All or Nothing

Grief is funny, it has no timeline, and honestly I don’t know that I truly believe in these “stages” either. My grief doesn’t play by any rules, it does what it wants, and currently it is running the show. Some days I do so good, get through the days like a boss, and other days I can’t function. This is the part I need people to understand. Just because I “looked” like I was doing good one day, doesn’t always mean I will be the next day, or some random day next week. Grief isn’t an all or nothing process, finding some happiness in something, or moments of joy doesn’t take it all away. It doesn’t negate the fact that I am suddenly a solo parent making it on my own, and I am pissed about it. It doesn’t change the fact that I still wake up every single day reaching for him only to realize when I fully wake that this is my reality, and he isn’t coming back.

I thought about all of this after a comment from someone I thought was a good friend. He said, “I just didn’t expect you to be so upset still, you are going to concerts and out with friends, I thought you were doing good, what happened?”  What happened? Aside from the obvious? It’s not like I woke up better one day, and then something happened and now i’m upset about something completely unrelated. We talked this through after because the conversation just didn’t make any sense. He really had no concept of how this actually works.

I am sure others probably wonder the same thing then, when I’m out seemingly happy one day, and a crumbling mess the next. The thing is, he didn’t see what it took to get me there, he didn’t see that I tried to talk myself out of it 19 times that day, and he didn’t see me bawl like a baby when the band played a song played at my husbands funeral. I am not magically “better” because you saw me smiling yesterday.

I don’t have to be one or the other, or anything other than what I am in that moment. None of us do.

So yes, I AM doing this. Somedays I’m doing good, somedays I fully suck at life, somedays both in the same day. I am trying to find ways to create that happiness, for a little longer each time until the good outweighs the bad.