Grief is a complicated, hydra-headed beast.
I am not ready to talk about the grief in my life (my father, who was diagnosed with cancer earlier this year, died). I was not a primary caregiver and except for a brief trip a month ago, I lived far, far away, away from the reality of hospitals and pain medications. I was a little blindsided by the emotion in the first few days after I returned and right now? Well right now, I am not sure what I am doing except coping. There is a lot of flux, a lot of pain and wounds in my family right now.. I am worried about my mother. I think I will be overwrought by emotion at a time when I least expect it. In this moment, I have struggled with the instability that comes into my life from not going into work, not having a routine. So I sleep and watch TV. Oh and I ate food from outside and fell quite sick in the first week I was back and was on some antibiotics that blurred away the days.
For a few days, I tackled paperwork with a ferocity that was coupled with annoyance -- annoyance at what felt like parenting a parent, at the tedium and necessity of it all. That willpower soon wore out (not surprising, this is how most of my trips home are, I go railroading through life and then I collapse). My passport was delayed at the consulate and I had to delay and cancel flights. All of this is stressful, on top of just the nature of everything around me right now plus the fact that I've had to take time off work. So I slept for three days straight -- I kid you not: from Wednesday afternoon till Friday noon, I was awake for a total of six hours. Stress sleeping is apparently a thing and this piece at the Atlantic offers some perspective. As always, I've been using biting humor to deal with things. I don't have the emotional bandwidth to talk and especially to talk about the same things again and again. For some it may be healing, for me it feels retraumatizing. Overall I just haven't been able to get ahead of much in 2016. I take two steps forward and life pulls me a few steps backward and I live and inhabit this constant tussle.
Every time I come home, I have some sort of realization about myself. This time I realized that I have mild regret for the career that might have been. It could have been far richer, meaningful with more travel and new, lively experiences -- I could be far more challenged. I never have that sort of regret for my overall life -- I know it would have been lesser in all aspects. Knowing myself meant being alone and as tough as that has been, I would not exchange it for another life.
As with whimsical, deeply personal posts, there is no satisfying conclusion. It's messy and complicated and with connecting threads, strong and broken, just like life.
I am not ready to talk about the grief in my life (my father, who was diagnosed with cancer earlier this year, died). I was not a primary caregiver and except for a brief trip a month ago, I lived far, far away, away from the reality of hospitals and pain medications. I was a little blindsided by the emotion in the first few days after I returned and right now? Well right now, I am not sure what I am doing except coping. There is a lot of flux, a lot of pain and wounds in my family right now.. I am worried about my mother. I think I will be overwrought by emotion at a time when I least expect it. In this moment, I have struggled with the instability that comes into my life from not going into work, not having a routine. So I sleep and watch TV. Oh and I ate food from outside and fell quite sick in the first week I was back and was on some antibiotics that blurred away the days.
For a few days, I tackled paperwork with a ferocity that was coupled with annoyance -- annoyance at what felt like parenting a parent, at the tedium and necessity of it all. That willpower soon wore out (not surprising, this is how most of my trips home are, I go railroading through life and then I collapse). My passport was delayed at the consulate and I had to delay and cancel flights. All of this is stressful, on top of just the nature of everything around me right now plus the fact that I've had to take time off work. So I slept for three days straight -- I kid you not: from Wednesday afternoon till Friday noon, I was awake for a total of six hours. Stress sleeping is apparently a thing and this piece at the Atlantic offers some perspective. As always, I've been using biting humor to deal with things. I don't have the emotional bandwidth to talk and especially to talk about the same things again and again. For some it may be healing, for me it feels retraumatizing. Overall I just haven't been able to get ahead of much in 2016. I take two steps forward and life pulls me a few steps backward and I live and inhabit this constant tussle.
Every time I come home, I have some sort of realization about myself. This time I realized that I have mild regret for the career that might have been. It could have been far richer, meaningful with more travel and new, lively experiences -- I could be far more challenged. I never have that sort of regret for my overall life -- I know it would have been lesser in all aspects. Knowing myself meant being alone and as tough as that has been, I would not exchange it for another life.
As with whimsical, deeply personal posts, there is no satisfying conclusion. It's messy and complicated and with connecting threads, strong and broken, just like life.
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