Grief part 2

Grief is a strange thing. There is not a set of instructions on how to grieve.

There are times when I smile and feel awful for doing so, I am not supposed to feel like smiling am I?
There are times when I can’t form a sentence, when I have delved so far into my inner world that asking a simple thing like “What time is it?” seems to drain all of my energy.

I cry at inappropriate times, standing in line to get on the airplane, at the bookstore counter.

Yet, I cannot cry at appropriate times either.

I feel huge anxiety every time I move into new interactions because people want to say the right thing to me. People want to give me comfort, want to embrace me, and when they do, the wound opens up fresh, the emotion threatens to send me sobbing in the arms of near strangers.

I wonder how people would react, casual acquaintances, when offering condolences, if I did just let myself cry in their arms.

The hardest part is staving off that wave of emotions with every new “I am so sorry for your loss.”

I know, I should just let it out right…I was taught to stuff it. It is not so easy to overcome that teaching.

Sometimes I want to carry around a notepad and just write out what I am feeling, for me that is so much easier.

I stumble over my spoken word, it cannot convey what it is that I feel. Spoken words for me just tumble around like rough rocks in my mouth. I cannot speak the depth of love and gratitude that I have, the depth of grief, I cannot speak tears into my eyes.