The other day a best friend asked how I was doing, and I knew she meant for real. She’s one of the good ones. The honest ones. The ones that aren’t afraid to dig in deep, or sit in silence. She’s one who shows up. Who keeps asking, and offering, and just doing. She’s always there.
So when she asked how I was doing, I knew she meant it. Like really, how was I feeling? What was I thinking and what did I need for support and what did my grief look like today?
And the truth is, I am tired. A kind of tired I’ve never felt before. I am so, so sad. I am feeling completely and utterly lost.
I’m tired and sad and lost. I’m anxious and irritable and more days than not I walk around with a major case of RBF.
I’m tired and sad and lost, but guess what else? Relatively speaking, I’m okay.
Isn’t that weird? Just a few months after the loss of my child and – all things considered – I guess I’m okay.
I’m up every day and back to our normal programming. I take my daughter to daycare in the morning and go to play dates with friends and find time to go grocery shopping and even say yes to social events. I laugh over dinner with my best friends and make random small talk at parties.
I’m doing all of the normal things and from the outside things may look normal. Because truthfully? Many times throughout the day I do feel normal… I look and act and feel normal, until I’m not.
And in those moments – in those minutes or days or weeks that feel terrible? I’m here to remind you I am so tired and so sad and so lost.
Grief comes and goes in waves. Some crests are high, and crash quickly, giving way to a calm. Sometimes they crash one on top of another, and sometimes there’s enough space between them for you to stand up, get your footing, feel steady again. And then other times, that wave you were expecting, the little one that you know how to manage? How to survive? Sometimes it’s a mother f*&%ing tsunami.
