Examining the Wounds of a Grief Hangover
I delayed this round of grief too long, until it gave me a hangover. Heavy all day, all week really. No therapy scheduled in anticipation, a mistake. I'm not good at sitting myself down to focus like this, especially because it hurts so much in new and unexpected ways. But I read the news that one of my favorite spoken word poets, Andrea Gibson, died today and it was like a throughline to a tenderness I had been ignoring all week. Maybe it's because I was transported back to the freshness of that grief; dawn and darkness, the way time slows and bends and nothing makes sense, as if reality itself is blasphemous. Maybe it's because I have a love I could not imagine losing like that, and it broke my heart for my Dad all over again. I think especially it is because I have a daughter of my own now, and beneath the occasional residual layers of anger and bitterness about how my mom died, I am just really sad that she won't get to meet Astrid. Especially because she wanted grandchildren more than anything.
It's kind of like I've been in a time warp all week-which is also what I've noticed happens when I don't slow down for my grief (or any big feelings really). And then I started doing the worst kind of math, anniversary equations that don't make any sense, like how old will I be in 2035, at the twenty year mark, or thirty? In 2045, I'll be the same age she was when she died--as if this means something beyond an arbitrary significance.
So instead, I'm thinking of something I said to my aunt last week, about how my mom's death forged me into the mother, the woman I was meant to be. It was an offhand comment that, upon further reflection, feels more true every day.
I have accomplished a small part so far, which is getting sober. Not small as inconsequential, but more like the top layer of something deep and complex. It’s about practicing being present instead of abandoning myself, my emotions and my experiences.
A difficult truth I am learning and relearning is that I can know it is important to slow down and feel these things I deem too ugly or sharp instead of numbing or distracting from them, but it doesn't mean I won't resist or find other ways of circumventing feeling all this. It's excruciating because it feels so final and empty and real.
But the truth is, it's not always so empty. There are beautiful little snippets of my mother all around me when I take a breath and slow down enough to notice. Like when my husband whips up an absolutely delicious and accidental kitchen creation, I see her so strongly. Or when he references Star Trek (often), I know she would approve. (It’s a bonus that he’s tall too! That was important to her)
I see her when my daughter crinkles her nose in the same cheesy, mischievous grin and in the eyes and hands of my aunts and uncles. And all of this is so equally, beautifully real that it makes the pain of missing her worth it (most days)--because it's all inextricably tied together.
Amidst all of Andrea Gibson’s words overpowering the algorithms these past few days, I found some particularly powerful medicine in this (abbreviated) quote from Take Me With You:
“ …but no one heals what they refuse to look at. So when asked if I believe in “good people”, I say I believe in people who are committed to knowing their own wounds intimately.”
It’s not easy, but remaining committed to knowing my wounds intimately is the crux of what I do as both a therapist and a writer. So thank you, dear reader, for being witness to this perpetual cycle of knowing and relearning.
