Feelings Are Not For the Birds

I used to stuff my feelings deep in the back of the bottom dresser drawer like they were the sexy little thongs I bought without my mama knowing about ‘em.

I don’t think I cried more than a dozen times in as many years.

I was DONE with hurt. 

We all go through grief at some point. How we handle it is important and it might not look like anything you’ve seen before. Different kinds of grief manifest in different ways.

How do you grieve?

Do you cry?

Do you scream?

Do you say every cuss word you know?

Do you hit the pillow until you think it’s going to split?

Those are all valid and perfectly normal. 

There is the grief of something you could still see in the future.

Typically in the land of the living, we lose and/or grieve relationships or circumstances. Maybe you no longer see someone you had a great friendship with or who used to be good to you, you have a job loss, or you realize the end of a dream. 

In the land of the recently deceased (yes, I turn to humor in dark times…remember those feelings I shoved in the back of the drawer? They have moved to the middle drawer but not quite out in the open!), there lurks the final death of an estranged family member, a loved one, an acquaintance, or even a stranger.

All very different but can be SO impactful. Each one has its own kind of pain and the actions you take after are rarely rational. 

All of these have silenced me. Several have made me wail into the sky like I might be losing my mind. I’ve had as many deluges of tears as I had spells when I thought I would never shed a tear again. More than once I found myself in the middle of the floor, unable to move. 

I had to get up and I had to deal with that pain. I learned over many years that I was not going to be able to heal without dealing with the feelings, the vulnerability. It almost cost me my sanity. 

I learned to sit with my feelings. 

I am not afraid of them anymore, although I still want to chuck them out the window going 90.

Since I can remember, I have always had a lot of emotions. 

I didn’t know how to handle them. 

How does one learn to “sit with their feelings?”

It’s complicated. And hard. I’m still learning. 

What happens when you are anxious?

You do something to avoid that feeling. 

You try to distract yourself- the opposite of sitting with the feeling. 

You do something to feel better but often it has less than a desirable effect. 

In order to keep myself from internal combustion, I had to change some things. 

For a long time, I didn’t know what to do with what I was feeling. 

I knew what others expected me to do, I just didn’t know how, though. 

How could I get past the pain? 

The disappointment. 

The rage.

I started slowly. I started with things that weren’t a big deal in the long run.

• Did I get the last set of sugar skull beads I bid on? Not very many times. eBay and I have a love/hate relationship with online auctions.

• Well shit, I got distracted and burned dinner. Guess we will have a bowl of last night’s rice and call it a night. Neither were the outcomes I hoped for, but they really won’t matter in a week. 

I learned to ask about bigger things, like missed job promotions and relationships that went awry. Financial choices and WTF I was doing with certain areas of my life. 

For a long time, I couldn’t be honest about my feelings or the actions I craved to take…until I sat with it for a while. Listening to what my intuition told me.

Then, dealing with death came knocking for the second time.

(For more specifics on how I dealt with losing my partner, read that here.)

This year death has hit me hard. The calendar chronological order of death date is my partner’s first Deathiversary at the beginning of June and a friend died at the end of June. July is the 4th Deathiversary of my sister. 

The first time I wrote about grief was soonish after my partner died. I was coming up on the 3rd Deathiversary of my sister. 

That is when I realized how much I stuffed that down. How much I did to avoid dealing with it.

I am shocked by how well this year went compared to last considering how many times I put my feelings about my sister’s death on the desk next to “that” stack of papers to be dealt with another day, or decade. I kept thinking one day I would have time to deal with it and by then, I would be way less emotional about it.

Let’s just say it doesn’t work that way. I know…I forgot to put out the spoiler alert warning. I apologize. 

So, I’m about to tell you what I did this year.  

Do grief your way!

You have to be willing to do it your way.

No matter what.

Your body will tell you what it needs.

Solitude and garbage TV (and snacks of course) while you sleep 22 hours that day?

Go ahead.

Do you crave people and attention? Go for it. Change your setting and change your mood, right? I like the living room to be as dark as a corner in the Addam’s Family living room but if I’m feeling down a bit, I will sit on the porch with the sun in my face to the point I’ll go blind if I open my eyes. 

Sitting with your feelings will help you understand what you need to do to heal. You will have to be willing to do the work on the little things to get to the big things for sure. Each time can be different. Each time you can act differently and make it through.

Last year I slept too much but not quite enough according to my body. I didn’t have a lot to drink (alcoholic or non-alcoholic) yet my body was not lacking enough fluid to cry. This year I didn’t know what to expect but I knew I wanted to be somewhere without accountability to anyone except myself. 

So, I went to Florida. One mindless, easy-to-read book made it into my bag, but no computer or beads were to be found. I was not going to allow myself to be lost in working on anything. I wanted to get the grief out. My liver still hurts from the amount of Sangria I consumed. 

But I felt every minute. 

I didn’t hide it, even with the alcohol. 

I fed myself well and I napped a good bit but also walked and got in the seaweed infested water at the beach.

I made sure to take someone with me that would only ask me to bring sangria and some veggies.

Then for the first time since my sister died, I’ll be spending her deathiversary with both of my girls. My oldest was close to her and I 100% expect us to have a full-on breakdown since I’m helping her to move to Hawaii the week of the dreaded date. 

Thank God we’ll have the 15yr old “old lady” with us. She has been 90-something since she popped out so she will keep us in line with her condescending look (I think she was a cat in her past life). She’s gonna hang around to listen to the Jenn stories but won’t bring us snacks beyond 1 pm, if at all. 

I knew I needed time and solitude but also my kids. Different relationships and different needs to make it through.

Now, the hard part. It’s so hard you might read it and think “whatever.” But, trust me. It's harder than it sounds.

Take action- speak up for yourself. Ask for what you want. Ask for what you need.

And accept it graciously. 

If you need food but can’t make it to the store or don’t have the energy to stand long enough to microwave a meal. Ask for help. People love to help others they care about. 

Don’t feel obligated to answer phone calls during your time of crisis. Anyone under the age of 100 likely has the ability to send/receive texts. You can let them know that you are going to be unavailable to chat it up for a few days. Otherwise, they can wait an hour or two until you let out your emotions. 

This year I made it a point to let people know I would not be available and I did a pretty good job of sticking to that. I still have a few more times to test my willpower this year.

People tested me and I failed a few times early on but I learned. I grew and I had more compassion for myself and others. 

Here is a recap for you.

Start slow. 

• This is a marathon, not a quick jog to the mailbox. 

• Assess the importance of each situation.

Remember, you make the choices.

• You have to be willing to do it your way. No matter what. 

• Different is perfectly natural. 

Speak up for yourself. 

• Ask for help or solitude. 

• Take action.

Give yourself compassion.

I hope you understand your grief better now and know it’s ok to do it however you do it as long as you aren’t hurting anyone else. If you want to chat about it, leave a comment below and I’ll reach out to you. 

Peace and love,

Teresea

Photo credit: Unsplash; Lee Wright; Teresea Patton