I have so much to do. I've procrastinated everything.
I put off writing in the blog for a while now because I was feeling better about things.... I thought. It seems I just didn't want to dredge the bad stuff back up... more like avoiding I guess..but with the approach of Christmas those feelings seeped back up no matter how I tried to ignore them or hold them down. They're here. I can't even express them for fear of exploring them in depth....I feel stuck. Stuck between a faux better and the re-occurrence of these uncomfortable sorrowful emotions I thought I'd worked through and left behind me that will be a terrible reminder of how this Christmas will be different from last year's.
The four of us went on our fantastic Thanksgiving Disney vacation. I was concerned that it would be a waste...we'd get there, be sad and gloomy and wish we were home....but it wasn't that way at all. We laughed from the moment we left the house. It was the escape I hoped for.
Precious Christmas Memories....
June 1, 2012......Grief.... my constant companion....
I haven't given this blog much thought in the past -WOW..over 6 months....I've been giving a lot of thought to my misery, though. I didn't want to come on here and show myself as a pathetic mess, feeling so sorry for myself...figured I'd skip that possible humiliation....but I need to drag myself out of this. DRAG is the exact and appropriate word. Kicking and screaming because this grief feels like such a perfect fit right now. It's grown in me and I've grown used to it hanging around. It's my pal... my imaginary evil friend haha. It's always keeping me company... especially when I'm not occupied. And let me tell you...it's very difficult to occupy myself when I'm feeling so miserable.... it's a nasty vicious cycle. My mind is overactive, filled with unwanted messy memories and images... I haven't been able to read for fun since.... probably last fall before Zack passed away. I keep starting historical fiction books - which I love - only to find my mind wondering. Concentration just is not there anywhere to be found... I cannot focus... but I have my buddy Grief sitting there ready to fill my head with junk.
Last weekend I read two books on grief. My sweet thoughtful friends ordered them from Amazon to be delivered to my house... they showed up unexpectedly.. Two books I kept saying I was going to run over to Barnes and Noble and purchase for myself... but I couldn't force myself to go and browse the grief bookshelf. I pictured myself standing there in an overwhelmed fog or embarrassing myself while perusing through book after book, searching for the perfect choices... while crying.
The first book I read touched me deeply... I am choking up remembering how I felt, sitting outside on my deck, under the blue sky..the trees guarding Zack rustling in the wind....me.. holding that book, taking breaks to catch my breath, wipe my tears, and refocus..and struggling through the emotions reading that book brought to me.. well not to me - but dredged up in me, I guess. Junk I had jammed way down..put off dealing with because I have plenty of surface garbage I'm coping with..the junk was there waiting to be called to attention and dealt with. I actually had a panic attack while reading that book.... but I WAS able to read it.. I focused, it was easy relateable reading for me. Almost like I was reliving my own life through someone else's eyes. The book was "Life After the Death of My Son - What I'm Learning" by Dennis Apple. I finished that book in hours...it was a page turner for me that left me with a tight chest and a tingly adrenaline rush for a couple days afterward. The main thing I came away with learning from Dennis Apple's experience is that what I feel is not something so different than what other parents feel. My imaginary buddy, Grief, has a lot of other pals he visits and keeps company. It felt "good" to discover I wasn't alone, dealing with the horrible feelings. And the grief time frame -it's been over seven months since Zack's death - is nothing I can rush. I was feeling like a weak loser for not being able to get past this....but apparently I'm not a weak loser. That was a positive realization, too.
The second book was "A New Normal - Learning to Live With Grief and Loss" - which did not really do anything for me. I found it shallow and disappointing. The author skipped over including a section on loss of a child due to it being so uncommon and the feelings so different than other types of loss. (Thanks) I found the first book helpful enough, however, that it motivated me to go to the library and blindly grab anything with "Loss", "Grief" or "Happy" in the title. I have a stack of books to choose from now. I just need to put my mind and energy into reading them...gather the courage to have those harsh unwelcome feelings resurface. I kind of thought of my reliving the pain as vomiting..it was that uncomfortable... Vomiting is awful when it's happening but afterward you feel relief. Disgusting, but true.
I'm going to try and use this blog as my "recovery" journal. I need to recover... writing is cathartic for me... and if I felt better realizing I wasn't alone with the grief and pain I am carrying maybe somebody out there that reads this will have that same epiphany... and take some comfort in the fact that they are miserable... but not without company.
"Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery's shadow or reflection: the fact that you don't merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer. I not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief." - C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed
A Triumphant Trio... We will get past this sadness
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