by a bee every few minutes. Am I handling it well or not handling it well? If I’m crying when my eyes sting of the memory of him being gone. Or that Im laying down still and it’s noon. I’ve eaten and fed people who also need to eat. But I’ve been binge watching Gilmore girls. Because I don’t know what to binge watch. I don’t know whats trending. This is a little rotting for the brain I think. Not just the choice but the choice in its self to just keep watching episodes of mindless yammer. To watch the shit out of shit.
I wrote about my dad dying the morning he died. Did I know it was coming? Or was I somehow just preparing for the worst so the shock wasn’t so shocking when it happened. Did writing about it make me edgy because I knew it was coming or was I edgy because I wrote about it? I’ll never know.
I need my routine back. I didn’t really have one totally during this pandemic anyway but I need to create one. They give you days off for loss. An allowed amount of time off to feel the feeling of being deprived of something. They say not to make big decisions during a time of loss. Since he died I have formulated a plan and even reached out to a family to be a living donor. I have also determined their aren’t enough people who offer the simple task of tilling a veggie garden. So I should.
I am not going to give part of an organ at this time. It’s reckless. The decisions would be made for the wrong reasons. I have none is the reason. Or I have too many. If asked I would say, to give the gift of life. Like the website said. Yet that’s not actually my gift to give. It’s not my decision, it’s not in my hands. You can take all my organs I can do without and give them to people dying and they could and will still die. My dad did. I am certain the organ donor askers would see right through me. They would say “I know your grieving and your own loss seems insurmountable but you need to take care of yourself right now, yes she is going to die without this gift. But are you making this decision for the right reasons?”
“No, I’m making it because I don’t know what others to make right now.” she would be sympathetic. Offer her condolences like people do and tell me to care for myself right now. Maybe hand me a pamphlet on how to grieve without giving up your vital organs. I will try to argue through tears. Then leave.
I need my routine back but my routine is that my dad is not dead. Step 3. In my grief pamphlet says to go through the pain, face it head on, get through it step 6. Says I can cry if I want to. If I’m in the store and cry I can tell someone it’s the normal process of grief, or I can tell them nothing. See, I would point, step 6. Step 12. This is an opportunity for growth. Direct my thoughts forward. Are all the other steps in between these necessary? Do I have to do them like a program? They are just little reminders in the format of a checklist. Why would they put them in this format. It makes it feel like you have steps. It makes me feel like I have to hurry.
Should I find support? Do I ever feel supported? Other than with a great bra. I’ve sat in support groups and couldn’t figure out my role or why or how I fit, down to am I doing it right? Am I feeling supported right? I adjust my bra. Should I feel a physical support from this support? Is it like being held up? Or down? That feels like pressure.
I burst into tears that I’m not tagged in posts. I’m not in stories of my dad who is being written about by others who also miss him. Do they look to see if they can tag me. I’m not taggable. I don’t get to look for notifications of people thinking of me. I’m not forwarded into the world for others to know of. I’m not emailed. I’m not part of these big things that so many are. I can’t sort this one out. I do not want to be these things. Yet I am upset I am not. It’s like hide and seek. I hide so good I get angry no one finds me. Left in trees or under cars for hours. How long do you wait? Why does it take them so long to find you? Did they forget? Have to go home for dinner? Should I keep hiding? My dad would always find me in the end. Are you going to come down from that tree soon? Are you coming home soon? When will you be back? He knew where to look. Who looks for me now? Or do I just quit hiding? It’s my favorite game. Maybe a good game of tag? With who?
I don’t want support from others. It says in one pamphlet that strength lies in numbers. That their will be people who understand this. Understand my loss? Or my dad? If I don’t understand yet how can someone else? What study came up with this information? Or is it a guess? Written by someone who finds strength in numbers? I have the wrong pamphlets? I took them all.
Where is the pamphlet to suggest I look within myself, listen to myself, find the strength in myself. Where is that study? No one signs up? People who don’t need supported don’t sign up for group studies? Where is the pamphlet for dealing with grief during a time when the world is so connected no one can get through there process without others being part of it? Too long to put on a pamphlet?
I’m not upset I’m not part of these big things. When I step back I’m upset I can’t find the ones who aren’t upset about these things? I can’t find people who are like me. I quit looking and they don’t appear. They were supposed to appear. I was supposed to get comfortable with who I am and then attract people who will accept me. Where are they? Why does it even matter? I don’t miss being tagged in photos, I wasn’t any way. That’s sort of what bothered me. I tried to force my way into groups to be part of groups. But I didn’t fit. And it doesn’t matter. I’m even mad Im wasting time having to work through this, again. My doubt is with myself not anyone else.
I am part of so much more. I wonder the world with a carefree manner. Not quite the world, not physically anyway, but in my mind I am traveling the world always. I daydream of it. I wonder the land like I am part of it. I’m a tree, I hold my arms out and pretend in a big open field. I’m a bird, and spread my arms as I walk to feel the wind. Do the birds love to fly? That feeling of the wind beneath their wings? Do they sweat? Does it cool them? I bury my feet in earth. Hot rocks along the shore, damp woodsy soil, dry leaves, sand, water… I dream of the night sky wide awake, travel the planets, and the stars. Can you touch them? If I was there what does a star look like up close? Like a lightning bug? Do you have to squint? I chat with bugs. Just in case they can understand me. I chat with plants. Because rarely does anyone hear me. They listen.
I like to play in the dirt. I still sit and sift dirt through my hands with no intention but to watch it fall sifted into little ant hill looking piles. I love to rip creeping Charlie from the ground. It can cover acres of land and is pretty. It’s the toughest plant I know. It has roots like wildfire. If I could I would sit in a field and just pull creeping Charlie. Its an obnoxious plant. It knows it’s own strength and I admire this. You rip it up and a piece gets left and it makes a field again. You till it up and it makes thousands more. It smells like really strong grass clippings. Like grass clippings and a not so strong onion. I need a tiller. Or to be a farmer. I want to turn the soil. I had a boss once who liked us to till garden beds too early in the year to plant because, “everyone loves tilled earth!!” His enthusiasm was mine. I do love this. I’m not a farmer or even a gardener. I’m a grower. I manipulate plants and natural processes so others can enjoy them and the natural process can occur. I need a plot of land, a tiller, bare feet, a crushed grieving soul, and I will just garden out of my grief. My pamphlet could say, how to garden through your grief. No steps. No numbers. No words. Just the universe a tiller and myself. No pamphlet needed.
Aspenleaf 