Grieving

A good friend called me earlier tonight to catch up on life. The last time we talked, she told me about a situation that had caused her a fair amount of anger and pain. I asked how she was doing in this regard and heard an answer that made all too much sense: the situation was no longer immediate for her temporally or spatially and so it was easiest just to let it lie. She felt she was doing better but had suspicions that underneath the story went much deeper. I wish I did not understand her so well.

In many areas of my life I am driven and relentless; in recent years I've chosen to become even more so. Despite this, I sometimes find it is too easy to mistake distance for true healing, moving on for moving through. I can't count how many times the ghosts I thought I had conquered have reappeared down the road or how often in unguarded moments I've realized that my dealing with an issue amounted to little more than ignoring it. For me, grief is one of these areas.

I've thought a lot about grief over the past six weeks or so, not because anything particularly sorrowful or traumatic has occurred in my life (quite the opposite, in fact) but because I've realized that there is some loss from my past that I haven't fully felt. I know this because it pops up on my emotional radar at odd moments here and there, usually when I'm least expecting it: after a particularly exhilarating workout, upon getting a lovely email from a new friend, when watching a favorite old movie, or when kneeling at the communion altar. It comes as a sadness, sometimes gently, sometimes more rudely, and it always feels both foreign and familiar.

I know that what I really need to do is get myself away for a little while -- away from all the stimuli that allow me to ignore the underlying grief, away from all the triggers that bring it back to my attention -- and let myself just have it out. I've known this for a while now. I have not done it. Yet.

Part of me is afraid that I don't really know how to grieve and that trying to won't truly work. Part of me doesn't fully know what it is I'm grieving and is afraid that if I let myself find out, I won't know how to recover from that knowledge. Part of me knows that if I don't do this soon, it will continue to pop up, and it will continue to affect my life in unforeseen ways. And part of me knows I'm just making excuses.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.