I don't write here very often anymore. I still think of things to write, but I don't make time to do it. Or I feel like it's just the same old shit. But something inside me doesn't feel right letting December 19th go by without a word or two, so here are some thoughts about grief and moving on (forward? maybe just flailing around). When Greg died in 2008, it was just far enough into my adulthood to not be shocking- at least to the general public- definitely I was shocked. There are people who lose a parent in their childhood, then the weird gray area where I lost Greg, and now I'm in the stage of adulthood where I know many more people who have lost at least one parent, where I'm not the outlier in a group of my peers, even if I'm still in the minority.
Watching my friends start or continue a path I've wandered for 8 years now, I'm realizing that grief is even more meandering and circuitous than I'd realized. Why are some days so easy, and others so fucking hard? Or months. Or years. Why are some ways of honoring our dead so comforting, and others feel empty? Why are feelings so changeable, and beliefs, and dreams? And all of those things change not only from person to person, but within each person. They change for me.
The past few months have been hard ones- 7 or 8 years ago I wouldn't have been able to admit that, and even more recently I wouldn't have been willing. It kind of feels like the whole world is going to shit, and I miss my pops an awful lot. I know it's a terrible cliche, but sometimes life really IS like a highway...and I've been poised on the on-ramp lately, watching everyone move steadily by at an excellent clip while I'm inching out and reversing, inching out and reversing, unable to spot opportunities to merge or letting them pass because something felt wrong in the moment. The unfair thing is that when I'm cruising, it feels easy to keep cruising, and I know so well how it feels to be in the zone and moving jauntily along. Getting going again from a standstill is so goddamn rough; merging has always been my bugaboo. At least I know that every time in the last 8 years I've felt like this (the last 34 for that matter) somehow I find a small bright spot of courage and get out there again, and after that initial merge I get to cruise myself for awhile.
It's not a secret that Greg was a drinking man, and then he wasn't. I'm not in the program, but there's an expression that I tell myself often because it helps me keep going, and it applies to so much more than drinking:
I can't, God can, I think I'll let Him.
Those are the actual AA words, but obviously replace God with whatever deity/gender you prefer (I usually say the Universe/it). When I'm really struggling, as I have been lately, I keep going by throwing up my hands without throwing in the towel. Greg didn't raise any quitters.
Love you and miss you, pops.
