Gravity

When was the last time you thought about gravity? I turned 60 this year, so of course gravity hasn’t exactly been my friend. And I’m not the most graceful person in the world, so I prove the theory more often than not. But lately that word means something completely different.

The gravity of this grief is overwhelming. So I do what my late husband and I always did when things got heavy. We lost ourselves in music. We’d pile up on the couch in the backyard bar, turn down the lights, and feel every note.

I started following a local artist on YouTube, Tim Hewitt. He does a bunch of covers just for the love of music, and he’s really good. His cover of John Mayer‘s “Gravity” has now been on repeat for quite a while.

There is just something about this song, and this artist’s rendition of it. It’s hauntingly soulful. It’s the kind of song Joe and I would have listened to. The lyric screams “I want to keep moving towards something good, something right, but I keep getting pulled back.”

That’s what this grief feels like. I want to move forward. I want to be happy. I want to feel alive again. But grief grabs me by the shoulders and pushes me to the floor, and every time I fall it’s that much harder to get back up.

John Mayer wrote the song about the push and pull of fame and how it was at odds with his desire to have a grounded, stable life.

For me it’s about the push and pull of grief, guilt and regret. The grief of my loss, the guilt of me being here and my Joe being gone, the regret of living life without him.

It’s easy for the darkness to overtake me. Just keep me where the light is.