Grief and Mourning – Page 2 – 50 Shades of Gray Hair

The More Things Change…

“The more things change the more they stay the same”

I’m sure you’ve all heard it. I KNOW you’ve all heard it. It’s been around since the dawn of bitchin’ and moanin’.

It’s been several days since I’ve had a thought I felt worth sharing. And today started the same way…empty.

That’s a word I’ve come to know very well. It’s not a good word in any capacity that I can think of…

empty bank account

empty wallet (because of the empty bank account one would assume)

empty fridge

empty gas tank

empty glass

empty heart

empty feelings

empty mind

empty empty empty (such a strange word when looked at so closely)

I have decided this word is creeping into my everyday life way, way, too often. And it’s pissing me off.

Is it the winter? The, oh so cliché but oh so real, cabin fever? I don’t know.

But, today the sun broke through, so I ventured outside. With no plan other than soaking up that which has been missing for too long. The light, the warmth, the overall feeling of hope that things will be okay.

As a winter lover, I hesitate to blame these empty days on lack of sunshine and warmth. But as a woman in transition, I’m more hesitant to blame it on something else. That would mean taking responsibility for my own feelings, right?

Like those feelings of self-pity? Depression? Lack of self-confidence? Oh woe the fuck is me? Can it be I’m allowing these dark, snowy days I used to look forward to, give me an excuse to stay inside and hide from the world I don’t always feel ready to face?

Yes. Yes, yes, and yes. That is exactly what I was doing. And it took two people, my Yin and my Yang, to get me up and out into that light. One is the left, the other the right. The past and the future. Opposite ends of my journey. But they managed to meet in the middle…me…I am the middle ground.

The left says…”Get up and get moving; no one can fix you but you; I’m here but I can’t fix this; fix you. You have to. I’ve told you I love you, but frankly I’m sick of your whining.”

The right says…”I love you and am always here for you. I wish I could make things better, but you must choose to be happy. There are things you can do, support is out there, use it.”

Okay, I paraphrased, but that’s the gist. Love on the left; love on the right; me in the middle, feeling empty for NO good reason.

What is WRONG with this picture?

ME…that’s what.

So…why did I title this post “The More Things Change…?”

Because this is a pattern for me. A pattern I need to change. The more things have changed in my life, the more I’ve fought the changes. And NOT the changes themselves. No, it’s the roller coaster of ‘it’s the right thing, it’s the wrong thing, it’s exciting, it’s scaring the shit out of me, I’m worth it, who are you kidding’, emotional roller coaster. Not the obvious ones, like divorcing after 31 years. THAT deserves a roller coaster ride…and what a ride it has been. But, for the most part, I can say that ride is over. The extremes anyway. Figuring out where we go from here is the next ride, but it’s not a roller coaster, it’s more akin to the Tea Cup…up, down, and all around, sometimes sickening, sometime exhilarating, but always an end in sight.

This is not it.

It’s the bi-polar, manic-depressive (as a way of explanation only, she tells herself) emotions that I’ve allowed myself to fall victim to when things in my life don’t go the way I want them to. I allow myself to lash out at those that love me for no other reason than the dog just doesn’t understand. Seriously…if the damned dog would just say ‘I get ya Ma, I feel for ya Ma, now can I have a treat?’ I’d be better off.

Instead, I lash out, cry, feel empty, look at my life as a black hole instead of realizing I have a tremendous amount of love and support to be thankful for. From the left and from the right and from everywhere in between.

That it took a short sojourn out into the sun to put things back in perspective is a little strange maybe. But I am not questioning it. If a bit of bright light and vitamin D turn my empty thoughts into ones filled with hope and remembrances of the love I have in my life; past, present, and future; then I say bring on the sun.

You are my sunshine…my only sunshine…you make me happy…when skies are gray.

Here comes the sun…get out there and ABSORB it!

Good Grief

I’ve experienced my share of loss. Most of a certain age have, and some not of such an age. It is an inevitable part of life.

I’ve mourned the loss of grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends much too soon, neighbors, and four-legged buddies too.

Grief is a process. It’s as important a process as learning to walk or speak. It’s something we all must do in stages…there is no other way. We can deny it, run from it, gloss over it, or ignore it…makes no difference to grief. It says…

“Deal with me now or deal with me later…face me today or sit back and let me take over your life…I can and will, offer you the tools but you have to choose how or if to use them. For if you leave it to me, I’ll build walls with no windows and doorways to nowhere. I’ve got your heart in my hands and I can keep it in the dark and squeeze the life out of it. Or, you can help me release it back into the light. The choice is yours.”

Mourning has a natural path it must follow; a beginning, a middle, and in time, an end. We must allow ourselves to follow it to its natural end. And I say natural because we are all different. We didn’t all learn to walk and talk at the same point in our lives. We each learn as and when we are meant to. With help or without…we have but one choice if we are to become who we are meant to be. I don’t believe anyone is meant to be broken by grief. It’s a choice. A sad one, but still a choice.

In the past several months, I’ve been one of those denying, running, glossing over, ignoring souls. And not from the grief of losing ones I loved to dying. No. For me, that is the allowed grief, the necessary grief, the natural mourning after saying goodbye to their souls grief.

No, it’s the mourning the loss of life that still breathes; the blood’s still flowing but the heart’s not beating, life; the everyday life staring back at me in that shattered mirror life that I had to choose to either pour a new foundation, pick up the hammer, and start building a new frame for; or choose to let grief build me and my tender heart into box kind of grief that I ran from.

I didn’t understand. No one had died. Neither of us was ill. Grief? Mourning? I just didn’t get it.

Then.

Now I do.

I woke to a poem today.

Not a morning poem, but a mourning poem.

A poem of love lost, dreams gone, futures altered:

I close my eyes, see a life once shared
I close my eyes, sweet memories there
I close my eyes, our future’s gone
as is the past
Eyes now open and shed of tears
No longer sorrow, pain, and fear
Open eyes to a new journey
Toward lives of love for you and for me
My open eyes see friendship strong
and will ever last
Our years of love and care mean wishing
That each will find what we were missing
But one things sure and I hope you do see
You’re my best friend and always will be

This poem woke my giant who was not only sleeping but hiding under the Hoover Dam. It helped me acknowledge my need to mourn the loss of a once treasured and thought unbreakable bond of a decades long marriage. I was lost in sadness; mired in a self-pity; feeling guilty for wanting more; needing more; yet never admitting I needed to grieve what was gone, mourn that loss of the life we’d made and shared.

Yet, in those few words of a sleepless night’s reflection and melancholy remembrance of a life’s love shattered, there was hope. For each other. To find love and true happiness. For building a stronger bond of friendship beyond those days of “I don’t anymore” on through to these days of “I do and always will, and cannot imagine a life without you in it, somehow.”

To Hugh. The man I grew up with, fell in love with, married, bore children to, and said goodbye to as my husband…I say this:

the past does visit still when sleeping
the day will come for no more weeping
but, this mourning must travel its natural path
this grief we share of days gone past
of love and life and joys and sorrows
for lost dreams, hopes, tomorrows
and in its wake, will dawn a new day
together and separate we’ll each find our way
to fulfilled lives complete with laughter
to each grab hold of what we’re after
but this remains a constant truth…
life would not
could not
be…
without you, my best friend

Thank You. For helping me see what I would not.

Grief.

For pulling me out of hiding.

To Grieve.

For knowing I needed to.

Grieve.

And for loving me enough to say it.

Grief.

Good Grief.