Good Grief…

It comes in waves. Sometimes fierce and strong, knocks you to the ground and keeps you there with the relentless force of it’s tide. Other times it is gentle and lapping. It reminds you of it’s presence, but allows you to go about your day mostly unencumbered by it. On those rare occasions the water stands calm and truly allows you to breath. The ocean can be used for a metaphor for life in so many ways. In this moment I am using it to describe grief. Grief is a reaction to a loss that causes sorrow. The thing about grief is that there is no telling when and how long this process will last. I have been thinking a lot about grief recently after having a conversation about it recently with someone. Having both gone through divorce, we talked about it and how even under the best circumstances it completely sucks, leaves you reeling, and searching for your new normal. I have been thinking about how grief shapes us, and connects us. It wraps us in a cocoon to protect us one moment, and leaves us naked and exposed the next. Using the Kubler-Ross model grief is broken down into 5 stages. For those of you who have taken Intro to Psych, you can consider this a recap. The five stages are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. I used to think that these stages of grief were isolated to grieving the death of a loved one. Now with a little more life experience under my belt I realize that this is applied to most major changes in your life. The two things that have triggered this for me over the past few years has been divorce, and illness.

The first, divorce was rougher than I anticipated, and I can now say that I am in a healthier place with it. Initially I fooled myself into believing that it wasn’t going to be that bad because ultimately the divorce had been my idea. I thought I had already made peace with the fact that we didn’t work any longer. The problem is that I did not make peace with my expectations of what my life was going to be like. I did not make peace with the onus of everything falling squarely and solely on my shoulders. I did not make peace with the financial impact that this was going to have on my life. I did not make peace with losing the comfort of always having a plus one. I had forgotten how to date, and it was far different than what I had remembered. I met my ex-husband at the tender age of 22. I didn’t have a cell phone or a computer. My ex-husband scrawled his phone number on the back of a karaoke song request slip from the Chinese restaurant we met at. 20 plus years later I was confronted by online dating, texting in lieu of conversation, and navigating dating for the first time as a 40-something. I floundered for a long time. I went back and forth through the stages of grief so many times, I thought I would never find my way out of it. I am not sure that it ever goes completely away, but eventually you truly land on acceptance. Part of that is accepting that you may still visit various stages of grief, but you don’t stay there very long. A part of me will always be sad about the future I won’t have with the man I vowed to spend the rest of my life with, but I have accepted that is not my reality.

The second trigger has been illness. I think I rushed through the stages pretty quickly without fully embracing them. I initially skipped over anger, bargaining and depression. I went fully into the acceptance mode. This allowed me to embrace my new reality, push through with testing and treatment, and even find the humor. It took awhile to circle back, but here I am…100% pissed off that this is happening to me. My kidneys are shit to no fault of my own. Prior to this I had never been healthier-weight loss, running and biking regularly, healthy diet, infrequent social drinker,never used drugs, and didn’t take any medication at all. Not to sound like a petulant child, but it just isn’t fair.  It’s been a real shit storm of emotional and physical changes and adjustments. Honestly I think I am doing pretty well given the circumstances, but I realize I hadn’t been dealing with the grief associated with it. Realistically my future has been altered because of this diagnosis. What I pictured for myself, physically may not be possible. I continue with treatment that makes me feel worse than the illness did, uncertain about the outcome, and try to remain positive. Allowing myself to finally feel the grief enables me to move through it, and that is the goal.

Sometimes grief will linger, and that is ok. I think about my mom who died seven years ago, and I know that grief will never truly leave me. I believe that knowledge is acceptance.  I will always want to call her when life overwhelms me. I will always want one more beach day with her. That is what grief is. It allows you to push through and do what has to get done, but it may remind you in sudden and unexpected ways that it is not through with you yet. Like high tide during a full moon, it will knock you down. Although you may struggle to stand, you must. You are not meant to stay down, none of us are. I am reminded of a simple statement that I utter to myself when overwhelmed, “this too shall pass”. It reminds me to focus on the fleeting nature of a situation, and breath through the moment. It reminds me that grief doesn’t consist of just anger and tears. You can walk with grief and still experience joy and laughter. You can move forward and accept it, with it still intact and that’s OK. Grief may seem like a strange thing to write about in a positive way, but it is truly the only way through our shitty situations. Grief is not shameful or weak, it will strengthen you if you allow it. Don’t attempt to shield yourself to much, it will find you. Move through it with grace, head held high, and be open to the process. You got this!