I think this might be the first time the 12th has coincided with a sunday, since sunday july 12th 2009. I don't have it in me to look, and it doesn't matter. I feel so badly that I am not better at praying, or disciplined at all with meditation. I feel like I am not sending him enough love, not helping him enough on his journey, not realizing it is his journey, and I also am just so destroyed I can't, I try to pray and I end up vomiting. I used to be able to handle the enormity, and lately I cannot look at it at all. That's it. That's all. I know it will shift. Later, I will force myself to do yoga, I will possibly force myself to sit and pray, I will hurl myself at afternoon Mass, and this day will end. Maybe some goodness will come.
And in related/unrelated thoughts - I was thinking yesterday that we/I need a new word that means: "I don't have anything to say, what you wrote just really got me, and I feel so much, relate so much, and love you, and really don't have anything at all to say because there aren't any words in there that mean anything at all, and anything I actually type means pretty much nothing in comparison, plus I am crying too much to type."
Words are symbols anyway, right? Made me think of when Prince changed his name to some unreproducible character, and then had to be called "the artist formerly known as Prince." Can we come up with something that says all that, some new thing that refers back to all of that that doesn't have any word at all?
From what you have written about Matt, I have a strong feeling that he would be thinking, "All is well with me. Please take care of yourself, Megan." I would not beat myself up for not praying or meditating well enough. There is a time for all of these things, but perhaps it isn't now. Maybe this is a time to be finding ways to live alongside of what you are feeling inside. I know the the sadness, anger, and all of those other thoughts are difficult to deal with and we cannot say, "Don't think about those things." That just doesn't work. However, I believe we can learn to live in parallel with our grief. To make a space for it in our lives, but to go on living too. I am quite certain that Matt, and Don, would not want us to spend our days immersed in sadness. In fact, that's probably about the last thing they would want -- I know I can speak for Don on that count. The best way we can honor our loved ones is to try to find a way to go onwards, remembering them, but also learning to live again.
ReplyDeleteyou are allowed to feel this way ... it is what it is. I wish we all lived closer to each other so we could support each other practically and emotionally. Just sit together sometimes, not even having to talk, you know?
ReplyDeleteI stopped believing in God when Cliff died, not sure if I will believe again? It doesn't bother me really ... I believe in an afterlife and goodness, but I'm no longer sure that there is an entity or whatever you want to call God, as such.
But I equally believe that if you do have faith in God that it is important to find him again in your life, otherwise you will feel that you have lost your love and your faith ... but in your own time, just as you said.
Words fail me when it comes to describing my love and my loss too. There are no words.
But I'm all for making up a couple :-)
Hugs and light to you today,
xxx
Hi Megan. Your right, sometimes there isn't the right word, or group of words, that truly symbolize what we want to say and feel. There are so many times that I read someones blog post, and am left speechless. I sit and stare at the screen not knowing how to convey what their words illicited in me. Sometimes I find the words, other times I end up closing the window. I too often feel bad when this happens, like my lack of action means something negative. Perhaps that is why you feel like you do when you are not praying or meditating. That's a familiar feeling for me as well. Sometimes just getting through the day is a way to honor them, and take care of us.
ReplyDeleteAs for God, he/she understands.
matt does too
ReplyDeletei am sure of it
love
Hugs.
ReplyDelete(Not precisely the right word ... but they are still meant for you).
I'm not a 'spiritual' person. I don't do God or religion and haven't for a very long time. In some ways I think it has been easier for me not having any expectations of things being 'for the best' or 'meant' or part of some great celestial plan - things just are. Living largely in the here and now meant that R's death didn't rock my belief system as well as shattering my life.
ReplyDeleteThese days I do my best to live what Bev so aptly describes as a life in parallel with my grief. I have become very good at locking up the emotions in a little box until I have the time and headspace to look at and react to them.
Continuing to 'live' is important to me. Not because I know it would make him happy. In fact it is just the opposite. Not living would make him bloody furious - angry that he was the one who had to die and I sit around wasting what time I have left here.
I know that none of this really helps, the words just become noise after a while. But I wish it did - the pain in your words is unbearable. Jxx
My beliefs were just so part of me - not even "god," really - just life. My connection to life. That everything was just me getting closer and closer to me. Nothing had to mean anything, nothing was anything. Just life. Just good. But I did always feel, I don't know, partnered, by god-as-I-understood her. More buddhist, really, than anything. Buddhist-science-quantum physics. Deeper and deeper into goodness; being at Home. Whenever crap things happened, or hard things happened, they always turned out for my deepening happiness. This, not so much. So that has rather whacked my operating system.
ReplyDeleteJust a few days before, matt and I were talking about suicide, and he said - who was he to presume to stop someone, if they felt that was their truth. I said - but, what if it really is just temporary, like teenage angst or something? He said - not my business. I have no right to interfere in someone elses' path, or their own truth. ~ I don't know why that story feels relevant to this. Maybe just that god, for me, was finding your own truth. Knowing that there is far more here than I can see or imagine or understand. And I just feel like I lost that guiding goodness.
Dan - I do that same thing. "poignancy is kinship," as an old teacher of mine used to say.
I wonder what Matt would think about suicide now if you had been the one to go? Before I think my attitude would have been similar to his - that it would not be for me to interfere.
ReplyDeleteNow I would do just about anything I could to stop a person killing themself. I know it is not just their path or their truth, and their action would impinge so horrendously on those left behind.
Paths continuously intersect and diverge as we walk down them. Are they ever truly our own?
Yeah - I wonder that too. I think he would still feel the same about others' choices, it would just be a very difficult search for him to find out his own truth. I think my love would be off in the woods for a very long time, by himself, if it were me gone, and he would come back even quieter, even deeper into himself than he was before. Somehow, I'd like to think he would still be a goof, though. His goofy, normal, atypical, friendly with death self.
ReplyDeleteI think his views also came from being in recovery for almost 10 years, and seeing people make such unhealthy, destructive choices, and knowing no one could change that but the person themselves. And, a "what do I know?" belief, too.
On the suicide front, I still think, maybe even moreso, that it would not be for me to interfere, maybe because I don't currently have my old life-orientation of things becoming more and more beautiful. I wish that people wouldn't, because it makes for hell for those who love them. And I don't really have a rousing reason why not to, other than that. At least, in widow-hood, anyway. Other things, I might have something beautiful to say. Someone, I think it might have been andrea? wrote a post awhile back about another widow apparently committing suicide, and I really liked what she said - that while she couldn't think of any good reason NOT to, she was still pissed off that the woman had. Something like - I can't give you any reason, and I don't necessarily believe that life will work out, or feel better, or ever be good again, especially if no one's day-to-day reality would be impacted, so I can't encourage you that way. But I still think offing yourself is a cop-out, and it's not fair to other widows who are still struggling on. ~ I just tried to find that post, but no luck. It might not have been andrea, don't know. It was good though.