Amorphous Grief

 From Janauary 8th. Boy was I writing.

Even writing all day yesterday didn't exhaust me. I'm pulling up so many emotions from the past while also feeling numb that I can't focus on work and it seems very peripheral. 

I think I felt George leave his body last night, in my confusing dream that woke me up, and in my unease that sat in my lap all evening. I couldn't really eat, read, or do the things I meant to do yesterday. I know that grief is not any one thing and that I am in it, so I am trying to stay quiet, comfort myself, and let the emotions come. At the same time there is this quiet and remove that I am inhabiting where it is like nothing is happening. 

Discovering the shame spiral triggered me from within which can be just as destructive, but more clearly self-destructive. I gave up drinking but normally this would be the time I would drink something, escape somehow, set myself aside for a bit so I can move through it and come out with some healing inside. I'm trying to do that without the alcohol and I think I can, but that makes me feel weak and I tell myself things like alcohol has a positive purpose sometimes and this might be one of those, and so on. If it didn't involve going to the store I would have something potent.

I'll try to work, and I'll write. I'll hold my kitty and let her feel my heart. She likes it too. I need to put away the Xmas decorations and get out the Jell-O, so I'll try. I feel like I did the winter that we lost not only my son's grandmother but one of the treasured children of our community, and I made a sculpture called Hope. It helped. Art is important in these times, as is reading to be inspired, and reminding myself to just feel what is coming up and try not to judge myself.

Looks like the sun is coming up so I could have yardwork therapy, and probably will do that instead of sorting out my hats and bags. It's a long way until April so I can take my time with that, except for the plan of getting all my printing done before surgery, which is also important.

I have to launch Jell-O though, as people are depending on me. I don't want anyone to be disappointed with me, ha ha. People pleasing is in there just as deep as anything else. My avoidance gets in my way really hard at times like this, but really it just creates more time to sort through emotions and let myself feel, instead of shifting to taking care of other people which I am not very good at to begin with. 

My dream last night that woke me up involved houses (which represent relationships). My mother's house, and the one I was going to bed in were next door to each other. I had my kitty with me but realized my son, who was young, was in my mother's house, all alone. When I got up in my summer nightgown (defenseless, vulnerable) I quickly went into her house but there was someone there. He was friendly and seemed to be there legitimately but my mother was not, and I panicked, pushed him out and locked the door. I had left the kitty in the other house but now I couldn't go out there to get her.

He hung around on the porch and put up a shirt to block my view from the window, so I couldn't see him or anything in the neighborhood, and then I woke up. My brain did not know what it was all about, but it felt like a nightmare and it felt like I was having trouble sleeping for no known reason.

Grief is so complex. My mother's 100th birthday is coming up, though she died in 2023 and didn't get enough closure on that, which I guess most people don't when it is their mother. I didn't understand the type of grief I had with her and still have to feel it and give it meanings I can add up in some coherent way. That's probably trying to impose a structure that doesn't fit and isn't required. 

I'm not religious and my spirituality is amorphous, so I get little comfort there, but I know I am psychic to some degree and highly empathetic, which is part of why I adopted this avoidance. I do not want to grieve in a crowd. I dissolve in tears at demonstrations and they bring up the trauma of the 70s when I fought in the streets against Vietnam and Nixon. I can write but that is sometimes all I can do, which seems like cold comfort. But there are people who do treasure my words and I treasure my ability to put them in beautiful order when I do that.

 So I try to pretend that I am doing my part and no one gets to tell me otherwise. I'm scared about money so I'm not sending any to whatever organizations need it...though I probably don't need to be as scared about money as I am. The surgery is listed as taking 10 minutes! How much can that cost? Guess I'll find out.

I'm going to go do something active, and let my mind roll around for awhile, maybe all day. I have to be human so that means imperfect, so I can let myself be that. No one knows about this blog, or anyway how to find it, and I wrote a short message on the other one to let people know I'm just not available for a bit. Let the stalkers take a break and worry about someone else, something else. Let them self-reflect that they silenced a writer. Let them go back and read some of the beautiful posts I wrote for the 50th season in 2019. Let them write their own stories.

I'll keep living and keep writing and keep trying to find space for all that needs to be done and felt. I do have faith in that.