Half-way There
Context:
Has anything developed or become clear in your writing that you hadn’t seen before? Have you learned anything about yourself, or your grief, or the ways things live in you? Has anything surprised you? Disappointed you?
There’s a few things that have become clear in the last two weeks.
I have a lot of grief I haven’t dealt with, and even if I am mostly fine with it, there’s still a lot of writing that I can do about it. Not all of it is sad, but most of it is. Some of it is where a certain kind of comedy only dwells in grief. I have an example.
I was dating this guy, Shawn, and his father passed away. They were not really close, and his mother was divorced from his father, but we went to the funeral. His father had been in the military, like mine, and I knew that Taps would be played, and I would have to steel myself to it because I knew it would make me cry because it always did ever since I heard it at my father’s funeral.
So the funeral is happening, we are sitting in the front, Shawn next to me, and his mother, Shirley, next to him. And this tiny old man shuffles up and shakily puts the bugle to his lips and takes a breath and so do I, because here it is….
…and this ancient man proceeds to play the most off key rendition of Taps I have ever heard in my life. My eyes got huge and immediately a laugh started deep down inside. It’s the kind of laugh that is going to be loud and ridiculous and won’t stop for a long time. It’s one of those laughs where it trails off and you think it’s done, and then it starts again, tears and side pains and all. Kind of like this rendition of taps.
My relationship with religion is quite…complicated to say the least, but at that moment I prayed to every god and goddess I could think of that I wouldn’t laugh, or, if I did, that I could be struck dead because I could NOT think of a time where this kind of laughter would be more disrespectful.
Shirley must have noticed that my shoulders were shaking as I prayed fervently and breathed very measured breaths because any false move or breath taken in too sharply would have unleashed the loudest laugh anyone has ever heard. She reached behind Shawn and patted me gently on the shoulder as if to say, it’s okay, and thank you for caring. I might have jerked away more sharply than I meant, but I knew that I was going to explode any minute.
This is what I mean. There’s sometimes a deep hilarity in grief filled situations.
I have learned that sometimes you have to push through, even when you don’t want to or don’t think you can. There have been some prompts that have been difficult to work with. There have been prompts that I had to give a couple days of thought to before I could respond to them. And some of them I am still not certain how I responded. Similarly, there are days that feel like I am not going to make it through. There are days that I have to just go minute by minute to make it through. And nothing gets done. No writing, no exercise, no cleaning, just sitting, and existing because that is literally all I can do at that moment. I can’t cease to exist, but I also cannot exist in the most basic ways other than just existing. Taking up a hobby to keep my hands busy has helped. I have already crocheted half a blanket, a third of another and have the colors picked out for a third blanket. My son has said that I need to crochet a cape for one of his stuffies and I might need to crochet a blanket for our fat cat, Noodles, to lay on since he won’t leave the first blanket I mentioned alone.
I have also learned that existing in grief is hard but worth it. I don’t entirely love where I am at the moment, and I don’t think I can entirely exist inside of grief yet without having a hard time more often than not. But it’s better than what I was doing before.
I am learning to be kinder to myself. I am learning that if I have to do nothing on a certain day, it’s fine. It’s what I have to do. If I need to clean the whole house but all I get done is the dishes, then that is more than enough. I haven’t completely erased the mean voice inside me berating myself for not getting things done when there is so much to do. It still tells me I am dumb and worthless, but the kindness I try to show myself is drowning out that voice more often these days. Today is good, tomorrow probably won’t be, but it’s okay. I can make it through.
I am not ready to exist in other people’s grief yet. I have tried to read the posts that my fellow bereaved, and the ones I have read have definitely had things that spoke to me and were quite well written and beautiful, but exploring my own grief, with it having happened so recently, has put me in a place where I just cannot dwell. And it’s not just the grief of my fellow bereaved. I got a copy of I’m Glad my Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy, and I have only been able to read maybe the first four chapters.
There’s nothing wrong with the book–it’s beautifully written, darkly humorous and painful, but it’s the painful part I can’t handle right now. My mother was NOTHING like her mom, but Jenette and I definitely had a similar mom experience, and the pain that is evident in her work is just too much for me. I think that probably is a compliment. I mean, if someone couldn’t finish something because it overwhelmed them in their grief, I would probably take it as a compliment.
So, sorry, everyone who has read my work and commented. It’s really not you. It really is me.
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