learning how to grieve

 Grief makes me uncomfortable.

In fact, it makes me so uncomfortable, it's taken me well over a week to acknowledge and admit that grief, is in fact, what I am feeling. 

I was always told "don't wallow" or "don't stay there" but I was never told that there's such a thing as not not wallowing, that moving on too quickly...isn't good either. 

So tonight when my therapist said "you need to wallow" it was uncomfortable. To be told "you're sad and the healthy thing is to feel that" 

She is trying to get me to make space for it- she used the term "compartmentalize your grief- tell yourself you're only going to grieve from 8-9pm every day" See she started out from the perspective of talking to someone who gives in too much too often and too deeply- but she learned- I don't. 

My problem is not giving it too much attention, its not giving it enough. 

So now here I am. Finally ready to admit that 

I.

Am.

Grieving. 

I'm broken, absolutely shattered. 

Grief makes me so wildly uncomfortable. Out of love, dear ones to me stand there helplessly and ask "how can I love you?" and I don't know. So the easiest thing has always been to pretend like it's not there. Like it doesn't exist. 

But now I am pushing into it. And I know that's going to ruffle some feathers because I don't ever just give in to it. I never allow the pain and the sorrow to wash over me. My idea of "giving it space" has been to cry for an hour and that's it.

But that's not how this one is going down. 

I am feeling the weight of a year plus of grief tap on the door of my heart and say "now that you're making space, maybe it's time to work through some of this stuff too" 

And y'all it SUCKS. 

I'm not numb- but I feel just completely drained and bled dry. And I think God knows that. I think that's why grief is so incredibly painful- because that pain reminds us, that as dried up and worn out as we feel- that pain you feel? It says "you're still feeling- therefore you're still breathing- therefore you're still alive"

In the times of our lives when we feel the least alive, the most painful moments are the ones that God uses to say "keep going"

I'm really blessed to have a Christian therapist that my insurance accepts and I've been able to get the psychological help I need without a massive strain on my wallet, and in the safety of a space with someone who shares my worldview. 

"You weren't promised easy going, but we were promised to experience trouble" 

Dang it.

The verse I stumbled across at 16 came rushing back to my heart as the tune from Sunday drifted into my head

"Take heart, take heart

I have overcome the world"

John 16:33.

"Why?"

So often the question I have screamed in grief and agony- but I know why now. I know that at my lowest,, at my easiest to give up-est, at my got nothing more to givest, God allows pain to let the love rush in. 

I'm not good at wallowing. I'm not good at grieving. And I'm certainly not comfortable with my own. 

But I am grieving. I am pressing into the pain knowing that's where I will feel the Saviours arms most boldly right now. Knowing He promises to be near to the brokenhearted. 

Knowing He promises I won't be here forever- so it's ok to be here for a little bit. It's ok to make space for it, it's not going to take over. It's ok to push into the pain, that's where joy is born from. 

Not the one I planned

"I could not fix what he did not want fixed"

My cousins words are lingering in my head as I sit to write this. It's not the post I had typed- I erased it. Because unknowingly to her, she summarized everything. 

I had planned to sit down and share with you all, each of the "yes" dreams God had given me through this relationship, but instead, it's turned into the most heartbreaking "no" of my life. 

Why? 

Because, as she said, I could not fix what he didn't want to fix. And he stopped trying to be the man he knows he can be. He ran. 

He ran, and I am left holding the shredded pieces of what we dreamed up together. 

I'm sorry, I don't have much more than that to say.