Unfiltered holiday grief thoughts:
I put on my most exciting pair of socks today, turned on this audiobook, and twirled around my kitchen floor as I TRIED to absorb the first lecture. Too much coffee, or just enough?
My brain hurts from this. I’m humbled. I’m a visual learner and each sentence in this required a lot of deep thinking - boom, boom, connection, connection. I had to rewind like 8 times in the first 45 minutes.
I have so much left to learn. Gah. I’ve been coping with the fact that this will be the first Christmas without my dad by delving into book after book, project after project.
So here’s my personal essay:
I thought my first Christmas without my dad would feel dark, bitter, and lonely. Instead it has just been boring, but I have also been contemplative. I miss him, but he was so sick before he actually passed that I began the grieving process months ago. One set of my Grandparents are gone, too.
Tonight it is just Mallory and me. I’m not old but not young. I waver between confidence and disgust. I have faith in humanity but am still aghast at the way it passively allows so much self absorption.
I have nightmares some nights. I’ve given up trying to make sense of “everything.” I don’t care if I’m happy. I don’t listen to Instagram self help gurus. Waking up at 5am and running won’t help me. I want peace... to be settled. The tricky part is that I still want to be throttled into some greater level of life than where I currently stand, and that will obviously be accompanied by some discomfort.
One of my biggest cheerleaders is no longer accessible to me. My dad was a complicated safety net. Yet in his absence, I have one less person to answer to. I am being forced to carve out my own identity in new ways. I have to take his guidance, his mistakes, his love and make the best choices possible.
Waking up at 5am and meal prepping is not my answer. Thriving is the new surviving, but in order to do that I have to forgive, trust, and have hope. I must stop berating myself for stumbling, and for the most part I have.
I never thought I would be able to function when dad passed. I was genuinely afraid I’d end up back in the mental hospital. I thought I’d have to take like a week and a half off of work. But death has yet to disarm me.
I’m sad sometimes and this is not easy. But as I always say - not broken, never in pieces, nothing to pity.
Grief - the price of love. It is always worth the cost.
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