It's been so long since I've posted in my blog, I couldn't even remember when the last one was or what it was about. When I arrived here today I see that it was EXACTLY 12 months ago! How weird is that?!
My contemplations recently have been about grief. All different sorts of grief. The grief of my marriage breakdown. The grief of the anniversary of my cousin's death (more so the grief of his immediate family). The grief another friend has over the death of her brother a year ago.The grief I feel over the future I won't have because of someone else's choices.
As I posted on facebook a few days ago "Grief is a funny old companion. You think you've gotten used to its
presence in your life, mostly in the background. Then out of nowhere it
just jumps in the foreground, waving its arms around demanding
attention. And then it's gone again."
I've had a few comments on it, and a private message or two. It seems to have resonated with a few people. I think I'd had an idea of grief being something you 'did'. You go through the process, and you come out the other end. You tick off the steps, the stages....anger, denial, bargaining, etc. Everyone processes the steps in different order. And then you're out the other side of it. You're done. You're 'over it'. You're healed.
How naive I am! I have lived with grief for most of my life. I've NEVER felt like I was healed of it. I've NEVER felt like it wasn't present in my life. I have wondered if it is possible for me to be free of grief.
My glass-half-empty, who-really-gives-a-shit-about-the-glass side thinks that grief will always be a presence in my life. Most of the time it is very much in the background, and there are long periods of time when I don't think about it, but it is always there.
My glass-half-full side believes that one day I will feel that grief is not a dominant aspect of my life. I guess in a way that's true now - it isn't dominant. But I do feel it makes me so much of who I am. I have empathy with lots of people, because so many different life events cause grief. And grief is grief.
I've been seeing a counsellor and she specialises in this stuff. She suggested that it's 'normal' to take about 4 years to move on from a deep grief. SHIT!!! That's a long long time! Maybe she's right though. It's coming up to 4 years since D and I split up. Maybe I'm feeling a bit of a shift in my emotions and thinking.
I've grown a lot in the last 12 months. I've mucked around a lot with the man-in-my-life thing. I had a really funny conversation with a friend at the beach one day that kind of sums up my experiences and my perspective on men and sex. Analogies work pretty well for me, so here goes (apologies in advance to my mum who will probably read this - no doubt this is way too much information from your daughter, but there you go lololol:
Masturbation is like Chinese food. It's absoloutely fantastic at the time, but 5 minutes later you realise you're still 'hungry'
Casual sex is like Jasmine rice. It has a gorgeous fragrance and tastes brilliant. BUT it has a really high GI (glycemic index) so isn't good for your long term health at all. And again, after a while you're just hungry again.
Friends with benefits is like Basmati rice. It smells great, tastes great and is low GI. Much better for your health. But it's still rice.
But, what I really want isn't rice based at all. What I really want is Steak and veggies. High protein, full of flavour, healthy, and I could just eat it quite literally every day. A man who is healthy for me to be around every day. A man who wants to be around me every day (well, almost every day).
The problem is, steak is pretty expensive, it's hard to find really really good steak and it's so easy to overcook it. Then it's just not nice at all.
Men. Are. Just. Hard. Work.
I have come to realise I just don't have the physical time, or the emotional energy, to put into building a proper relationship with someone. And then I feel really lonely. And then I get angry at D because it's his fault I'm sitting here on my own while my kids enjoy a weekend with him and his partner (who I really like, by the way). When my shoulders were excrutiatingly sore earlier this week, my neck was so tense my physio was shaking his head in sympathy, I was angry at D because it's his fault that he's not here any more to massage the sore spots. It's his fault I'm single parenting with a 12 year old daughter with Asperger's Syndrome who has had a terribly shitty time the last few weeks (apart from the news this week that she got into a fantastic school on her own merits). I'm wrung out. I feel really empty. But the girls still need more from me. And where am I supposed to find the 'more' from? I would like to run away for a while and have someone take care of me. But then I might not want to come back lol.
D and I get along really well 95% of the time. He's grown, he's become a great dad and as far as ex-husbands go, he's actually pretty good. I like his partner a lot. As a family unit of 5 people we are doing really well. But I still have times when that grief just rocks me and it's like it all just happened yesterday. I lose my breath again and feel like my chest is caving in. There's a big gaping hole where my heart used to be. The remnants of my heart are still stuck to the bottom of D's shoes. I wonder if I will EVER feel like I have my heart back.
This isn't about taking back my power and being the awesome woman you all acknowledge I am (see, I still have my sense of humour!). It's just about having a heart so badly broken, me feeling so completely broken, that I sometimes still feel I'll never be 'normal' again.
And that, my friends, is all about grief.
