In the past week, three people died in the periphery of my day-to-day life — and since mid-January, a total of five. Each person was someone who I was not directly connected to, but who was important to someone important to me. How do you grieve these types of losses when, in my opinion, our society does not even know how to support those individuals struggling with what would be considered direct loss? Hell, we don't even like to talk about death.
I feel my friends' pain. And I mean feel it.
I'm completely exhausted.
Achy from my neck all the way down my back.
There is a heavy weight on my chest.
My right eye has been twitching off and on.
I took two three-hour naps this weekend. And when I got up this morning, after a brief meditation and yoga asana practice, all I really wanted to do was crawl back into bed, pull the covers over my head and sleep the rest of my Monday away.
And yet I struggle myself with the "properness" of my taking time to grieve, to cry, to throw a tantrum like a 2-year-old. (Which, I'm not doing, but I certainly feel like doing. Adults really should have the option to act like this every now and again. But I digress...)
I also struggle with wanting to be there for my friends. All-in to help them with their own grieving, which is more important to me then dealing with mine — no matter how much I know there's truth to be found in the airplane oxygen mask analogy, or the concept of "you have to take care of yourself before you can take care of others."
I have no answers today. Just putting some words out there.
Of course, maybe I do have one answer. Maybe, for me, this opening up is part of the grieving/healing process. So, thank you, whoever you may be out there, for allowing me this space.