Do it perfectly..

Yesterday after telling my dad that I'm in pain again because of this orrid TMJ he said what he always says, "Oh no not again! My daughters are supposed to be perfect!" Perhaps that's where this drive comes from to grieve perfectly, to do everything perfectly. This week I was saying to a woman, "But I can't accept this, I can't! I've read the books and the stages they describe and they all say you have to come to a place of acceptance. That there is denial, and anger and bargaining and depression and then acceptance, well I'm sorry but I can't do it perfectly. I can't accept it,"

She said, "Well maybe you don't have to accept it and maybe you can throw out all those terms, maybe you will never accept it." I was about to start talking on and on again when I did a kind of delayed double take.

The books don't say that. Maybe I'll throw the books out as well and stop searching for the perfect way to do it.

music to help stare at the ground..

;

Smile

Frying an egg this morning this face was smiling up at me ... is something trying to tell me to lighten up?

Permission for Depression

Duino Elegies

We wasters of sorrows!
How we stare away into sad endurance beyond them
trying to foresee their end! Whereas they are nothing else
than our winter foliage, our somber evergreen, one
of the seasons of our interior year, - not only
season-they're also place, settlement, camp, soil, dwelling.

Rilke.

Still whacked out by the holidays.

I forgot that I have this file full of handouts on grief that I got from the hospice. I'm so exhausted emotionally. I've been so full of rage and hatred and sadness. Anyway in this file the majority of handouts are on dealing with the holidays. Here's one quote, 'Unfortunately American cultural mores place a virtual embargo on sadness during the holiday season and the consequent mandate to be jolly and cheerful makes the depressed person feel worse.' And another, 'Much holiday depression stems from the almost inevitable disappointment that follows the grandiose expectations people carry over from childhood based either on real memories or unfulfilled fantasies.'

I'm putting this post up so that next year I can look at it to a. remind me to read the handouts and b. read the handouts!

One more thing I just read, it's a bit cheesy but it just helped me to not feel alone.

The mother of a dead child
will always weep
at Christmas time
on that you can depend.

No matter how many people
or how many presents
the pulsating void that seems too large
for her heart to hold
keeps on drawing her attention
back to the child who's missing.

As others laugh and play
her thoughts fly away
to Christmases past
or a lonely cemetery.

To a face her heart aches to be kissing

The face of the child who's missing.

by Fay Harden.

Tomorrow it will be three and a half years..

Note to self read this next December.