Everyone keeps asking me how I am. It's a surprisingly difficult question to answer. I actually have no idea. All through this entire thing, this terrible week, I've kept feeling like I needed a textbook to get through this. And not just a general book, but a really detailed textbook that would tell me exactly what to do, as in, 9:17 am: Walk around in a circle. Sigh. Sit down. Stand back up.Without that level of help, I sort of feel like I don't really exist. It's bizarre. I'm just sort of - not really here. And while I'm being not really here, there are endless, endless things to do.
I've met, now, with a minister and a funeral home director and a lawyer and a financial planner and the smarmy head of my mother's retirement community. I've looked at wills and things signed by both my parents, which makes me turn my head and catch my breath. I have a raft of half completed documents in my purse, emails, 2 packs of the least horrible thank you notes they have at Ingles and an appointment to meet with the accountant. I've woken up at 3:00 in the morning, thrown up and worried for an hour or more over what to do with my aunt, the QOB. I've lost four pounds, cried and cried, spoken with old friends for hours, drunk a lot of vodka and talked on the phone until my ears hurt and yet, I'm still sort of not really here.
I had every intention of making it to work today, for example. I didn't. And those documents are still half completed and the huge, enormous, terrifying list of things I need to be doing right now isn't even being approached while I sit here in pajamas and shoo the kitten off my lap. This isn't okay, I know. I have so much to do and I can't just sit still like this. But somehow, I can't do anything else either.
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3 comments:
This isn't okay, I know. I have so much to do and I can't just sit still like this. But somehow, I can't do anything else either.
It *is* ok. Do what you can do, and give yourself permission to take as much time for yourself as you need. This is a big, exhausting, horrible thing you're going through, and it doesn't get any easier if you pretend it's not big or exhausting or horrible -- in fact it tends to get worse, because then you're just adding another layer of "shoulds" on top of everything else.
Don't let anyone, most especially including yourself, tell you how you *should* feel or what you *should* do. Feel what you feel, do what you can and what feels right.
every period of inaction is followed by a period of action
No, you are experiencing exactly what you are supposed to be feeling. My Mom-in-law died, and I walked around in a complete fog for months.
Every period of grief is unique, but you're just doing fine. It's all process. It sucks, but it is what it is. My heart aches for you. I know how painful it is. Peace, my blogger friend.
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