The world was moving… (day 1)

and she was right there with it (and she was).

The world is a shockingly cruel place. I grew up with that, a poverty among a large part of the population that seems to permeate the walls, a father that, along with his friends ritually and habitually killed bulls, earthquakes, mudslides, riots, threats of kidnapping… to name just a few.

The crazy thing was that in spite of all this harsh brutal reality there was an ability to see the world for a magical place. It is that kind of place that inspired writers and artists like Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Frida Kahlo,

So, I am not sure where I lost the internalized potion of this influence.  But, lost it I did.

I found it again, in a simple post that talked about the importance of grieving.

Grieving is not pretty, it can be dark and stormy, a swirling mass of emotions.  It is, however, a part of “the process”.

So when considered in that light, grief can become glorious… except that glorious is too strong a word.

Grief however, was the thing that was hard coming to recently. It became lost in platitudes like “you are so lucky”, “you will come through this a better person”, and “life is tough, get a grip”.

Grief is a very natural by-product of life. Hold it closely, don’t fight it. Don’t ignore it.

 

Grief is like a moving river, so that’s what I mean by it’s always changing. It’s a strange thing to say because I’m at heart an optimistic person, but I would say in some ways it just gets worse. 

~ Michelle Williams   

Take a Letter Maria…

This is an open letter to Tim Lawrence from The Adversity Within. I actually did send this to him via email.  I put some things in that email that I felt worthy of sharing here as well.

Dear Tim,

Thank you for your posts. They gave me permission to grieve. I find that almost funny to write to you… I don’t consider myself someone who would be adverse to allowing grief to flow as it needs, but that is exactly where I found myself. This was not my first bout with a trauma that induced grief. It was the first one that left me confused and scared and that I stopped grieving in. I read your last post “Everything Doesn’t Happen For a Reason”, shared through social media. It prompted some interesting discussion about what it meant for us to have people there “for” us or “with” us. It was semantic nitpicking, but it was interesting. The article, that conversation, and the perusal of other things you have written caused me to realize that somewhere along my recovery, in my case from a cancer diagnosis and treatment plan, I had stopped grieving… and what was so beautiful was that I now had permission to return to it with as much grace as I needed.  That moment of realization, was really powerful.

I am a believer that gratitude should be honestly and freely given, so I give you thanks for your part in returning me back to myself (in a metaphorical sense, of course). I know I was me this whole time, but I felt more like the me I like when I stopped being so stubborn about grief.

The weight that was lifted upon the realization that this is what had happened to me; that I had stopped my grieving process right smack at the start was startling, tear invoking, and almost as traumatic as the state of stanched grief I had been experiencing. The caveat between them being that once grief was allowed back in, the feelings ebbed and flowed when grief was allowed versus rigid discomfort from when I was in the constant state of disavowal.

I have a tendency to manage grief with occasional bouts of extending gratitude (which is, ironically, what I was doing when I believe I stopped my grieving process). I am not sure what happened this time, it felt different. I am not sure where it came from; this idea that I had to own feigned stoicism… perhaps from the idea that while I had it bad, it was not as bad as others. Perhaps from listening too closely to family and friends as they repeatedly told me “you are so lucky”. I don’t know, really where this craziness started… but I can smile about it now, I can know that I am still grieving, though more purposefully now.

Most thankfully and with new-found mournfulness,

Blair Necessities (sic)