Grief and loss
The pain of grief and loss can be overwhelming.
There are lots of things that leave us feeling empty inside. The death of a loved one, a breakup, a job loss - but it’s not always a monumental, hallmark event. Sometime it’s slower, more subtle, and ongoing losses and pains that affects our core. Sometimes the gravity of our loss doesn’t arrive until much later. So a pain in the past becomes fresh because the affect isn’t always immediate. Often we have no control or choice in what pain brings us. We only get to choose how it affects us. Or so I have been told.
The trick of dealing with pain and grief comes down to how much we’ve lost right? Some things are easier to let go of than others. And healing comes on different time tables for different people. Some pains and loss have permanent and lasting effect that find fresh ways to wound our hearts and steal our joy.
Some pains don’t allow for a way back. That diddle is done. I’m not getting this relationship, experience or opportunity back.
Life isn’t fair. And being reminded of that can be kind of rage inducing. Often people acquainted with pain and grief are very well aware of how unfair it can really be.
Sitting with it, recognizing it, and then ultimately figuring out what to do with the shit pickle we’ve been handed is the challenge, right?
And it’s easy to say, “Why couldn’t I have that problem? Why is this my problem? I didn’t ask for this.”
We all deal with trauma. Pain that cuts very deep and leaves us feeling like a shadow of a vibrant version of ourselves. A version that we could swear was there at one time or another. Living in pain long enough makes the joy we once felt - feel like a dream we can’t quite remember. For some of us, it was a little child running around, acting like a crazy person swinging the world in a circle around our innocent little bubble of a life. A child with big ideas and dreams. Little to no inhibition and a lot of silliness. Or maybe that was just me. No it’s not. My shared experiences have found that others felt that too.
Other people have really happy childhoods and grow into adult relationships that are torn apart. Pain happens any time, anywhere for anyone that’s in striking distance. There are all kinds of causes - intentional or not.
Abuse can be slow, subtle, and arrive as daily cuts that tear away at our humanity.
I’ve spent a lot of time trying to find myself in a world with a lot of visible examples of people that feel very confident in who they are and what they do. And seemingly a lot of examples of people that have either done the work to overcome the pain to a balance of peace OR they haven’t had that thing that stops them in their tracks - yet. Maybe they never will. I don’t know. We are all the same (in our humanity) but we are not.
Perception is a tricky thing. Outside looking in. We don’t really know what other people are feeling, thinking, unless they tell us. We can perceive some things by observation… but often our conclusions are sort of right or just not right at all. We live at a distance and don’t actually understand what others are going through because we don’t actually talk about it. And we have to have a receptive heart and mind to hear what people are telling and showing us.
Some people may seem fine but be in tremendous pain. They mask well. Not because they are lying liars who lie. A lot of people mask because they have to get through the day. Nobody likes someone who is constantly wearing their pain on their sleeve. Which means on a core level, we all understand that there is a certain level of personal responsibility in bearing the weight of pain. Whether it’s self inflicted or not.
Oh the ambiguity in that territory.
Maskers often find when they are vulnerable, the community isn’t equipped with empathy that is needed to love and support that person in pain. So they bury it. Until it can’t be masked anymore and everybody is surprised and overwhelmed with the meltdown.
In who we are, there is what we do and what we mean to ourselves and those around us. Yes, that is a massive oversimplification but in essence, that’s kind of it.
And those things kind of have to live in balance and have context and clarity for there to be some kind of peace in that empty hole in our chest. God did not fill that hole for me. Despite so many peoples’ well intentioned insistence, my personal savior never brought the peace that passes all understanding. For me, religion, god, spirituality and the church were all part of the daily abuse that created significant pain, grief and loss in my life. That’s hard for a lot of people of faith to hear. It doesn’t reconcile with their experiences or understanding.
I think that’s part of what makes living so difficult. We compare notes and share experiences to find understanding. And when things don’t match up and something that is so meaningful to some is a poison to others, it creates an opportunity that often gets overlooked. Our difference of experience and our individual pains can be shared in a collective. But we have to value each person for their unique experiences, and not assign value to them as a person because their perceptions and values don’t align with our own.
Sounds good. Not that easy to live.
A lot of people piss me off. Not for existing. Or for being different than me. Mostly because I see so many people living in a state of “unawares”. I have to be patient in a way that kind of exhausts me because so many people just live surface to everything around them and don’t want anything to do with pain, problems, or tough stuff.
Like I do?
I feel like choices I have made in responses to things I had no control over, have made me aware of things that others are happily oblivious to. Ignorance is bliss. I find myself sometimes envious of this ignorance, willful or not, that seems to allow people to just party through life. And keep leveling up.
Positivity. Positivity. Positivity.
I love joy. I love smiling. I like being happy. I have a hard time being and doing those things when there is grief and loss that remains unresolved.
Just get over it… doesn’t really work for some things.
Yeah, life it tough buttercup. I know. And yes, we can get stuck in our own pain and anger. There needs to be movement. That personal responsibility thing that everybody expects but we’re not all great at demonstrating when dealing with pain. Life, in order to be healthy, needs to be like living water. Moving. Not stagnant. Can’t let that pond scum build up.
I’ve learned that some pains, griefs, losses heal like wounds on our body. Some are quick and disappear and we forget about them. Others are like deep gashes that scar. And we have to do a lot of work just to heal the wounds so we won’t die. But the trauma of some of those wounds continue and will never fully heal. So then it’s learning how to live within a new existence WITH that pain.
We have to live with ongoing trauma. And learn how to smile, find joy and live at peace.
That’s. Not. Easy. To. DO.
It’s hard to smile sometimes. It makes it difficult to be authentically happy and joyful. Not because we don’t want to be… but the pain of ongoing pain… can affect our ability to demonstrate the ideal version of ourselves to a world that wants to see laughter and joy. A world that loves to see people grab life by the tail and tell it what’s what.
I’m working on how to keep finding joy in my life. There are definitely things for me to be joyful about. Remembering those people and experiences is necessary to my survival and important for me to keep doing this life thing. But I also want to contribute. Show up. Be a person that brings some joy to others lives. Live in service to others wants and needs. That IS the distant version of me. The laughing, silly child that wants you to get up and dance and sing with me. No matter what is going on.
There is a middle in the mire. Seeing joy THROUGH pain. Finding hope amidst suffering. But it can’t be done alone.
The emptiness isn’t a god shaped hole for me. It’s finding the things I always had in myself and bringing them forward into a world that needs empathy, care and a reason to dance.