Warning! Sad blog follows. Don’t want to ruin your day, but maybe you feel like I do…
The coral tree above my house blooms against the cold sky.
It’s a cold, grey day in LA. And it fits my morose mood. It’s not typical. Usually in LA, the sun is shining, and the birds are chirping when I open my eyes and say, “My life s***s.” It’s almost like beautiful days taunt me, like, it’s a lovely picture printed on paper, one I can easily put my hand through and tear apart. The day is only a backdrop to my pain.
But today, today is gloomy, and what do you know – so am I. It’s one of those days that comes and hits me hard in the solar plexus. That wants to cripple me. And all I can think is – how long will this last? How long do I have to live before I die?
Okay. Reading what I just wrote – I sound pretty depressed, huh? But, I don’t think there’s anyone out there who wouldn’t agree with me that – Grief S*%#s. It really does.
This grey day is one of those days that is filled with a kind of last-ditch desperation. Unbearable feelings of pain, anger, and sadness that panic me as I try to find a way to escape them. I go through the list of the things I could, and/or want to do, 1) curl up in bed and not move, 2) crack open a beer, 3) *crack open a beer, and curl up in my bed and not move. There are more ambitious solutions, 1) sell everything and move to a different city, 2) set fire to my house. * Actually, I’d prefer wine.
I could also just try just screaming, long and strong. But I’d have to find someplace where my animals won’t hear me, and I don’t risk breaking their hearts, and having them keel over from anxiety.
My options for dealing with this day are not very good. And then I have my list of Happy! Pro-Active! Choices. Ugh. And you know what? I’ll probably work on some of those things on my list. And I’ll just ploddingly, heavily, deliberately, keep putting one foot in front of the other.
Even Farah is dealing with pain today. She was just weaned from her mom.
I’m thinking that I should at least entertain the thought of handing this terrible grief over to my Higher Power. So I’m not carrying the whole load alone. But I’m still so mad that my honey was taken away from me. It just hurts too much. And so, I’ll do what I usually do: I wander around a lot (cause my brain synapses are not really firing properly today), I’ll make some lame attempts to do some work (and maybe I’ll get ¼ of what I usually get done), and I’ll just dig deep – really deep – for the strength to not let this destroy me.
I get mad. I say, “No. You’re not going to flatten me into nothingness today.” And while I’ve never seen myself as someone who uses might to right things, I’ve learned how to fight back, albeit sometimes in a stubborn, childish kind of way. I mean, I feel like I have so few tools against this awfulness. It’s just little me under this oppressive weight of grief.
But I’m going to do my best to not let it crush me today. And if that means getting mad, so be it. Tomorrow, I may be on top of the world. But it’s not tomorrow today.
