Flippered

 Monday and yesterday were hard days. The heavy grief came back and with it the mental twistiness.

The Sisterhood of Widows Facebook group is so helpful, even though it ISN'T run by the author of The Grieving Brain, as I thought it was (there are two Mary Frances' doing grief analysis I found out, though the gal who runs the FB group is Mary Francis, with an i). There are women on there three and seven years out that still hurt.  One woman, 15 years out, reminded everyone that the loss and the feeling of loss are forever.

I got stuck in a loop on Monday trying to explain myself to a friend.  She gave me good advice about getting friends: to show up, be amiable, and have low expectations.  This advice was pretty much what I did in my classrooms, in which I loved everybody and, after the first five years, stopped expecting anybody to work the way I thought they "should." I just haven't wanted to be a "fake" person while I'm looking for connections.  But like many other people, I need to make the choice between authenticity and connection.

from Zdeněk Macháček on Unsplash

I got angry Monday with an online poetry teacher for not knowing what iambic pentameter is and giggling when she said she didn't know.  I dropped the class but what I told her was that she was energetic and cared about her practice but that I had thought we'd do more writing and sharing in the class and it wasn't for me.  But yesterday's teacher was much better and we did lots of shared writing.

I'm also annoyed because my eyes are going and soon I'll need to wear glasses all the time again, as I did from 1964 (4th grade) to 2008 (eye surgery).  It annoys me that everything has an outlined blur around it when I'm driving now.

Another irritation is that my guts are a mess.  On the other hand, I'm very lucky that my bones and joints seem okay with just a minor, annoying amount of osteoarthritis in my neck and spine.

As for blessings, I am so thankful for the Tuesday morning group and I told them that - that after EFM folded, meeting with them helped me stay alive.

WHAT IS MY PORPOISE!  Argh.  I have no function. 

So, even though there's no reason for me to be alive, it's okay that I'm alive.  It's literally just fine that I'm still alive, even though I have no purpose and serve no function. It's okay. If all I'm able to be is a stoner slacker, that's okay. If stoner-slacker is the very best identity I'm able to produce right now, that is acceptable to God.

But wait!  HELP IS ON THE WAY!  My new puppy is waiting to be born and is expected tomorrow. Maybe by fall there will be someone new and exciting in my life! Can't be a slacker with a puppy in the house!

I am, indeed, a very lucky person that most of my pain is in my old noggin'.  I've been dealing with mental pain and confusion my whole life!  I should be good at it by now!  And there is, after all, a great freedom in no one giving a fuck where I go and what I do each day. At some point, with God's grace, I'll figure out what to do with all this liberty.