I'm hoping for a sign, pray that I'm anything but fine

They say ("they" being my grandma's friends...as in "they say" you shouldn't do this or "they say" you should always do that). So, "they" say there are 7 stages to grief.

Once I realized that grief was as good an explanation of any for what was happening to me, I started to actually pay attention to what was happening. Being academic and somewhat of a nerd can be helpful when you're so caught up in the hornet's nest in your head and car wreck of your heart that you need a moment to regroup. You do that by being a nerd. You read books on your situation and take notes; you dog ear pages and refer back to other books you've read for a totally unrelated reason. In this research for maning, I came to grief. I was trying to explain to someone that my emotion was coming in waves: sorrow, anger, fear. Each were erupting, sometimes without notice, and often overlapping one another; the push and pull of the emotions playing like the tide on my already damaged heart.

The epiphany of grief lit up as I remembered quoting Joan Didion from her book The Year of Magical Thinking in my thesis (close to being done, but quite railroaded by recent events) as she described the waves her grief came in following the death of her husband.

I realized that in a way, I have suffered a death. The death of all I believed was true up until Jan. 14th 2011. Life now comes in two stages: before and after. If I look at pictures I have to think: was that before, or after? Songs, letters, cards - any memnto, any memory or keepsake all get sorted into those same before and after piles. And from after until now, that was the death. There is no truth in that pile. It's void. It's a mirage, it's shit. So the new pile, the one starting January 15th is the rebirth pile. That's the reincarnation of all that was the before pile. and there isn't much there yet in that new category, a few crumbs maybe, and even those keep getting swept away when the tide rolls in.

Back to grief.

Seven stages:
1) shock and denial
2)Pain and guilt
3)anger and bargaining
4)depression, reflection, loneliness
5)The upward turn
6)Reconstruction and working through
7)acceptance and hope

So of course these stages aren't worked through in the order they are necessarily represented here, and they can overlap; some may last longer than others. I am not even sure that I believed in this kind of thing until I was mired in the muck of it. But here I am, and I am desperately trying to reach toward the final idea of hope. Acceptance too, I suppose.

Denial, that came first. That's been a way of life, we know this by now. But denial lasted all the way up until the proof was being smashed into my face like one does with a dog that shits in the house (we don't do that to our new puppy, btw). The shock was immediate. It was an actual physical response. Cold, shaking, unclear thinking. I still think I am in shock. Sometimes when I think about all that has happened, I find my heart beating fast and I feel I might hypervenilate.

The pain was also immediate and it's an ache to the core like nothing I have ever known save for the death of a loved one. I wrote about this as well when I was writing my personal piece for my thesis and I likened it to a cast iron skillet being wedged into my chest.

I wondered over and over, what had I done? Was this my fault? What could I have done better, different? If only I had done this or that this way or that way. I still wonder. I wonder if I am handling things now the way I should. Nothing I do feels right.

Anger. Punching biting kicking scrathing yelling seething spitting cussing despising hating hurting destroying broken finger broken heart broken promises broken life

Despression, relfection, lonliness. I have been in this stage for long before before and after started. I see now with more clarity why I was feeling depressed. A long cycle of things that started when after started. I have always been a bit lonley. I kind of like it that way. Reflection is a daily occuracne for me. The only difference is now my daily activites are interrupted by reflection in a way that isn' very productive. One minute I am shoveling out from three feet of snow, the next I am lost in thought and sent spiraling back through the previous three stages to the point i feel I am back at the startting place all over again.

The upward turn. Every day is an upward turn. Despite all the downward spiraling, the reeling back, the constant feeling like I am a hanster on a wheel spinning and apinning and getting no where, everyday that we're still here, every hour longer I go than I've gone before without completely losing it, those all feel like upward turns. I am still waiting for some moment when I truly feel some kind of "I see the light!" clarity. It's still very very dark here.

Reconstruction and working through is happening as I type and is all integrated into the upward turn. It's slow like molasses, but I pray to god just as sweet.

Acceptance and hope. This one seems the hardest. Not the hope, but the accpetance. Not only of what has happened but of my role in it as well. Because nothing is my fault. But something has to reflect my responsibility to the life both before and after and up until the rebrith, and then including that as well. I didn't make the choices that were made, but I was there when the making was being done. I have to accept that I wasn't there as fully present as I should have been (unless this train of thought means i need to go back to pain and guilt?) oy.

So, there it is. My journey. I never liked the journey metaphor for my life with CF, and I like it even less for my new life reincarnate. But I'm not sure what other idea works for this except to say that I'm there at that fork in the road, the road less traveled, the road not taken. My prayers are raw and deep and yearning. I'm begging for a sign, for the knowledge that I have indeed opted to follow the right road.