Control

The last few days I have felt similar to a prepubescent hormonal girl who feels like her world is falling apart and that no one understands her.  While she has no idea why she is feeling the way she is, I know for me, the culprit is grief, which is now the replacement for the previous 5 letter string of characters that wrecked so much havoc on our lives.  Unfortunately, and similar to CDKL5, knowing that my grief is "the why" doesn't at all help with gaining any sort of reprieve from it or any control over it. It is so hard.

I have read enough books about grief and talked to enough fellow grievers to know the best course of action is to just sit with the grief, but honestly, it isn't as easy as it sounds.  Sitting with grief means there has to be a relinquishing of what little control I have fooled myself into thinking I have left. It means allowing myself to feel these tumultuous waves of pain, of anger, of sadness, of I don't even know what.  It means I have to allow myself to realize all of my feelings are normal, even the ones that I am deeming irrational because they all do have a purpose and because they are my feelings, they are all valid. 

I feel like I have been reluctantly dragged to a get-together and now I have to make the best of it by striking up a conversation with someone in the room.  It is awkward, the desire to be there is null and there is the now added component of pretending to be interested in small talk.  The difference between grief and attending the get together is that more often than not, you can look back on attending the event and realize it wasn't so bad after all.  When it comes to grief, there is no looking back on it, there is no escape from it, and there is no excitement over allowing it into your life.  The only positive that comes from sitting with grief is that each time you sit with it, you have managed to successfully survive another tsunami, but that is hardly a consolation when you know the cycle is neverending.