proteanme

The grieving know that grief is more than a single emotion, that, in fact, it is a doorway to all the other emotions, from anger to something approaching joy.

I’ve recently become aware of some loss and tragedy in the lives of a couple friends. Since hearing the news I find myself thinking of the small and ordinary pieces of their days that must be taking on some different shape and meaning. And not one of their choosing, as far as I can tell from my own experience.

I also know of some other friends or friends of friends who are in the middle of other kinds of changes. Changes that involve some type of upheaval, like break-ups and big moves and job loss. Life got altered for them too.

And everybody is kinda standing apart from the routine but negotiating with it at the same time. I don’t know if that makes sense. I keep picturing crying in one’s coffee, not euphemistically, but more as image of how one grieves and “gets on with it” at the same time.
My heart and my mind is with a lot of people these days.

Most days I don’t know any more. I don’t know in a way I can’t explain. My whole world’s been re-configured but then again everything pretty much looks the same. I mean I do the same things, see the same people. I don’t play music as much and I’ve gained a little weight because I ate a lot of junk food to get me through the thick part of grief. But it’s really quite possible that a whole lot of life is about one manages the whole, whole lot of stuff that one doesn’t know.

Used to be people like me were called half orphans. I think it’s apt. If someone right now were to ask me what I am, that’s what I’d say — I’m half orphan.