The Pitch-Black Room

Posted on by stilllearning2b

Heartbreak is a pitch-black room.

At first, you’re disoriented. Confused. How did the familiar world become replaced by this sarcophagus of grief?

There are no windows. No doors. Only darkness.

And you’re all alone. You can hear life as usual just outside your walls, but you are separated from the activity.

The air feels funny. It’s too dense, making every breath a struggle. It presses down on you as you try to move. It feels as though it’s squeezing your very life away.

And yet somehow, your lungs keep following orders. Inhale. Exhale. Repeat.

In that pitch-black room, there is no day or night.

No hot or cold.

No anything, really.

You scream, both in an attempt to release your pain and in an attempt to feel it. The sound echoes off the walls, filling the void until the vibrations cease.

 

You find that you’re going through the motions. More an act of habit than an act of living.

You dutifully lay down in the bed only to realize later that you’ve been staring at the ceiling for hours, sleep remaining elusive.

You prepare a meal only to sit down and realize that you’re not hungry.

You drink. Not because you’re thirsty, but because some primal part of brain tells you that you must.

 

You despise the room, with its absence of light and its reverberations of pain. But you also begin to grow comfortable with the room. You know its every corner. And you become accustomed to its confines. It’s life distilled into its most bitter essence. Terrible, but familiar. You begin to forget that there is anything other than this pitch-black room.

The first glimpse of light catches you off-guard. It feels good and wrong all at once. It’s welcome, yet it doesn’t belong. You even feel guilty for smiling at the glow. As though you’re somehow betraying the solemness that the room demands.

You decide to investigate further, drawn to the possibility that there is more than darkness. But as you approach, the light flickers out.

Over the next days…weeks…months… who knows? time has no meaning here…the light reappears of its own volition. Sometimes it fades as soon as it appears. And sometimes the light remains for some time.

You become hopeful. And then defeated, mad at yourself for letting optimism in. After all, this is now your room.

But still the light persists, growing just a little brighter every day.

Until one day, you are able to see the room more clearly. There’s a window after all. And you can see outside. You want to be outside. You desperately search for a way out. But find nothing.

 

Pacing in frustration, you begin to tell yourself that you’re stuck. That this darkness is all that you’ll know. You repeat it so much that it becomes gospel. So much so that you’re unable to accept the appearance of door in the once-smooth wall.

And then once you see it, you find that you’re both excited about a way out and frightened about the possibility of escape. Because what if you take that step out only to have your heart broken again?

You finally summon your courage, take that tentative step. Your first ventures out are short. You return to the room when you remember your sadness and often, you find your way back there through no reason at all.

The visits slowly become less frequent. Their duration shortens. You find yourself becoming more a part of the outside world and less a resident of the room.

The room is always there. Its walls are solid, bricks of heartache mortared with tears. You know that you can stop by and visit. And sometimes you seem to find yourself there when the calendar reaches certain days or a memory is triggered.

But you also know that you can step out of the room again. And you can close the door behind you.

The pitch-black room holds the memories, and it no longer holds you.

 

 

 

 

 

The Life You Had is Gone

Posted on by stilllearning2b
life gone divorce

“The life you had is gone.”

I would tell myself as a lament and in an attempt to force acceptance.

“You now have the opportunity to create a new life.”

I would continue, in a hope that optimism also operated on the “fake it until you make it” principle.

“You can now build a life you want. A better life.”

I was desperately trying to see the good in the devastation that had become my existence.

“But I don’t want a new life! I want my old life. With my husband. I want our imagined and planned-for future. I want what I had!”

The pain of loss and the fear of starting over challenged my resolution to move forward with the energy of an obstinate child.

I didn’t want anything new. Anything else. Anything different.

I wanted what I had. Or at least, what I thought I had.

When I tried to picture a new life, a life without him, my brain responded with the muscle memory of a comic artist who has drawn only a single character. All I could picture was him. I would see myself older and he, changed as well by the years, would be by my side. Like watching a silent movie, I envisioned the life experiences we would daydream about on long car rides or late nights on the deck. I saw things changing around me – new jobs, new homes, new friends. But always, he was the constant.

Even as I reminded myself that it was gone, I resisted letting go. I wanted what was known. Comfortable. I railed against the unfairness of it. The theft of my dreams among the obliteration of his promises.

“But it’s gone,” I reminded myself throughout these visions. “You’re wasting your energy. Throwing good money after bad.” I became my own drill sergeant. “Move on! Drop it! Let it go!”

“But if I let it go, I have nothing,” I whispered back at myself.

