Dancing With A Limp

“You will lose someone you can’t live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly – that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.” – Anne Lamott, American writer

It has been a hard few months for us at Summit Ascent. Both Jim and I have been dealing with a lot loss in our life – from family members to dear friends passing. We deal with the sadness and grief in our own way, but it is interesting how we are currently walking parallel paths at this time.

As our experiences are different and as we are different people I would not presume to speak for Jim. As for me, I know that I get frustrated when people throw platitudes at me “It gets better with time” or “He’s in a better place”. I’m not sure if that is meant to comfort me or them, but it is less than helpful for me.

A few months ago, I lost my uncle, a cousin, and cousin-in-law on the same Saturday. It hit me hard. Later, my uncle’s memorial service was the same day I lost a friend in Washington. Perhaps it is a sign of my time in life, where I am now old enough that I am being invited to more funerals than weddings or baby showers. I take solace in the face that this is hopefully just a pause until the next cycle of weddings and babies come with the next generation. But in dealing with this cycle of life I currently find myself in, it is dark. I let Jim do most of the writing for a while because everything I was writing came out very dark and depressive. I was not able to help it because that is how I was feeling. My writing was a reflection of my inner life. I would try to smile and “fake it until I make it”, but inside I still felt angry, sad at the losses. I was angry at God, angry at the people for leaving, angry at the people responsible for their deaths (which broadly included cancer, drunk drivers, infections, and God). I then felt angry about still feeling sad. I tried to throw myself into work, and kept myself busy both at the office and during my leisure time. The effect was just that I was tired and depressed.

Since I’ve been coming out of it, and I can feel it, I have been writing more, both on this site and in journals. My writing is also part of how I know that I am getting better because not all of it reads so depressed (this article excepted perhaps).

My healing started when I gave myself permission to sleep, when I gave myself permission to be still in the solitude, when I gave myself permission to feel, and when I gave myself permission to laugh. I have also spent a lot of time reading humorous books by Terry Pratchett, which is a form of escapism probably, but it feels good to laugh and it has been a long time since I laughed so much. I have been doing a lot of muddling about the nature of evil and loss. I still don’t have any answers and I’m not sure that I even know all the questions yet, but I continue to muddle and struggle.

I have not forgotten about the people that I have lost, I still carry them in my heart and memories. I will still cry at times, (like writing this article), while remembering them. What I have done though is to heal, to regroup and rebuild myself. I am not the same as I was, but I believe I am a better version of who I was, having built off of the experience. Perhaps, because I am still close to the pain, I very much believe in the quote at the beginning – I have healed, but my heart still hurts when the weather turns. I am still dancing, if perhaps with a slight limp.

So because Jim and I are walking parallel paths, we have decided to bear witness to this part of the human experience. Our next several posts will focus on grief, mourning, and recovering.

#Grief #Loss #Solitude #Darkness #Laughter #Healing #TheJourney #Depression #Anger