AND grief is back

 It demanded to be let out of the box on Tuesday but I refused all day to cry.  

Then yesterday, at a new tattooist, I started wondering if I would be able to do proper aftercare on my back and I started tearing up and then the pain hit my heart and gut and I started seriously crying.  My tattooist suggested in a very kind and caring way that it probably wasn't the best day for me to get a tattoo.  

Everything was hurting me.  By that I mean all my usual complaints.  My friends don't call me.  I'm a terrible person for needing so much. 

And I started obsessing about the friend who got angry with me.  Should I send him an email to tell him I value our previous relationship and could we get a mediator to fix it?  Should I ask a friend or his wife to tell him that?  I am feeling like whatever I do in that relationship it will be wrong. He turned into somebody I didn't recognize.   I don't understand how he could criticize me for lacking perspective within a month of my spouse's death or how he could get physically angry at a woman in grief whom he knew had PTSD from rape, caregiving, etc.  I don't like feeling afraid of a friend but it's happened to me before.  People whom I'm loved have had this need to shame me for being who I am AFTER they have told me they love me for who I am.  

Shades of "me saynted mither."

So, back at the tattooist, I left, crying.  Went back to the hotel, crying.  And ate too many gummies and just knocked myself out for most of the day, falling asleep straddled across the bed with my dog.  At 5:00 I went back to the house that is so torn up right now to see what was going on with the floors.  Then I went downtown to charge the car and Winston and I had dinner outside at the Pine Tavern.

I felt guilty about weed in the middle of the day because I've been trying to taper off.  On the days when I don't use I'm sick so dealing with grief becomes dealing with grief and raging anxiety and a badly functioning intestinal tract.  But I do need to quit before going to Europe or I'll be sick over there.

And maybe the last couple of days have been hard because I can't work in the house during the day to clean it up and everything is so torn up.

Of course, just opening a newspaper is also enough to give one raging anxiety.  But at least I no longer need to think about shooting Will if the H-Bombs drop.  But why does my anger rise when I see people in gas cars lining up for coffee?  I never think of the planet being in danger.  Really, there are "billions and billions" of planets and stars.  The end of this one is no big deal.  But the pain and anguish of millions of people and animals dying is real -- and it's real right now. 

This is what an existential crisis in the middle of a world in crisis looks like.