As we’re nearing the end of this fucking year…I already know that Jan 1 is going to feel oddly just like Dec 31. I know that man-made constructs do not hold sway over organic processes like grief, marriage, and healing.
I also know my deepest pools of anger are easily stirred when someone tells me, it’s going to take time. OH MY GOD, I KNOW…I KNOW…I KNOW. I’m the one counting the days and watching the clock. I’m the one dodging the memories and habits of conversation, phone calls and expectations. I am fully aware that Time is the boss of us all!!
Time is a cruel master, however. Always just out of reach – in good times and bad. Even as I tell myself this day, this hour, this minute is all I ever wanted; it’s what I have dreamed of – pay attention, hold on to this moment for all you’re worth.
SURPRISE – It’s already gone.
That surprising belly laugh, tossing my head and my chair backward nearly putting me on the floor when my friend from school and I get together during that blue moon – and remember something from long ago – again.
That cold shiver that over took my whole body as I was visiting my friend in St. Vincent’s in the early ’90s having picked up a bug on his Mexican vacation, when the doctor spoke matter of factly about the Bactrim drip – used then to try to combat AIDS-related infections. My friend hadn’t told anyone except his lover – surprise, he’s dying.
Somehow in the moment of discovery time stops – and the world goes into slow motion as my mind processes the information, tragic, funny or brilliant, makes no difference. There is a very real sense that from this moment on, everything changes.
It just so happens that 2022 started with a punctured lung and three broken ribs, not long after the death of my father, then the passing of my best college friend, then the cross-country move of my long-time family of choice followed by my mother’s exit on Mother’s Day (RUFKM?!) ending with a diagnosis for my husband that requires big changes in our life.
Everything keeps changing again and again and again.
I spent so much time out of my body in the last 16 months, trying to get my feet on the ground that I have lost days and weeks regularly over the year. Even though, I was surrounded by people who love me…LOVE LOVE LOVE me – I couldn’t find the words to get what I needed. I could rarely identify what I needed. But the pain…my God the searing, debilitating pain that would strand me in mid-sentence or thought.
So sorry to hear…
How long has it been since…?
So sorry to hear…
How are you feeling?
So sorry to hear…
What are you doing with your mom’s room?
So sorry to hear…
Have they settled into their new home?
So sorry to hear…
When are you coming out?
So sorry to hear…
Questions of love and concern felt as much like a slap as a hug. I admitted having no real answers to their questions, but could often simply say, “I don’t know.”
Until one day, it was a Tuesday and I was optimistic about the day. I was feeling hopeful about going to work. I felt lighter on my feet. Just a day, after some time, there was a new normal that was not borne of tragedy or loss. There was a new normal that didn’t include a few key players, not that they were missing so much as they had done what they came to do and had moved on. There was a new normal – and I realized that it had taken some time to get there. Not a set amount of time, not 1 month or 6 months – but some time and some life events and some re-charging and strength building.
For better or worse, Time takes Time…and we do the best we can while that’s happening.
If you’re feeling a loss today…I’m sorry. I get it. Hold on, time passes.
