Sometimes I think we love people so much that the grief we feel in their absence is the only sufficient substitute for the love you once felt...or still feel but now no longer have a recipient.
What is one to do when the object of love leaves, either by death, estrangement, break up or whatever, and you are still left with the love, all of it? I think that is what grief is, the love becoming dislodged from its object. And all you are left with is all this love with no target anymore. No one to give it to. And you don’t know what the fuck to do with it, and it feels like all that love is drowning you.
So the love morphs into denial, fear, bargaining, anger, and perhaps finally acceptance. I mean, we eventually move on. We usually don’t succumb to the grief, it pulls us under for a period of time, it makes us question our sanity, we do and say crazy things because we are in fact crazy with grief. Some people do not survive the grief, they become another casualty of love removed. And this can be done by causing their own death or by living like they are already dead.
Grief comes for everyone eventually. None of us can out run it. None of us can avoid it. I think it is true that we grieve how we loved and the stronger the love and bond, the greater the grief. Seems a bit unfair really. Seems like if you loved someone with all that you had, you might be given a bit of a pass on having to now survive the loss of your beloved and survive your own intense and all consuming grief. Seems like it should be that way but it isn’t.
There are some things in life we just can’t get over, or around, or under. Some things in life just fuck us up and alter our course forever. We cannot move forward and we cannot go back. Most people’s grief fades with time but for some people, the fading and lessening of intensity only causes the grief to go under ground and really fuck things up.
I was lying in bed last night and I realized that I do not know what I am doing with myself. I have this amazing life but that I feel so incredibly broken when it comes to love, well romantic love anyway. I love my parents, children and friends. I love my co-workers and pets. I love a lot of people. I even love myself today which is new. But a man, that I am still grieving and I don’t know how to get over it. I do not know how to move on. I have come to accept the over of it all. I have come to know that perhaps it was never what I thought it was. I have come to trust that all that is removed from me is likely in my best interest. But even so, I do not know how to go on. I do not know how to ever allow myself to feel or be that vulnerable again. To have felt so seen, loved, adored and cared for feels like a once in a lifetime thing. Feels like I had my turn and now I don’t know what to do. Continue to empty date or relationship? To what end? I just feel broken, unable to reconnect, unable to rebuild a connection that was severed. I feel lost. And just unable to keep up appearances anymore. I am not ok. And yet, I don’t know what else to do.
It appears to me that all I have left is grief and it has kind of become its own reward. The love that remained has mutated into this misanthropic idea that love is not meant for me. That I cannot or will not ever feel that way about anyone else, ever. And while most people that love me would tell you, they do not and did not see him worthy of me to begin with. Regardless, I loved him. With all that I had. With everything. And he is the only one that I ever loved that way. And today I am way beyond thinking he will ever come back and even further gone from wanting him back. I can see that a life with him would be fraught and hard and not what is best for me at all. But the vacancy that exists inside me, still leaks grief everywhere. And I just don’t know what to do with it anymore.
What the fuck do you do when you know that the person is gone but you can’t stop loving them? How can you ever love someone else when they remain firmly lodged in your heart? How can you ever open to another when you remain chained and locked up, consumed by your own grief?
I don’t know what to do with the grief that remains. I don’t know how to rid myself of it or to even love someone else. I am so lost and broken and sad and tired of feeling like this. I have tried moving on but that has become the most sad prospect for me and anyone who tries to date me. I am not really there, they get only a shell, only a part of me, my heart being unattainable and aloof. I don’t want it to be this way but feel powerless to do anything else.
I am not sure the grief is even about him anymore. I think it is about me. I think it is about me feeling unable to connect, be vulnerable, be real. And I am so very tired of it. My pattern of engagement and then retreat so tiring and down right exhausting. But giving up the strategy feels like complete defeat. Because I would be left alone with my self and then the grief might over take me, drowning me for sure this time.
Not a very cheery blog today. I know. Sorry. But this is what is on my mind. This is my truth today. This is where I am. I am lost. I am sad. I am grieving even though I am not really even sure what anymore. I just feel so incredibly lost, alone and broken. I am trying to pick up the pieces but like a child who attempts to fix the broken vase, my attempts render the vase ruined forever. That is what it feels like today that my attempts to make it better only make it worse. I feel stuck and filled with a panicky dread that will be shushed but won’t ever leave. It dogs my footsteps and remains my one true constant and faithful companion, because all that is left of the love, is the grief.
