Not Neat and Tidy

Emotions aren’t neat and tidy. They don’t have a specific box to be kept in. They don’t necessarily arrive one at a time. Though when I went through therapy intensly, there was a separation so that each could have a focus, like a sun’s ray piercing into that in that moment. Those will be spoken about at some stage. As for now, I’m expressing what brought me to wanting that therapy.

So with my experiencing of grief, I can see how the conceptual list of stages seems to correlate though the order is somewhat more random than is supposed. Acceptance of the loss was quick, I knew he was gone, not to return in that known physical form. Anger, for sure, ebbing and flowing in a sea of sadness. A sea that would also swell and calm yet ever present. Bargaining however doesn’t feel right in my own circumstances. There’s no doubt that all the consequential gains that Gavin gifted to ourselves and his sister by naming us as beneficiaries on the event of his death in service to the company he worked for, have delivered a lightening of financial burdens. To pay off a small mortgage and undertake alterations to the family home was indeed a gift, yet I would rather have Gavin here and present in the flesh. Though that is not a bargaining after the fact. Having observed the rest of the family go through the decline and passing of my mother in law. I saw a bargaining of sorts. That decline, perhaps, instigates an early grieving process where bargaining can take place. Promises to a ‘higher power’ outside the human condition that may ease the loved ones burden of supposed pain and suffering of we are to offer a change of behaviour or some such. That bargaining that aligns with a watching so.eone undergo treatment for a life changing illness or cancer. Where we offer parts of ourselves inexchange for a speedy recovery or a relief from hurt or distress.

On consideration perhaps in grief, there is a bargaining for ones own salvation from the pain of the sorrow. An asking for relief of feeling as we do. That wasn’t my experience, yet it may be someone else’s.

As I write though, emotions are messy and entangled and what starts as one thing morphs to another or just feels like a huge confusion. That’s OK. To be confused is to allow those feelings to sift and sort. For insights to be offered when we actually sit and feel. Accepting tgat these feelings are to have their way for now so they may settle for awhile. Allow a respite to come and calm the body for a moment. Sift and separate the big, lumpy, gulpy sobs to subside and let the more nuanced feelings rise to be felt fully. For me that’s where guilt surfaced from the depths.