grrlTravels

The Ebb and Flow

This grieving thing, it's tough. One day you think you have things under control, and the next the air around you is murky and thick. You know the fog that comes in on little cat feet? This is not that fog. This is the fog of pea soup fame. This fog is the darkening of the seaside when a nor'easter barrels through; one moment sunny and bright, the next ferocious sheets of rain. This is the fog that rolls in abruptly following a glimpse of a little plastic organizing box in the fabric store.

The grief itself is a thing in its own right. It's amorphous and squirmy, not easy to hold, less easier still to tame. My inclination is always to box it up, push it down, grab hold of it, control it. But the grief is not amenable and will not rest long enough for me to grasp it. It dances away, just out of reach, tantalizing, bewitching.

And so I throw myself in again. My lesson: the only way through is to give myself wholeheartedly to it, immerse myself, submerge. I float aimlessly, tumbled about by its irregular tidal surges, scraping again and again against the sand. I feel the raw power of the grief anew. And I give myself to it.