Convo with Myself: Grief

Hey.

Hey.

You’re feeling sad, eh?

Yeah.

How does it feel in your body?

Like a weight. Dragging down the lines of my face, like my eyes and the corners of my mouth. Sinking feeling in my heart, like it’s dipping into my stomach – a bit of anxiety. I feel cold and tired. My eyes are burning from crying.

Why are you feeling this way?

I think that when I get a taste of what could be, I’m reminded of what is not yet and all that’s kept me from it. And even though I’m fully aware that practicing gratitude and being present for what is could get me out of this funk, I don’t want to do all that work right now. This is feeling like work right now, to be honest…

So why are you talking to me?

I guess I want to feel better, I want to understand myself and what triggers these moments, and this has been one way for me to do that.

Aren’t you trying to get out of your head and into your body more? How does this help with that?

Well, even though writing requires a lot of thinking, the thinking has to go through my body to come out of my fingers. So in a way, it is body processing. Releasing. There’s some movement involved. Maybe I’m reaching. Though playing music also does this for me, especially when I’m on the drums. Full-body expression.

Can you just let yourself be sad, and not move at all?

You gonna jump out of my subconscious and take care of all my responsibilities for me? Anyway, staying still just numbs me out sometimes when I’m feeling big feelings. The feelings get sticky and settle onto my bones like tar.

Maybe you need that - maybe they’re holding you down for a reason. Maybe they want you to notice something you can only see if you’re still.

I know you’re right, but I think I’m moving into the angry phase of my grief journey and I feel irritable.

Ok great, you’ll get a boost of energy to engage me. Hear me out. What is our sadness telling us right now? What is it making clear about our needs and desires? And let’s answer this from a place of honoring those needs and desires – trying not to be critical about them, or to explain them away because they’re not in alignment with your politics, or to make them seem insignificant because you think they’re a burden on others.

That was messy. Now the feelings are “ours”?

I mean, if you’re gonna have a codependent relationship, let it be with yourself.

Hilarious. Alright I’ll answer. My sadness is saying that I’ve lost something that needs to be let go. And it isn’t just about a moment or a person – it’s a whole fucking story.

Hmmm. I actually want you to start with what you’ve been feeling you want and/or need.

Ok… I want creative partnership. I want someone to play with. To make art with me. To make music with me. To experiment and make a mess and a laugh with me. I want someone to fuck. Someone to cuddle. Someone to kiss me in the rain. I want to build a home with someone. Build community. Someone to take responsibility with me. I want a co-parent. Someone who will respect and honor the sacred nature of mine and Luca’s relationship. Someone excited to get to know him, to nourish his growth, to partner with me in the moments I need to be validated or challenged to grow as a parent. I want someone to make sense of the world with. I want someone to have faith in/with me. Someone to grow with me. To change with me. To question everything and start all over with me. Over and over until we feel we’ve exhausted all possibilities for co-r/evolution.

Great. And what’s the story that you need to let go of?

My attachment to any ideas of how that person is going to come into my life, whether there is any one person who can partner with me in this way, whether there’s even a group of people who can meet all of these needs, and that I’m even ready for this type of partnership.

You don’t need to “be ready” to be loved.

No, but you can only love at the level at which you love yourself – and my standards are deep. While I’m capable of so much love, including self-love, I’m realizing that I still have work to do to integrate the recent lessons I’ve learned, moving them from my head and into my actions. And a lot of this is about trusting myself with my body. In the literal sense, like protecting my body, making decisions that keep me healthy and whole and autonomous when in physical relationships with other bodies; but also in how I show up in my loving relationships. Basically, I have major trust issues with myself, which extends to trust issues with others, and I’ve just become aware of the roots of some of those issues, so I need some time to give them attention.

Do you have a plan?

I do. And I’m really proud of myself for making one. I’ve got a talk therapist, an energy worker, my sister, my gynecologist, and a couple of friends supporting me and helping hold me accountable to myself. Holistic healthcare team.

So what’s triggering all of this grief again?

I met someone I connected with very quickly, very deeply. A soul-friend. And because he’s cute and there was also a strong intellectual and creative connection, it got me feeling sexually stimulated as well. I haven’t had a full body/mind/spirit shiver like that for a long time… and it was reciprocated. He said he felt it too. I couldn’t believe it. A portal opened up in my imagination leading to a multi-verse of possibilities if we nurtured the connection, and I definitely got attached to some of those pathways. Could this be the person I’ve been waiting for? I thought. It was exhilarating and terrifying at the same time, and so I oscillated between letting my emotions completely take over and guide my communication and self-expression, and strategically and intentionally setting up structure so I wouldn’t get carried away.

[This is where this blog ended in December, but I never posted. Picking back up again on July 18, 2023 because here I am again…]

So yeah… here I am, seven months later, and find myself in the same situation with the same person ‘cause it takes me a few cycles of suffering to get the lesson. He took back what he was feeling, wasn’t ready, wasn’t sure it was something he wanted, wasn’t sure how he felt. He set boundaries, I set boundaries, and well, long story short – we’re not even friends anymore.

What’s your analysis? What are you going to do differently?

I’m trying not to gaslight myself, so maybe analysis isn’t the right word here – too logic based. I’m trying to be in my heart about things and not pathologize my own or someone else’s complex humanity. I’ve experienced so much loss recently – like many people, whether directly or indirectly – and I don’t want it to box me in. The thing is, openness to me is curiosity, and my curiosity happens through meaning-making, and because I am human, I’m limited to whatever frameworks I have in my toolbox to make meaning… quite the conundrum. And ironically – it feels like my need to make meaning out of what was happening between me and this other human is what drove him away, or perhaps a better way to frame that is: what drove me to decide I didn’t want to invest my time and energy into the relationship anymore.

So what I’m doing differently? From when I first started writing this in December… I’m letting grief just be a part of me, my travel companion (I read recently that’s how you know you’re healing). When I fall in love, I build a whole world connecting me and the other person. I think a lot of us do that – we have inside jokes, shared language, shared culture. So there’s a whole lot around me that reminds me of him. But rather than avoid it, or suppress the emotions when they come up, I just flow with it. A song pops up, and because I often listen to music in the car, I let myself cry. Stuff like that, without shaming myself for having the feelings, or making me self-sabotage by reaching out and moving back into the same pattern again.

And… I’m spending more time with myself, investing in myself. I just moved, and I chose to share a room with my 5 year old (I’ve got the bottom bunk) so that we can have a music room. I’ve signed up for a burlesque class this fall with Madazon Can-Can. I’m getting more serious about my consulting and coaching work and my creative partnerships with friends. I’m re-committing myself to my child, and creating the kind of home culture and parenting practices that feel aligned with my values. And I’m getting clearer about what it is that I really need, practically, from my most intimate relationships to bring out the best in me beyond this intense desire to merge souls (without being so critical about that drive, knowing it also has a purpose, and that perhaps what I need is to be in better relationship with that part of me so it has space to develop in more healthy ways).

Sounds like you’ve grown a lot since the beginning of this conversation seven months ago.

I sure hope so. Thank you for always being here for me.