Soul to Squeeze

It's bitter baby, and it's very sweet. I'm on a rollercoaster, but I'm on my feet.

Does a grief-laden blob of emotional extremes that cancel each other out every minute or so qualify my recent break from my blog as writer’s block? Every time I try to write, I find myself coming up short in the inspiration department, not because I’m bereft of feelings that merit a wordy post, but because they’re so fleeting and ever-changing that I can’t keep up with them. Quite frankly, I’m sick of them, so I think I’ve taken to brushing them off.

Or stuffing them down and avoiding them at all costs.

That aside, life’s rather grand these days.

Though I don’t yet have any desire to go into the reasons behind my happiness and sense of accomplishment.

I went through a rough patch the last few months.

Another topic I shall not be delving into just yet.

And there you have it. Writer’s block.

Because the linguist and English teacher in me sees no point in writing unless there’s a clear point to be made.

The only consistent theme of late is that life is a conundrum. Perhaps that’s the point. Everything I experience is sprinkled with coinciding sentiments of opposing extremes, a sort of yin and yang. I’m currently the busiest, loneliest, happiest and calmest I’ve been since Mark died, all at once. Sleep is coming more easily most of the time. Twitching and jumping at the slightest of disturbances are coming a lot less often. The weather is beautiful this time of year, which is a nice way to soften the melancholy I experience about these months leading up to July and the third anniversary of the worst days of my life. I am simultaneously overjoyed regarding my growth, excited for my future, terrified that things will all fall apart again, and utterly shocked to remember countless times a day that Mark is dead. It never ceases to amaze me that he’s gone, and it seems to me about as bizarre as it would be to open the refrigerator and find myself looking at the Grand Canyon.

Someone told me a few years ago that it was about a decade after his wife passed before he was okay again. He sort of just existed in those years, and nothing felt quite right. I admit that when he told me this I thought he must’ve not been doing the grief work necessary to move forward and LIVE, rather than just survive. That may be the case for many, but I know better now than to write somebody’s lingering grief off as a lack of effort. I know now that grief never ends; it just shifts. It’s been almost three years since losing Mark, and I still sometimes forget he’s dead. It’s not that I don’t know he’s gone; he’s clearly not here, at least not physically. But it does sometimes feel like he’s just been away for a while and will be back any minute. I’m not sure he’d recognize me and the person I’ve become, but he’ll forever be the same young guy I miss so dearly. I feel like old Rose in Titanic who dies peacefully in her sleep and goes right back to when she and Jack were young and on the ship. He stayed frozen in time at the age he was when he died, and I honestly imagine it being that way when I go. Young Mark will just be waiting for me.

I’m not sure if the moment you start comparing your life to that of Rose from Titanic is worthy of ridicule or praise, but I feel like there’s probably a good meme for it.

Either way, I still feel like a lunatic about all this. I still get sad. I still sometimes sob hysterically for no apparent reason. I still have lots of fun and am making new memories. I still don’t understand so many things.

And I still don’t know what to say to bring these thoughts and this post to a strong concluding statement.