I shouldn’t wait in lines with access to the whole wide world of hand towels at my fingertips. Do I need 8 new hand towels? Do I need a new shower curtain? I found one I like better than the last one I found but better than the one before that, that I bought even though I liked the one before that. I’ve never bought my own shower curtain. Or hand towels.
I shouldn’t access the whole wide world with the touch of a screen. I don’t need the whole wide world at my fingertips.
I shouldn’t go to Walgreens with the whole wide world in my hands. I have enough in my hands. They should put a basket by the door and say, hère put the whole wide world down while you wait. Just wait with yourself. It will be longer but worth it. Take some time to be with yourself. Not the hand towel world. Hand towels can wait. You can’t.
I shouldn’t get high. I shouldn’t even try. I cried like a baby for reasons I don’t like to talk about, things I should be talking about. And shouldn’t when I am high. I don’t remember things that happen but sort of do. I don’t have control of my mind. I don’t have control of myself or even a paddle. I shouldn’t get high. I shouldn’t be with people who don’t know some things about me when I’m not in control of my thoughts. I shouldn’t do so many things right now.
This was starting to sound like Dr. Suess the cat in the hat.
but our fish said, ‘no! no!
make that cat go away!
tell that cat in the hat
you do NOT want to play.
he should not be here.
he should not be about.
he should not be here
when your mother is out!’
I don’t know what I should be doing, neither does my mother. We should not be about or here or there. We should not be buying curtains, and painting walls and buying bedroom comforters. We shouldn’t move all his books and shelves and paint. He is not about anymore. He isn’t here or there. Can’t the books and shelves stay until forever? Grief is too great I should be crying. I should be sad. I should be laying in bed not eating and maybe drinking too much. I should be grieving. But what is grieving?
Hère are 7 stages of grief. Straight from the whole wide world of grief at my fingertips. Also something I shouldn’t do. Research stages of grief during stages of grief I am not even following.
- Shock and denial. This is a state of disbelief and numbed feelings.
- Pain and guilt. …
- Anger and bargaining. …
- Depression. …
- The upward turn. …
- Reconstruction and working through. …
- Acceptance and hope.
Where am I right now in these steps?
I bother people so much. My energy is too much. But isn’t that what attracts people to me from the beginning? I was told I text someone too much. What does that mean? I text what’s on my mind. I don’t need like big long chats through text I need nothing back. Just to know someone is there and cares that I have something on my mind. I shouldn’t be texting right now at all.
I shouldn’t be with people who also shouldn’t be with me. They barely can handle who they are let alone me who can’t handle who I am right now. I shouldn’t be with people who can’t be ok with their own thoughts. I make people think they should be high to be around me. Why am I in this place right now? I attract where I am in my life. I’ve seen it through the people who have left my various stages of growth these last few years. Alcoholics, drug users, abusive partners, widows, married men, people who don’t know who they are either. When will I get through a stage of growth that brings certainty and then attracts others who are. But then I am aware that’s where I am not afraid of what I don’t recognize as normal. A loss this great has attracted people who don’t want to really be with me? I don’t know. Grief is really behaving oddly for me.
I don’t know where I am in grief. I don’t think I I am anywhere. I don’t think I have felt shock or denial at all. I don’t have any guilt. I am in pain. I always have hope and I accept he is gone. I am not on an upward path. I’m not even on a path anymore. I’m just wondering aimlessly and letting someone else hold onto me for a little while. While I hang on to them for a little while. I shouldn’t be doing this either. I won’t not want to when it is over. Then I will always have to find someone to hold onto, which I shouldn’t but maybe should?
I shouldn’t be thinking of so many things when the only thing that is interesting is that my dad died. It’s all that’s on my mind except it never is in the forefront. It’s always back behind the rest of the I shouldn’t be thinking of things that are keeping me from thinking of the things I don’t want to. I should be thinking of him. Of my loss. Mine. How it is going to be. How picking up my daughter when she is sick is now a me thing not a grandpa thing. There is no grandpa to pick her up anymore. Who wants to think of that? Right. I shouldn’t be or I should be? I don’t have enough hand towels and the ones I have don’t say anything about me as a person. Because I just didn’t know who I am yet without my dad. I barely did when he was still the picking up sick daughter person.
What stage of grief is this? It’s confusion. Where is that in the steps? Is it working through? Is it bargaining? I don’t know where I should or shouldn’t be right now. I just know I should buy at least two hand towels that say. This is what I should or shouldn’t have done while not thinking of what I should or shouldn’t be thinking of. But they are where I was then whether I should or shouldn’t have. It’s done.
Aspenleaf 