Somewhere Down My Broken Road…Again

With Montezuma’s revenge as my souvenir, I returned from Mexico feeling quite diminished. My energy was low. My headaches were high. After a couple weeks, I was getting back to myself when my young friend died.  Now, I would say,

I am extravagantly diminished. 

I am stuck in a land of foreboding, of worry. It’s not like me to worry and so of course this worries me.

I am tempted to think  that I should know how to grieve by now; Know how to move on; maybe even hope to be immune to being stuck. I tell myself the old thought that loving deeply means grieving deeply. Grieving deeply can mean feeling immovable in the sadness. Yes, but it’s more than that.  I can’t seem to feel my future right now and I don’t ever remember feeling this way. In the past, there have always been people and events to look forward to. I just can’t seem to feel them just now. 

When I am alone and left to my own thoughts, I am a hollow vortex of dis-integration almost like my heart is so full it will accept nothing more.

There’s no anger, no questioning, just a pervasive muddling  like I can’t find my way out and wouldn’t have the energy to try even if I could.

I was cooking the other day using a recipe and I went off book but didn’t realize it. It was as if I went somewhere and the part of me that stayed, improvised. 

And so I sleep, alot, and I tell myself that taking care of my friend’s 5 year old has made me tired. I’m out of practice taking care of such high energy beings but that is not my whole story.

I’ve never understood the bond I have with my friend and I haven’t been very involved with her son. He was born and lived during the timing of my grief for Philip, my mom and Shauna. I have been distant, unhelpful, lost in my own trouble. 

I go through the motions of a regular life of connection. I take care of my routine business, appointments, dogs, car, house. I help my friend grieve her child by attempting to be helpful. But when I am not sleeping, when I am alone, I am sad and adrift. 

I sent Joe to his air show with Ricardo. They’ll be gone for a week. I had plans to do a retreat by myself and I was looking forward to it but now I seem to have lost connection to what I once cherished. 

I want to be able to deal with death but each new one shows me a different aspect and I am still so easily knocked off kilter.

And then, as I was watching TV the other day,  God seemed to use the exact dialogue of my life in the Star Trek episode…

Uhura was talking with Kirk.

“I’ve never been able to face death. Everyone has some way of dealing with it, of moving on but I don’t know how. It has gotten so bad that I can’t even look at pictures of my family and the most recent death has just brought it all back again.”

Kirk replies: “Our job puts us against death, more than is fair. We may not like it but we do have to face it. And right now death is winning. It claimed your family. It claimed your friend. It has convinced you to forget them because it’s less painful then holding on to their memories. You can’t let death win. You can fight back and hold on to them.”

I felt a glimmer of hope when I watched that. It seemed like somewhere in there was an answer I was seeking.

It made me visualize the scene as if Jesus and I were Kirk and Uhura. I’ve used something like this in counseling before, a sort of interactive prayer.

We are sitting on a bench overlooking the sunset where we’ve been before. We are having the convo above. Jesus takes my hand and tells me it’s okay to rest. It’s okay to not have it all figured out. He tells me He’s given me this time to be still because He’s doing a work in me that I would not believe even if I were told. 

“Go gently, be gentle, especially with yourself,” He says, “Do not fear the process. I am with you.”

Somehow, though I still do not feel my future, I do feel better with my now.

Anne

July 26, 2023
A total Eclipse of the Heart playing in the background