I tried to force a new identity on the man in my life vision, but it was like trying to fit a child’s mask on a grown man – it couldn’t block it all. I tried to blur his face in my mind, to smudge him enough that he could be anyone. If my inner voice and I had been female characters in a movie, we would have surely failed the Bechdel Test because all we talked about was a man.

“It’s gone. It’s gone. It’s gone,” became the words that punctuated my footfalls as I ran countless miles in an attempt to purge him from my body. At night, I filled the pages of my journal with both memories and pleas.

I held no love for the man I battled in court. He was a stranger. A monster. I wept for the man that I thought I wed. I cried for the loss of an illusion. But damn, it sure felt real.

But illusions rarely stand the test of time. Like most apparitions, it began to lose it opacity with time. I started to accept the delusions inherent in the former life I pined for. The old existence with its new blemishes no longer held the familiar appeal.

“I can’t build anything new until I release the old,” I was mouthing as I woke up from a dream. A dream where I was alone. Alone and happy.

“The life you had is gone.”

I reminded myself again. Only this time the words had lost their dreadful weight and were infused with a sense of curiosity.

“The life you had is gone.”

“And I wonder what will come next.”

Ten Life Events That Can Trigger Unexpected Grief

Posted on by stilllearning2b

On Friday we said goodbye to a dear friend of my husband’s. The grief was thick in the air as we shared stories and perused old photos. (An aside – I think listening to the eulogy my husband delivered is the proudest I’ve ever been of him!) None of us were surprised by the heartache, this man’s life impacted many and his his death leaves a void.

Later that day, I did some maintenance work on my school website. I found myself caught off guard by a sense of loss when I encountered the roster from last year’s eighth graders, who have now moved on to the high school. There is no tragedy in this situation; children are expected to move on. Yet even though my rational mind understand this, my heart still grieves a little for these individuals that will no longer fill my classroom.

We expect to mourn the major losses in life: death, divorce and estrangement. Yet grief isn’t limited to the obvious. In fact, any time there is loss (or simply the feeling of loss), there is grief. Here are ten common life situations that can lead to unexpected grief:

 

Having a Child

From the moment a child is born, the parents begin the process of letting go. Some experience a yearning for the freedoms that life offered prior to children, grieving the loss of the life they had even as they feel overwhelmed with love for their offspring. Others struggle with accepting the child they have and grieve for the child they dreamed would be theirs. For all parents, the completion of one stage and the advancement to another is bittersweet, both a time of letting go and a time of celebration. And of course, at some point, the child is no longer a child. “Empty nest syndrome” is simply a culturally-approved way of describing the grief that accompanies the launching of children.

Graduation

Look at the faces at any graduation and you’ll observe a mixture of excitement for the attainment of a goal, fear of the next step and grieving for the completion of an era. Graduation signals the end of the identify as “student.” There may be other, related, losses if a move soon follows graduation. Finally, for many, graduation serves as a benchmark for the end of childhood, prompting a grieving process for the end of a life stage.

 

Marriage

Much like with the birth of a child, marriage may signal the end of a certain lifestyle. Even when the change is welcomed, there may be some sadness for the life that was traded in. In addition, some find that by choosing one person, they grieve the loss of the potential of choosing others.

 

Moving

The most obvious loss that accompanies moving is the lack of access to friends and/or family. Other casualties are not so apparent. You may find that you grieve for the way the light used to shine into your former kitchen or that you’re still aching for your old neighborhood coffeeshop. This sadness over the change often leads to a feeling that the move was a mistake.

 

Aging

Bodies break down. And as they lose efficiency and display more wear and tear, it’s easy to grieve for the younger – and more resilient – self. It’s funny, most of us are self-critical about our bodies, especially when we are young. And then we look back at old photographs and wonder how we could have ever disparaged that youthful and healthy body. Aging-related grief may be over form or function as both looks and health tend to decline.

 

Fertility Struggles

I am happy to see the attention that this is now receiving. Couples that struggle with fertility are in an endless cycle of hope and despair, grieving for the pregnancies that don’t occur or the ones that end in miscarriage or stillbirth. Additionally, there is mourning for the lack of “normal” fertility as they observe others bear children without any obvious issues.

 

Health-Related Changes

I had to go gluten free over eleven years ago. And I grieved over bread, tears and everything. Health problems often dictate lifestyle changes, whether it be giving up a type of food or staying away from certain activities. These changes can be more difficult than anticipated. When you’re told you can no longer do something, you mourn for the time when you faced no such restrictions.

 

Retirement

Like graduation, retirement also signals a shift in your identity. Additionally, it is often closing out one life stage (adulthood) and entering another (AARP mailer recipient). This is a common time for people to grieve the life choices they made (or didn’t make) because they begin to realize that time is limited.

