Odd considering I'm late most of the time to anything, I am a keen observer of time. Okay, so maybe it's in a different sense. Anniversaries tend to stick in my memory. Recently I noticed I may have a knack for knowing any given toddler from church's age in months. I'm interested in the passage of time and how it seems to change in spite of our measurements of its passing.
Sometimes days seem to come and go in warp speed, and we drink them in with insatiable thirst. Other times, the hours, minutes, seconds seem to trudge a saunter as we hunger for sleep to take us until the next painstakingly slow day begins. I've been having the latter kind of days, just sort of waiting to feel good.
Recently, I was telling someone about my Europe trip from last May and I realized it was almost a year ago. The memory felt so distant and foreign that I was convinced for a second that it didn't even happen. I remember thinking, huh, I've been to Rome, and then thinking, that was an unbelievably long, painful year I could stand to forget.
That Old Familiar Feeling
When it really hit me that this relationship was over, I was scared, because I've known this pain so I know that the only way out is through. Last week I found myself wondering why I felt the same heavy sadness from a much shorter relationship than the longer one whose grief swallowed an entire year of my life – and it hit me, that's it: I'm grieving! (Cue the Simon and Garfunkel...) Somehow it hadn't occurred to me that, yet again and so quickly, I was experiencing a loss and mourning a possibility. The moment I recognized it as grief, I was oddly relieved. As if it's any bit disarmed by my seeing it.
Sadness hits me in the strangest moments. As part of an important revelation I've stopped avoiding it, but started letting it roll over me.
I went to Ikea last night to scheme and daydream about my new home, but it didn't occur to me until I exited the freeway that I went there with Coffee Shop Guy on a date a la 500 Days of Summer (unbelievable irony here on so many levels). Never thought the sight of sectional couches could make me nauseous and weepy, but oh they did... The moment I hit the display floor my stomach felt tight and the entire time I held back tears. We'd also picked out his new couches at a different scandinavian store just days into our then adorable sweeping romance.
In a strange moment of what felt like taunting and cruel serendipity, a little boy came running up alone and stood sobbing in the marketplace, having lost his mom and hurt his hand. It took all the weary strength I have in me not to lose it looking at his crocodile tears and subconsciously thinking, yes, losing someone, being hurt, and feeling alone is incredibly scary.
Grief is Unique and Common
While the longing to seek solace in someone I inherently cannot was familiar, this time different things hang me up than those I tripped over last year. Not more, not less, just different. Grief is grief, yet each instance of it is completely unique; each pushing through incredibly necessary. And once you know it's what's happening to you, that recognition can allow you to give yourself a little more grace for feeling like a mess.
I would dare to say grief is the worst part of human existence. It's a suffering you can't do anything to remedy, rather simply endure. It's impossible to articulate, yet it haunts you. It sneaks up and pounces when you're unsuspecting or busy. It tells you lies and then smacks you with the truth. It turns your reality on its head, forcing you into a new reality you don't want to be a part of. Maybe, if you've known it before, you'll know it when it comes around, but maybe not. If you haven't known it yourself, have grace for others and don't rush them through it. Each step forward – even the two back – is important to moving through a mourning. I revel the thought of the impact it could have if we all learned to have more grace, understanding, and compassion for the pain of life and its wake.
The only way to not be swallowed by it is to notice it is washing over you and roll with the waves.
