Pride
I was telling her about how I had gone to coffee with a friend and I was telling the friend how I was feeling better. "Really I feel better then I have been in the last two and a half years" Better in that I feel more present in life, more there. I can see the world going on around me now. It hurts. I'm gonna be flat out honest with you (cause thats like my MO) I couldn't see the world before. In this case meaning before like today not before Dan died. I was so/am so all consumed with grief that I literally had no room for anything else. All I could do was worry about Baby Girl and I surviving. I was psychically in the world but not really apart of it. There is this great movie with Will Smith called Collateral Beauty. I'm gonna warn you know it is all about grief and it is gut wrenching but really well done. So in the movie Will Smith has some massive massive grief, he can't see anything but that grief, his company is falling apart and he doesn't care. The movie is about his business partners getting him to see this through his grief. Near the end he confronts them, basically he says, I know what's going on, I see it, I know it's there. He can see the world falling apart around him but he's not really apart of it because all he can do is grief. Ya thats me.
More honesty, without getting political because this is a grief blog not a political blog. Our Country is falling apart. It has been for awhile now, I haven't been a part of it, it's like I'm watching from an ocean away. I've done nothing, I've been doing grief, I can't worry about the state of the country when I'm worried about survival, when I'm concentrating so hard on making myself breathe. It's selfish I know but it is what it is.
Our country is also having a very hard time in the natural disaster area. Hurricanes, flooding, severe weather. For two and a half years I've barely noticed it, I've actually turned the news off because I couldn't take it, it was too much for me. Again really just this summer I have started to be more present in the world and paid more attention to the world around me. I live in the Pacific Northwest. More honesty, it is one of the most beautiful places on the earth, people come thousands and thousands of miles just to see the beauty I take for granted every day. One of the most beautiful of beautiful places out here is the Columbia River Gorge. It's about 45 minutes from my house. I have been there so many times it is impossible to count the number. Since I was a small child I have hiked those trails, swam in those waterfalls, played in those forests. Dan and I would regularly go on dates hiking up there. I have pictures of Dan and Baby Girl staring in awe at the waterfalls when she was a toddler. About four days ago it caught fire, the destruction is massive. I am heartbroken, crushed, depressed. My friends tell me it will grow back and they are right of course but to me it feels like one more thing gone, one more thing just dead in an instant, One more thing I shared with Dan that is no more.
"Well ya, you've just had one thing after another after another" my therapist says, ya ya I have. I start to cry as I realize how right she is. "your perseverance and inner strength is amazing" she tells me. I laughed, probably not the right response but she knows me. "Why is it so hard for you to take a compliment, you have preserved through so much, you should be proud of yourself" I respond "Because it's not perseverance I didn't..."she cuts me off "have a choice, I know you say that, I know you think, that but you did have a choice" I laugh again "Ha what was my other choice then? To kill myself? to leave Baby Girl without any parents?" "Yes" she said "you could have chosen that, but you didn't" hmmmm, doesn't really sound like a choice. I had to persevere, I had to survive, I had to keep going, I didn't have a choice.
She shifts the subject. She does that when she thinks shes not getting anywhere with me. "Do you think Dan would be proud of you?" Well actually I haven't thought about it in a long time, but ya of course. But then Dan was always proud of me, he thought everything I did was awesome. "Would Dan tell your kicking ass?" That's when the massive tears start, I wasn't expecting them because honestly I haven't thought much about whether Dan was proud of me or not. I mean I knew he was, I guess thats why I haven't thought about it. Yes Dan would be proud of me, Dan would probably say that exact same thing. "your kicking ass Jennifer" he liked to call me Jennifer. "be proud of yourself Jennifer, I am so proud of you" "You are amazing and you are doing an amazing job with Baby Girl" he always thought I was amazing. He probably thinks me picking my nose is amazing. More tears, why does this hurt so bad, I know Dan is proud of me, he is always proud of me, I don't even have to think about it. I guess thats what it is, I rarely try to imagine what Dan would say to me right now. If someone asks me I usally reply with something snappy like "well he's not here so he doesn't get a vote"
More honesty (boy I'm full of it tonight). Dan would be so proud of me, of everything I've had to do without him, of everything I've preserved through. I think thats why it hurts so bad. I know this. I know it as much as I know he loved me with every fiber of his being. I still want him to say it. I still want him to tell me he loves me. I still want him to say he's proud of me. I want to hear his voice say "Jennifer your kicking ass, now go take a break, I got this" I wish I could Dan, I wish I could go take a break and leave it all to you. Basically I just wish you were here, seems like a pretty simple request doesn't it?
I wrote a book about my grief, you can read it here: Carry on castle
Comments
Post a Comment