 

Eliminating Material Items

Even for the non-hoarders, material items often carry emotional weight. As such, when we take a load to Goodwill or hold a garage sale, there is often an ache that accompanies the release of the items. These things have been allowed to symbolize a person or a particular moment in time. And so by relinquishing the items, we are allowing ourselves to let go.

 

Making Decisions

If you opt for Choice A, you have eliminated the possibility of selecting Option B. And that’s how life often works – we make a series of decisions, each one eliminating the possibility of deciding to take a different path. And sometimes, we become overwhelmed with all of the roads not taken and we grieve for the imagined possibilities that are left unexplored.

 

 

Loss and therefore, grief, are a normal part of life. It’s okay to mourn what you no longer have. Just keep in mind that grieving is not meant to be a full-time job. Learn how to live while you weep, find gratitude while you grieve and move forward even as you honor what was.

Five Healthy Ways to Fill the Void After Divorce (And What to Look Out For!)

Posted on by stilllearning2b

It’s official – we’re actively looking for a new dog (or two!) to bring into our home after the sudden loss of Tiger. It’s not easy. Brock and I both are vacillating between wanting to claim a dog ASAP to bring life back into our home and canine love back into our hearts and hesitating because so far, none of them have felt quite right. Adding to that is the very real desire to want to save them all.

Brock ordered a likeness of Tiger made by Shelter Pups for my Christmas present.

It’s amazing.

Made by Shelter Pups.
The real deal.

 

It’s hard to think and act rationally when we’re feeling so emotional. We are trying to be deliberate and intentional in our decisions and yet we keep questioning our choices too. Are we saying “no” to a particular dog because they’re not the right fit or because they’re not Tiger? Are we really ready to welcome a new companion, or are we still seeking a way to plug the hole in our hearts?

As we’re navigating this, I keep finding myself thinking about the emptiness I felt after divorce. There was an impulse to stuff myself full of every opportunity to avoid feeling the loss. Sometimes, I was able to resist that pull to fill the void through imprudent and unhealthy means that would make me feel better in the moment, but not in the long run. And other times, I allowed myself to believe in the false promises whispered by certain practices, telling me that I could feel better immediately.

Here are five unhealthy ways to fill the void that we tend to gravitate towards after divorce and also five healthier ways to address the emptiness.  Do you relate to any of these?

 

Why It’s Important to Resist the Urge to Immediately Fill the Void After Loss

Posted on by stilllearning2b

It’s hard coming home right now.

The front window is empty.

The halls are quiet.

And there is no canine companion to great me as I enter.

I caught myself scanning the front of PetSmart today, half-hoping that they had an adoption event going on. And that’s just the latest urge of many to select a new puppy that I’ve experienced in the past week. The desire to immediately fill that dark cavity in my heart, to fill the silent vacuum with the cacophony and enthusiasm of youth, is powerful.

Yet it is too soon to give in to that yearning.

Because right now, that longing is coming from a place of grief, of desperation for the pain to fade and for what we lost to be returned. Bringing a new dog in now would be less from a desire for them and more from an attempt to fill the Tiger-sized crater in our home.

None of us likes to sit with pain. To be still and experience the aching longing and hollowed heart that follows loss. We seek to fill that chasm with whatever is at hand and of interest.

In times of loss, some turn to food, finding temporary comfort in a sense of physical fullness. Others enter the dating scene prematurely in an attempt to find the person (or persons) that make the emptiness less noticeable. When an abyss opens within a relationship, some look elsewhere to fill themselves and others may decide that the addition of a child will top off the cavity.

It’s a natural urge. We want to fill ourselves up so that the loss is no longer so conspicuous. We want to distract ourselves with the new in an attempt to forget the old or in an effort to ignore the broken. We want to rush through the heartbreak into a new beginning. We want to feel good and we want to forget that good is not a permanent state.

Yet there is purpose in spending time in mourning. There is a benefit to sitting with the pain for some time. Just as there is a season between autumn and spring, we need some time to simply be with the discomfort and the yearning.

It is a space where what was can be remembered and honored. It is a reminder that all things have a beginning and an end. It is an opportunity to reconnect with yourself and with what is important as you take inventory of what is around you. And perhaps most importantly, it is a place where the power of gratitude – for what was, what is and what can be – is boundless.

As for Brock and I, we will absolutely be welcoming a new puppy (or two!) into our home  at some point. But before we do, we need to make sure that we’re at a place where we are moving from a desire to bring in new life, not from an attempt to displace the pain we feel now. We need to fully grieve our Tiger so that a new dog is not tasked with the impossible job of filling his shoes. And we need to take this time to reflect on all that Tiger brought to us and honor his memory and spirit.

Meanwhile, I need to be careful around PetSmart…