Just...Shut up

 

So, it's been just over two weeks since my Grandma died. Obviously I have no time for vague intro paragraphs or "it's been a minute" commentary anymore. I've been so sure I'd write a ton about it. I had so many deep internal conversations with myself about this before and after it was reality. I could recite all the stages of grief and recognize them in others. I always wondered what it would be like to do it linearly--grieve like a normal person does. Why? Because the only other gaping hole in my life was losing my dad, but I was too young to remember that. Which makes that grief alienating and strange and not at all linear, since you first have to have a concept you're missing something and then through growing up realize what a big thing it was you were missing. 

I always KNEW what a big thing my grandmother was in my life. Because she was just always there--a lot of times physically. I stayed at her house when my mom was working, in the summers--and throughout most of my life if I didn't actively live with her I was only a short drive away. I always knew her as this placid place of calmness and serenity and this safe space, because to me she was all those things all the time. I know her to be more, in being an adult and realizing the things she had to go through and deal with--but it didn't ever touch that puffy little cloud land she and I occupied when we were together. 

I think the first thing I said to myself, as I was driving up to Minnesota knowing things were about to change, was that it felt like a million lights went out at once. It hadn't even happened yet, and it already felt like the world I knew was gone, and I was in the dark alone. That's no one's fault, save maybe a president who isn't acting like COVID is a thing, but it's the way it felt.

I titled this whole thing "Just shut up" because it's how I feel. Every time I go to say something about grieving or my grandma or something, I just feel like somewhere, someone's rolling their eyes or getting mad about what I'm saying or something. I don't know why I feel this way, but I do. 

I also feel like I have to clarify and defend everything I say. And I also feel angry and compelled to say things like "Could no one that knew me and by association knew my grandma take five minutes out of their day to send a damn card?" 

Because I do feel that way. I read so many things about how lonely grief is and I'm only understanding it now. 

And I thought, even on the way out to Minnesota, that I'd want to talk more. Write more. Reach out to people more. I did some of that, and some of it helped at the moment, but I feel...shut up right now. I don't feel like people. I don't feel like talking. I don't feel like explaining how I feel and I still don't feel like entertaining the thoughts about how I'm feeling right now cuz sometimes I've got a handle on it and sometimes I don't. 

And it's not linear. I jump from teary to angry to numb and back again in the same 30 minute period. I'm older than a lot of people who've experienced this kind of loss and I didn't realize what it was like at all. It's not like the grief over my dad wasn't real or profound, it's just that it is a very unique type of loss that not many have charted the path out of before. Or maybe they have and I just didn't know.

I don't know. I want people to come surround me and be my support system because I want to know that there are other safe places and other good things in the world besides her that still exist here, but at the same time, 1: COVID and 2: I really really feel shut up by my own "choice" in a way. I know I want to feel loved, but I'm also afraid to feel loved because I don't feel like I have much to give back right now and I'm trying to save that for my husband and family. That, and I'm prone to feeling really resentful for things I later realize aren't as big a deal as I thought. 

I was already struggling and trying to find a way to take back my life in meaningful ways and get things accomplished and this threw me for the biggest loop ever. And like, maybe it shouldn't have because loss is inevitable. 

I find myself feeling like a child again, and not in good ways, though I am also craving stupid things like tiny little cereal boxes and 90s movies that will bring me back to a place I felt like I didn't have to know what I was doing and everything was okay. I feel like I should've known more or done more or been more. 

I got a job recently that will have me out photographing parks in the fall, and it's an exciting development, and just in testing out my abilities, I've found not only can I do it, but I need it right now. I played outside a LOT as a kid, at my grandma's and at home--and everywhere else I could. Lots of forts and adventures and skinned knees and stories...and smells. 

Fall is one of those things that comforts me. Wet leaves and crisp cold air remind me of wonderful things--more recently, including the amazing and beautiful wedding we had up in Door County 2 years ago. The colors were peak, and it was cold, but everyone was there. There were people who weren't there that it hurt weren't, and people I always thought would be there, but in the end, everyone who was there was the perfect group to be there. And she was there. And I am so lucky she was.

I'm also so lucky that she got to see the person I picked to be with, and to know him. I'm so glad she got to see me take his hand and put the ring on it and stand out there, in the fall, feet sinking into the ground in the third pair of shoes I'd try to make work on a damp fall day, and say I promise. 

So, being back in the fall air thinking of those things--helps. It helps to find the beauty in the moment and try to shove that in where all the sad is leaking out. 

I do not feel right, or good, or happy save for on the surface of a "good" day right now, but I also know that's probably to be expected. 

I feel more vulnerable but I want to be more transparent.

I feel ... a lot of things I don't really know how to put anywhere, and that's why I'm just shut up. 

If you're reading this, thanks for caring, and I'm sorry I don't know what to do from here. I guess you just keep trying.