I have been practising compartmentalizing my demons, my ghosts, my inner angst. January was a month of stress, anxiety and change. I'm off work right now. I had some vegetative state time and then I had some good energy time to think about the anniversaries that were coming up, work that eventually I must return to, and goals I wanted to set for the future that would allow me to do something positive with my energy and my life.
I wrote out a list of all my "worries"--everything--black and white. It was a long list for me and like a brainstorm I didn't remove anything until I did something about it. I started with the smallest insurmountable worry and I worked on my list everyday. Everyday, I did something that was achievable by me that in someway, allowed me to free up some space in my mind and allow positive energy to flow into the negative spaces. The list was simple: mail this, contact them, pay this bill, fix your finances, clean your house (find a housekeeper), get off some of the drugs you're on, think about return to work, think about what else you can do, get back to the gym, eat healthier, make an appt for physio, flowers for mom, cards for friends, etc. You can see the list was simple and complex. Walk the dog. Get out of the house in the sunshine....simple and so difficult. What to do about the anniversaries?
Between trying to deal with the mental health issues, an old family friend died, my mother was hospitalized with anemia and internal bleeding--she's still in the hospital.
For one of the anniversaries which was a violation of my person without my permission about 20 years ago, I refused this year to give it any more of my energy. I acknowledged the circumstances, and my feelings, and I compartmentalized the situation so that I could move on. My life has no room for violence and I've put the details in the suitcase and put the suitcase in the closet--I don't need to think about this or give it the strength that I have. There are issues that I still need to deal with and I will with my therapist and it's mostly around building healthy intimate relationships and to let the past continue to be the past.
Another of my anniversaries, is truly private. I devised a small ceremony--a special candle holder, a special angel, and I vow to acknowledge or have a small ceremony every year at the end of January for the passing of innocence. This is a harder anniversary to let go and compartmentalize. I'll work on it.
The deaths of friends in the same weeks, I have acknowledged what they have brought to my life, the stories, the laughter, the friendship--and I'm letting go. They too, have passed on but they are not forgotten. They will always hold a special place in my heart.
Grief is a powerful emotion. If you don't deal with your feelings at the time and stuff them away, you don't know when they will come back. Grief takes away your strength, takes away your words, and can rob you of your mental and physical health. If you look at a lot of unresolved issues in your life, they are related to grief in one form or the other. I like to be strong, I don't want to cry, I have to be strong for others--
In the meantime, one of my strongest memories are of me sitting in a toy box when my son was younger, overwhelmed with grief, screaming, crying and crying and my toddler reaching out to me and we sat in the toy box together. I rocked him, I cried and he comforted me. Memories can be all powerful, we can make them so.
When my grandmother died, I spent time with her before she left, she began to deteriorate very quickly near the end. She was almost 90. I wasn't the only one present and I wasn't there for her last breath, but I was there to hold her hand, give her massages and tell her the time on a clock that no longer ticked. I sat with her shortly after her death, my cousin too, I held her hand as she went from warm to cold--I rubbed her arthritic knuckles and I thought about all that she gave to me in my life. The stories of our ancestors, her life stories, her hands and her love. I recognized all that she had gone through and seen in her life and it wasn't easy for her. Sometimes, it wasn't easy for me. She was the last of her generation in my family, she was my last grandparent to go. I didn't know the others very well. Gram and I wrote a lot of letters and cards back and forth about what was going on in our lives at the time. I had a special relationship with her--we had our outs too--human nature I suppose--and our regrets. Leading up to her passing and once she passed, it was as if all the grief I had stored up in my life, came pouring out. I couldn't stop crying, every spare moment I had I spent in bed--I felt like my whole body had gone into shock--my mind shut down with grief and I could no longer get up from the weight of the depth of such emotion for all of my sorrow pinned me like a butterfly to the four corners of the bed. I wept. May 12, 2009 Gram died and my world fell apart. I miss her, I think about her and through my aunt and uncle I can laugh about her and share memories and stories and that helps me get through those days. I don't ignore the date as if she never lived and passed, I acknowledge the date, I try to be with those positive memories and I compartmentalize so that all of grief does not overtake my life--I know that Gram would not want this to happen for me. I know that she will write me letters for a very long time, until, I too pass and meet her on the other side.
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