i can't fight this feeling anymore, sorry reo

True confession, delivered head on as I run into the wall. 

I did NOT want to write this post, this year. 

I am floored by the amount of grief I feel. I don't understand why it gets bigger every year. I don't understand why I've struggled more this year than any other. I've lost more people in the other years, and mourned others' pain IN the other years, but this year I feel flattened. Bruised. Trampled. Frozen. Scared to move. 

I guess I'm grieving bigger things. 

I know without a doubt I'm grieving for my country. I'm proud to be American, but the grand lady had been beaten down this year. I feel the grief of her people, as well as all the other parts of the process; denial, anger, bargaining, depression. I don't see acceptance anywhere; I see rage and tears on mostly every side. 

I am grieving for my friends. Some have lost family this year, and because their grieving is their own, I can only stand silently and watch, knowing that of any one if them turns my way, my arms will open, I will receive them, and the weeping will be long. 

Stephen King wrote a line in "Firestarter" that has stayed with me: "And so, perhaps most of all, she mourned herself." It comes at the end of Charlie's conflagration, and comes in spite of her righteous anger and pain. 

Here I am, mourning again. I write this entry for all the sad, but sometimes I think my words are only whispers that cannot be heard above the wails. 

YET, here I am. Slowly approaching the candle shrines, the crosses in the road, the ruined cities, the capering rejoicing of the cavemen, with my small offerings. Bending down to place my candle, my one blossom, my wreath at the gravestone, the silent cup of coffee handed to the mourners in the snow. There is so much, so much to mourn. 

I mourn that I can't fix it. I can't make it go away. I might not even make anyone feel better for even one second. I grieve that, but must accept it in the end. 

Listen to my mourning song. See if it resonates. I can only hope it helps. 

in the mourning

So. Anyone see THIS coming? 

I"m sure that many of us thought this would be the year to dance. We'd be done with Covid. We'd be done with isolation. We'd be done, and Christmas might look hopeful. 

Instead.....we had multiple tornadoes that wounded us yet again. 

Covid flipped us the bird, and mutated. 

I know personally of mothers that have been lost. 

One is my own mother in law, my husband's mother. Her passing was difficult for all of us. She was a lovely lady, and I still hold out hope that I can dance in a red dress on my 80th birthday, as she did. It's my most cherished memory. 

And my friend lost her mother right around Thanksgiving, and the logistics of flying her home, gathering pictures and memories, have done a number on her. She mentioned that she's losing track of time, she's trying to care for herself, but it is rough. I read those words and just felt my heart tear open a little more. 

I don't have a lot of happy words this year. In prior years when I have written this missive to the sad ones in the snow, I had a little hope to give. I don't know if I have any this year. I still find myself just wanting to sit someplace and be still and not have the massive avalanche of pain the world is feeling just stand there waiting for me to look at it again.

 It's horrible to want to bring hope, and have none. I have moments where I literally have to stop and take a trembling breath just to be held together long enough to get to the next moment....where it happens again. 

I HATE IT. 

This year I participated in a grief study. It had good lessons, but it was difficult sledding. I do, however, recommend it if you choose: www.griefshare.org  There's a book, and videos, and all that, but I think the most important part was having a place to come....and fall apart. Many of those I met there had suffered losses so very recent. But it was good to be in a support group format again. We all were just broken, and just there, and just for one another as best as we could be. And it was good. (Before anyone asks if I'm whole again, let me give the disclaimer: I'm not. It was helpful, but the healing isn't over yet. I can't say I'm the new normal yet.) 

What the heck is "new normal", anyway? I got mad at that phrase as I watched the world change when Covid came. It kept changing and morphing and I hated every second of fear I saw in people's eyes. I hated seeing the funerals. I hated all of it. I still do. So many are gone. So many still sick. I never thought I would grieve the living, but I do. More to the point, sometimes I feel like I'm only alive to grieve. 

Geez. This "stuck in my feels", it sucks. It sucks being stuck. But...here I am. 

If you're here too, I've got a link for you; it is to my mourning song. The song I sit, and listen to, and let the tears just fall. Because it's everyone as we howl the lyrics together, and sometimes I feel the losses so profoundly I can do nothing but weep. What's worse, on the outside is I look perfectly normal and functional and even cheerful, but I'm a blubbering mass of protoplasm on the inside. I'm not TRYING to hold it in, but it's in there, and it's real. I even feel like I'm too tired to cry. BLEAH. 

But I also have a hopeful song, and maybe after all of this has passed, we can sing this one together and maybe watch it come to pass. 

Dear World: Here's a Kleenex and my shoulder. Yours to use as long as you wish. Shalom, my hurting friends. 

phase one: caterpillar

 Placeholder. I have no idea what is supposed to go here yet, but just getting started. 

Photo courtesy of the entry on the inspiration for this blog: Blue Morpho