Saturday, March 18, 2017

I'm Fine...Not Really

ChickenLady called me today about something completely unrelated to Mom and how I was doing, and our conversation naturally went to Mom and grieving. ChickenLady lost her husband several years ago, so she gets grieving. In fact, she helped SSIL through the loss of BigBro.



Anyhow, she said a couple of things to me that really resonated.

First let me say I feel like I'm not doing this grieving thing "right". Knowing full well there is no "right" way to grieve. "Everyone is different", everyone says. And I truly believe that. I'm not crying every day or every waking moment like I expect I should. Turns out I'm probably doing just fine.

ChickenLady said that after the loss as significant as this you're in a Survivor Bubble. You're just getting through the day doing what you need to do. And in my case, closing down mom's estate is a lot of work, stressful and a constant in my life. In my survivor  bubble, I'm doing what I need to do to get things done. Which makes sense. I wondered how I was able to compartmentalize my feelings right after mom died - just so I can get the house cleaned out and ready to sell.

She went on to say that the survivor bubble will get weaker and little holes will start to form. Don't be afraid of those little holes. You need them.  She implied that eventually the bubble will burst and that's when you'll feel the full weight of your grief.

I really like this analogy. It really made sense to me and made me feel like I wasn't going crazy or that I did, in fact, have a heart and can feel.

I also mentioned to her that I've stopped myself from crying every now and then because I say to myself, "I'm stronger than that." To which she responded, "Crying really shows your strength, not the other way around." I must have sounded confused because she went on to say that crying shows your brave enough to deal with the emotion.

Huh...

So here I am...where I am I have no idea. I just know I miss mom horribly and that I really, REALLY want to talk to her, oddly about this whole thing.

Today will be a hard day. Today we say good bye to a good family friend who died in February. Him passing just added to the grief for this year.

Can we be done with 2017 already?

0 comments: