All Consuming

Remember when you were pregnant?

Everything and I mean everything, revolved around the pregnancy.

What you ate. Where you traveled. Or not. What you bought. How you were feeling. Who you told. Who you celebrated beside. What you wore. When or hell, IF you slept.

From the moment you peed in a cup, saw the lines, went to the doc, from that moment on… life changed.

Every thought, every feeling from then forward you could attribute to the anticipation of this journey to motherhood. The finish line is not necessarily the birth of your child, but at least the finish line of the pregnancy and all that goes with it. You knew there was a happy ending. 

 

I feel like that. 

But not the happy ending. In fact, there isn't an ending. No closure. 

Instead, it is all consuming grief. Grief revolving around eVeRyTHinG. 

Yes, there are happy times. Yes, there are great days. Yes, I'm good. 

But even in those happy times, it’s there. Like I’m carrying something deep in my belly. Something heavy, and sad, and overwhelming.

It doesn’t go away because I’m not telling you about it. It doesn’t disappear because I’m happy, or busy, or occupied, or working. It lingers. Waiting.

It’s not waiting on you, though. Trust me. Honest. Being afraid to bring up my grief, my hurt, my Mom, doesn’t save me from anything. Being afraid to make me cry is foolish. YOU do not make me cry. That’s grief.

Talk about her. Remember her. Tell me something funny, something you learned from her, something I do that reminds you of her. If I tear up, you helped. If I sob, you helped. If I smile, laugh, roll my eyes, sneeze or burp or fart (one of my fav movie lines), you helped. If I hug you, you helped. If I join in the reminiscing, you helped. If you sit with me and say nothing at all, you helped! 

Grief isn’t depression. Grief isn’t a choice to be sad. Grief isn’t a mood. If grief was, it wouldn’t be called grief. It has its own name because it has its own pain.  

It’s always there and will always be.

If You Don’t Have Anything Nice to Say…

Finding myself, more often recently, giving excuses for the rudeness around us.

I’m not exactly sure where that is coming from, but I seem to be making up reasons in my head for this person or that person’s bad day. Hoping it’s only a bad moment.

For this rudeness to approach a stranger with such self-perfection and expectation of perfection on my end is ridiculous. We all make mistakes, we all have opinions, we all have feelings.

When those feelings are ignored is when I get upset. Attacking a person for the company’s rules, yelling at a passerby because you feel intentionally cut off, berating an employee for a long line when you’re in a hurry. Who gave you that right?   

If you are hurting, or mad, or just plain in a bad mood for the day, going out in public should be your pick-me-up. Not your spreading of that misery. If it isn’t, perhaps you should stay home and recoup. You need your downtime, too.

And, here’s the thing, is it not rare that any stranger would maliciously, purposely, intend to hurt you? I don’t leave my house daily just to attack others. I don’t set out to make the world miserable. Do you?