Drowning

It’s been a rough week for no particular reason around here. The tears came at the strangest times. I had to tell my boss at one point not to look at me crooked or I might start sobbing. I decided to work from home today. It’s a beautiful day outside, so the backdoor is open, my music is playing, and everything is right with the world.

Almost.

Grief is such a slippery slope. You can be riding along doing your thing. Working, spending time with family, doing chores, having dinner with friends and WHAM you can’t stop crying. The waterworks started just shortly after my birthday, and now I can’t seem to turn the faucet off. Not because I didn’t have a good birthday, because I did. Not because I didn’t get to see my family, because I did. Not because I didn’t get some pretty amazing gifts that I loved, because I did.

Not because I’m sad or bored or depressed or angry.

Just because.

Everyone handles grief differently. Apparently, I am a crier, although that’s not who I was before my life turned on a dime. In the last seven days I’ve cried in the shower, at my desk, even when I was patrolling the yard for skunks. I sat at an intersection in my car, sure everyone around me was wondering what was wrong. A man in a convenience store offered me a tissue when I stopped for gas, and I think my UPS driver was ready to call the cops when I opened the front door, like maybe someone was beating me or holding me against my will. So many tears. And why can’t tears be tied to water weight? I should be so skinny by now.

In all seriousness, there is no right or wrong way to grieve. And there is also no timeline. You will grieve forever. Plan on it. You just have to learn how to let grief in and allow it take over occasionally so you can get all those feelings out of you. And you’ll also learn that it will happen over and over again, when you least expect it. Just don’t let it hold space for too long or else you’ll drown.