I almost want to start a different blog, that’s just for grieving. But it would mean dividing myself up more, trying to shield you from “the bad stuff”.
It’s just such a roller coaster, and I expect it won’t always feel this lurchy, but then hell, I don’t really know what to expect. I just know that millions of people before me have gone on after losing someone they love, gone on with their lives, have made the best life they can, have continued to feel all the emotions they are open to in their life, but it’s all done with this extra “layer”. I was so surprised last night, my inability to stop crying, how these tears slid out of my eyes, not hot, burning tears, I kept hearing the words “silky tears” as they smoothly welled up and over and down my cheeks, large full tears sliding and gliding and dropping off my face. They’ve reappeared multiple times today and I’ve done my best to just contain them. I had the afternoon off – last of the summer hours – and I picked some late summer tomatoes while the dogs rolled in the grass and lived in the moment. That’s really what it all comes back to – and I won’t deny or ignore or stuff my sadness and tears, or throw them into a vacuum-sealed separate blog. I love nothing more than entertaining people, making them laugh, being clever, pairing the right words together so they literally crunch in your mouth like a tart granny apple. I’ve never been this wounded before. I search for metaphors, that’s how I live my life in my head, describing sensations and feelings through parallel pictures, and the first image I always get is that grief is like a deep, jagged wound – yet wounds heal. You see the scar for some time, and then ten years later you don’t even notice it. This isn’t like that. The best I can come up with is that it’s like some cartoon auger bored a hole straight through me, smack in my chest, just a cross-section plug of Jennifer, through & through that can never be gotten back, it will never fill in. I have clothing over it, I have learned to train my eyes not to scrutinize the hole, to push or pull at it or hate it or deny it’s there. Even though it’s covered, and most of the time, you don’t see it, sometimes the north wind screams out of the sky and rushes through that hole, freezing you to the core with its cold, cold pain and it feels like you’re losing that piece of you all over again fresh, the phantom pain and the memory of what was, all blended with sadness.
I am going to enjoy my weekend. Even if big tears still slide out of my eyes once in a while. Shopping & sewing, cleaning & movie-watching, knitting & hanging out with friends, my life is as full and complete as it can be – even with my hole.