I can hear grief. My ears open and my head leans in. I can hear it like a locomotive far in the distance. I close my eyes and strain to listen. It is still miles away when I first hear the engine chugging and the wheels screeching. I can hear the whistle faintly and yet even in the quietness of it, I can tell it’s coming. It’s coming towards me louder, faster, closer. I can sense the hugeness of it. The train outweighs me, it can outrun me, it can hurt me, it can take my very life. And yet, I take off running towards it. It sounds familiar. It’s like you live in a house where you can always hear a train in the distance so when you hear it, it doesn’t sound scary or unusual. You don’t fear it anymore like when you were little. Now you are used to it and when it doesn’t come for a while you almost miss it. (Almost.)
I can smell grief. It smells salty. Not good, not bad. Not sour or strong. Just familiar but displaced. Like if you were home alone and suddenly smelled an ocean. It’s salty like the cup of salt water your mom hands you to gargle with when your mouth is bleeding from a lost tooth.
Grief tastes like a warhead that makes your mouth instantly water and your lips scrunch up. Your brain begins working like a Pavlov dog when you even see the wrapper. And yet, I crave it. Again and again and again. I crave it. I chose it over and over. I willingly pick up warheads, knowing there will be hell to pay.
I can smell grief. It smells salty. Not good, not bad. Not sour or strong. Just familiar but displaced. Like if you were home alone and suddenly smelled an ocean. It’s salty like the cup of salt water your mom hands you to gargle with when your mouth is bleeding from a lost tooth.
Grief tastes like a warhead that makes your mouth instantly water and your lips scrunch up. Your brain begins working like a Pavlov dog when you even see the wrapper. And yet, I crave it. Again and again and again. I crave it. I chose it over and over. I willingly pick up warheads, knowing there will be hell to pay.
If grief had a color, I think it would be orange.
I grieve bad. I grieve ugly. I grieve long and hard and gross and loud. I grieve messy and reclusively and bumpy and jagged-y.
Somewhere along the way of life, I somehow, someway decided that I wanted my life to be full of grief. I decided that was not only okay, but what I actually desired. I decided that I needed to ambitiously and eagerly pursue a life of grief. And so I set out to do just that. Over and over and over and over again. I run headstrong towards change, temporary people, temporary situations, temporary jobs, short term stints. I say I hate change but I accept nothing less. I say I want permanency but I insist on momentary.
So, therefore, I have decided, as an act of my own will and a desire of my heart, I am going to learn to grieve better. I want to grieve less hard and less long and less gross and less loud. I want to grieve softer, creatively-er, and good...er. Less bumpy, less jagged-y.
One time someone asked me how I grieved. "How do you handle grief?" She said. I smiled. It's a crazy question to ask someone, really. As if anyone has a typed up step-by-step grief plan. (We should though, shouldn't we?) I thought about it for a brief moment before I told her I handled it just fine. (For some reason pretending to be a non-emotional robot has been a favorite pastime of mine recently, I haven't the faintest clue why.) I said that I HANDLED GRIEF FINE. FINE! ME. ME.
One time someone asked me how I grieved. "How do you handle grief?" She said. I smiled. It's a crazy question to ask someone, really. As if anyone has a typed up step-by-step grief plan. (We should though, shouldn't we?) I thought about it for a brief moment before I told her I handled it just fine. (For some reason pretending to be a non-emotional robot has been a favorite pastime of mine recently, I haven't the faintest clue why.) I said that I HANDLED GRIEF FINE. FINE! ME. ME.
It's a humorous thing really if you know me. The girl who moved states in order to move on from someone. The girl who cries over everyone and everything. The girl who invented a stuffed animal personality to handle all the overflow emotions of life.
I should have thrown down my water and screamed at her that I grieve TERRIBLY!
But I am going to change that. I am going to ride the roller coaster and put fear aside. Half of why I grieve so bad is the fear. The panic. The anxiety. The lies I believe. "I'll never get over this. What if I miss this every day for the rest of my life!? What if I always feel this way?!"
I should have thrown down my water and screamed at her that I grieve TERRIBLY!
But I am going to change that. I am going to ride the roller coaster and put fear aside. Half of why I grieve so bad is the fear. The panic. The anxiety. The lies I believe. "I'll never get over this. What if I miss this every day for the rest of my life!? What if I always feel this way?!"
I believe it will get better.
I believe that it's okay to be sad and it's okay to cry. And it's okay if I am sad for a long, long time.
I believe that no matter how I feel, TIME DOES make a difference. This won't always hurt the way it does right now.
I believe in God. I trust that God has a plan for me. I trust that plan to include my life not always being in a grief place.
I believe that grief is a process, a journey, and I believe I have tools and skills and strength to get through it and get through it well.
I believe I can grieve GOOD(er)
