The Simple Truth

I'm beginning to understand the truth of grief — you never truly get over it. Whenever I think I've reached a stage of acceptance and peace, grief has a way of swinging around and coming at me from a different direction, and it always takes me by surprise.

Yesterday was a good day. I started in on my novel for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and managed to write the allotted number of words in just a few hours, which pleased me. I'm such a slow writer, I thought it would take me all day to do it, especially since I piddled around for a while, trying to decide which kind of paper to use, which pencil, which clipboard. (Yeah, I admit it — I still write by hand, mainly because it's easier on my eyes.)

I also posted a blog for the first day of NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month).

My self-imposed commitments finished for the day, I went walking in the desert. It was perfect weather — blue skies and warm, still air.

Then bam! Out of nowhere, grief socked me in the gut. I wanted so much to see my mate, to talk to him, that I would barely breathe. The pain lasted for hours. And tears? Too many to count.

The novel I started writing for NaNo was about a grieving woman, so perhaps that had something to do with my upsurge in grief. I've been worried that immersing myself in the story of a woman who lost her husband be a bit much for me at this stage, but I also know that I won't want to revisit grief once I'm done with it. (Yes, I know –  one is never done with grief, but the pain does lessen an the bouts of tears come further apart.)

It's possible any writing would have brought on this re-grief – he was my sounding board (literally a sounding board –  I always read to him what I wrote). And it's possible it was just time. Lately I've been distracting myself when the pain crept in, so it could have been building up.

The whys of this spate of grief, however, are not important. It still comes down to the simple truth: He is dead and there's not a damn thing I can do about it except learn to live with it.

Tagged: acceptance, death, grief, grieving woman, loss, NaBloPoMo, NaNoWriMo