Living Losses

Recently, I was attempting to ascribe words to an emotional pain that had resurfaced for me.  In many ways it was familiar. Its continual latency running in the background like a soft soundtrack to my experiences was something I’d grown accustomed to managing my life around.  I thought I was in a place of acceptance.  This thing was there.  It wasn’t going anywhere, and I needed to continue to keep moving forward.  For the most part, I’d resigned myself to only paying attention to it, when it was overly attentive to me.  When it, these feelings, these thoughts became intrusions, I’d learned to be kind to myself, and to stop and to deal with them until I could clear my heart enough to proceed.

But sometimes, like this time, my heart wouldn’t clear.  My eyes wouldn’t cry.  My thoughts wouldn’t categorize, nor would they make accommodations for what my lived experience purported. I was deeply grieving.  Not because life and breath had expired and memories were raging; but because time continued to march on.  I was riddled with an internal, unseen sadness not because someone was gone too soon; but because they were still present, and that presence was at war with hope. 

What do you do with an ambiguous grief? How do you manage grief that cycles itself through stages without ever concluding? What happens when you experience living losses and the pain just leaves you numb? The wound never heals completely. New experiences excite optimistic inspiration; but the dysfunction of others thrives in chaos which is diametrically opposed to peace.

This space requires that I question the questions that I’ve asked all my life until I’ve become dizzy with sequential revolutions around anger, denial, bargaining, depression and acceptance over and over again.  Because the tears won’t fall. The release I need refuses to come. Perpetual loss reminds me of time unredeemable.  Yet, my capacity to love won’t turn off and I pour until the well is dry rescuing, advocating, making safe places, giving eternal optimism to receptacles without regard for reciprocation. 

No more! No more, I’ve silently screamed every time I’ve trusted that this time is going to be different but sameness prevailed. No more, I’ve promised myself in the moment when I supported through emergent dereliction only to have love unrequited instead.  This is the last time, I’ve determined, when after all of the proving I was still not the choice. Sadly, I ponder, will this ever change, while I keep showing up.

If you’ve ever loved an addict, you know exactly how I feel. 

If you’ve ever loved, really loved, someone struggling with mental illness, you can identify.

If you’ve ever cared for someone with Alzheimer’s or dementia, you feel the sting of living losses. 

To anyone dealing with the grief of living losses, I understand. Some days are wonderful and others are not.  The cycle of change is consistent and predictably unpredictable.  Be kind to yourself as you navigate through this difficult time and lean on those who will hold your hand through the unspoken messages hidden in your eyes. Confide in those who can hear the despair in your trite expressions. Be intentional about lavishing yourself with the care and warmth that you so desperately need and deserve because you matter.  You count.  You are worthy of love.