Okay, but not, but okay
I’m okay. I am now caught up on my e-mails, and my bills. I can stand to listen to other people talk about trivial things again, instead of being annoyed at their banality and lack of perspective. I have several moments of real, unspoiled delight every single day, and sometimes hours at a time of genuine contentment. I am productive and busy with my hobbies. I am loved and cherished in this world and from the next, and I love and cherish souls in both worlds. I am gainfully employed and financially solvent. My physical issues, while not gone, have eased up a bit in the last week or so, and I can at least take my evening walks again. I have learned to walk with grief well enough that it does not hobble my every step. I have helped others in their walk, too, and that is gratifying. I have shored up relationships that were strained by my grief, and jettisoned others that proved themselves unworthy. I have let go of hopes that I would be able to be close with his family and friends, and am slowly rebuilding with my own family. I have chosen life in the form of adopting 2 puppies when my eldest dogter died 9 months after A. My sense of humor is as robust and twisted as ever. I put on tinted lip balm the other day, caring at least for the moment about my appearance. By all measures I can think of, I’m okay.
But there’s a qualitative difference in my life, in my soul, that I can only describe as “less” and “sad” that wasn’t there when he was here. I never stop missing him. Even if a memory makes me smile, it is often with a tears chaser. I get misty at least once a day. Nothing I can’t handle, but I’m tired of handling it. No…what I’m actually tired of is the reality that requires me to handle it.
I’m proud that I’ve made it this far, that I’ve healed more than I ever dreamed possible back in the early days after he died. But I’m not quite sure what to do with myself at this point, how to continue the healing, how to increase my understanding for my own benefit, my own peace of mind, because I’m all alone on this part. There are those in my life who can, and do, help me live this new life, but there is no one who can tell me how to cope with the grief that remains, whether they see it or not.
What do you do when you’re better, but not great?
What do you do when the support groups no longer address what you’re feeling and dealing with, because you are no longer in critical condition, and they have run out of things to say on the subject, just like you have?
And what do you do with the issues that they never did address, but you still have to live with, and you have no clue how?
What do you do with the stuff you can’t tell another living soul, and you can’t help but know that if just the right soul were still living, you wouldn’t have it to tell?
What do you do when you still have questions, but remain silent because you know that no one else has the answers for you, either?
What do you do when you believe with all your heart that he is still out there, watching out for you, loving you, but that faith doesn’t really ease the ache?
What do you do when knowing and accepting that he’s not coming back does not stop you from wishing it?
What do you do when all your okayness doesn’t actually make this all okay?
I feel myself in limbo lately, okay, but not, and I don’t know what to do with that. Maybe there is nothing to do, and that is my mistake—thinking that action is the answer, when being is. I guess I’m impatient with feeling this way, and want to feel another way, a better way.
It seems I am, as usual, trying to rush the process that will take its own time without deference to my opinions about it. And when I learn to trust the process, maybe I’ll be exactly where I want to be. Or I’ll just be content with being exactly where I am. I’d take either option; it’s got to be better than this.