This post draws one in with a song and a cheeky photographic turn from the distant past. The song is ‘Will I Ever Dream?’ from the mid-1990’s, and the pics are from the mid-2000’s. Taken together, they honor tonight’s full Super Blue Moon. This bit of astrological mayhem might also explain the crazy-ass post from this morning, because had I known it was a full moon, and a period of Mercury in retrograde motion, I might have taken things better in stride. Or maybe I would have had the same reaction. Lately I’ve been extremely sensitive to things that normally wouldn’t bother me in the least. It dawned on me late last night, as I was dissolving into a pool of frustrated tears for not guessing the daily Wordle right away, that I was still in the thralls of grieving. My father hasn’t even been dead a full month, and all the little annoyances of life have taken on blame, a substitution and punching bag for whatever anger and hurt that’s still churning away. This song reads and sounds differently now than it did when I first heard it in a more blissful time.
Please all I ask is that you don’t pass me by here that you
don’t leave me here drowning in tears all by myself
I’m out here in the cold, this love has taken its toll
I’m standing so alone it’s over now I know
There is no right or wrong way to grieve. All the books and guidance may offer certain paths that worked for other people, and some of them may prove especially helpful at certain times, but there are other moments that have no solution, no way of getting out of the muck. Going easier on myself, and others around me, is a lesson I’m slowly learning. At first I didn’t see what was happening.
Having maintained my daily meditation, I wondered at my increasing agitation and frustration with things in general. When I had trouble signing onto the computer for work one day my meltdown was fast and furious – I ended up walking away and charging an hour of vacation time to calm down and re-group, then slowly going back and figuring out the problem without the angry passion.
When going out in public to pick up groceries or lunch, I find myself annoyed by almost everyone around me, whether it’s their laughter or their ignorance or their outfits, and it all feels like a personal affront. When driving, I’ve noticed a discernible rise in my own road rage, something that typically never afflicts me – these days everyone is either going too slow, or too fast, or texting. When watching the news that Andy has playing on the television, I feel an irrational flash and flicker of helpless fury, sometimes shouting back at the TV in furious outrage.
At night here in the dark,
I just can’t get to sleep its seems
It’s just these memories of you
are always haunting me
will I will I will I ever dream
will I ever dream again?
Those spells of anger are usually followed by spells of staring or losing myself in whatever I’m supposed to be doing. A blank, unfocused gaze off in the distance, a meandering walk that has no destination, or an uncharted and unplanned moment in which I stand by the door or window simply staring outside. I’ll suddenly find myself sitting on the couch, for some indiscernible length of time, tears suddenly welling in my eyes, not sure why or where they’re coming from, trying to make some semblance of sense out of what is happening. That’s when the little things get blamed as my brain struggles to wrap itself around these messy feelings.
And it dawns on me again: this is grief. It’s not about the grand fits of weeping and wailing that once constituted grief in my eyes, it’s all the rest of it, because suddenly loss imbues all the rest of it. The struggle to make sense of it, to figure it out immediately only compounds the problem, if in fact it is a problem. Perhaps it’s just the way life will be from now on. Perhaps we all have to turn this corner, and there is no way back.
Why can’t I face these facts why
why can’t you see that I
I spoke honestly I didn’t want you gone
it’s just that I only wanted to be free
I didn’t want to be tied to anyone
I know that I was wrong
After my last therapy session, I felt good about where I was, mentally and emotionally. I’d explained how I’d been going through the grieving process for at least five years, hitting every recommended stage at one point or another, making every moment these past few months matter, and doing as well as expected for the loss of one of the only people I have known for my entire life. I felt good coming home from that appointment. Slowly, in the days that followed, I felt not-so-good. This wasn’t something that could be addressed and confronted and solved in a day or a month or a year. This wasn’t something that could be perfectly handled and compartmentalized away. There wasn’t anything neat or tidy or definitive about this, and my heart ached for the vast open-ended emptiness that sprawled so terrifyingly before me.
And so I blame the Super Blue Moon. I blame the nonsensical notion of Mercury in apparent retrograde motion. I blame the unintentional slights, the innocent attacks, and the hapless clumsiness of people only trying to help. Mostly, though, I blame myself.
I’m doing my best, but I’m not doing ok.
I’ve been telling myself and others the opposite in the hope of forcing it into existence. I’ve been saying things are ok, that I’m ok, in an effort to move on and make it less uncomfortable. That doesn’t seem to be helping, or happening, and I’m putting this down here because it’s ok to say it, and it’s ok to not be ok right now.
Somewhere back in time, I walk across wooden floorboards as a younger man, alone but fortified with the knowledge that my tribe was all still there, even if distant and far. I travel by myself, traversing miles and states and countries, because there is always a home to which I could return, a place and a set of people to whom I belong. My happiness is a result of a lack of fear and the belief that I am whole, if slightly imperfect.
Today I’m no longer whole, and happiness is something that feels elusive and illusory.
