I had to take a break

I had to take a break from posting about my trip. 

I took this trip last year, and only in editing the posts did I fully understand that this trip was a grief processing trip for me.  I kind of knew that when I was on it, but as often is true, it is only in hindsight that I can see in full color what was happening.  It is so apparent to me now that I was processing my grief, but at the time I thought I was just taking a trip.

Now that I know I was processing grief, I remembered that I had two days on this trip where my grief landed me on the ground in a fetal position again.  Those two days were supposed to be the next section of my blog.  I started editing that piece again…and had to take a break.

Here is what I have learned: 

Grief is a never-ending feedback loop of devastation and sobbing, then getting up and making soup;  feeling hopeless and not being able to stop crying because your life has been destroyed, then getting up and going for a walk; feeling lost in a grey fog of hopelessness, then getting a glimpse of the sunshine; finally getting up the courage to start living again, then getting hit by a trigger that brings on the sobbing; taking a trip and thinking that you are going to be okay, then experiencing another trigger that sends you back to the floor in a fetal position; taking time to care for yourself and let time create a buffer from the devastation, then trying again to start to live your new life. 

There will always be triggers, and the sadness will always be there.  It doesn’t go away.  But time does soften the pain. (I hate to say they were right when they told me this after John died and I was so mad at them for daring to say something so callous.)  It doesn’t go away, ever, but I haven’t been in the fetal position in a while, and I haven’t sobbed so hard I thought my eyes were going to wash away in a waterfall of tears for a while.  I don’t cry as often, and I can think of him now (mostly) without crying.

Back to my story.  I thought that by putting a year between my trip and the posting of my blog would soften the impact of that day that sent me back to the floor in a fetal position.  Nope.  It still hit me with the force of a tidal wave.  So back I went to feeing like I did in the early stages of grief.

But here I am, six months later.  I am mostly walking in sunshine again with only grey days now and then and working on rebuilding my life.  And so I am resuming my blog posts, because I think there is value in here for me and others who are currently walking the path of grief.