Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;W B Yeats
Grief is a tumultuous rollercoaster ride. I’ve always hated rollercoasters.
The wind is blowing a gale force this morning which does nothing to help our mood.
We appear to have reached Kubler Ross’ Depression and Detachment stage of grief. Although I would argue that her theories do not function in a linear manner but rather you dip in and out of stages continually. But between the three of us we’ve got the Blahs, the Overwhelmed, the Lack of Energy and in some sense the Helpessness that feature in this Depressed and Detached cycle.
All three of us have cried in the Deputy Principal’s office this week. I really hope everyone in this situation has a Mrs E to sit there calmly deconstructing your concerns and coming up with a plan on how to defeat them. I must remember to buy a new box of tissues for her desk.
Hippie Child feels like we are surrounded by death at the moment and it’s hard to argue with her. Last night on my Facebook feed a story came up about a female radio announcer whose husband has just committed suicide. The announcer and I had once crossed paths briefly when we were both employed at the same station, I read she has a child the same age as Princess Child.
Right now I can count five of us who have lost our husbands in the past four months. We could form a Widows Collective or at least bring back the long lunch social outing if any of us had the strength to get dressed and leave the house (and if two of the club ever moved to Port Macquarie).
I think we are building a pretty strong case for women being the stronger sex. You blokes are dipping out on us on a far too regular basis at the moment. Those of you that are left can you please get your heart checked, limit any adventurous activities, go to the doctor if you are not feeling well and seek help if you are feeling down (Lifeline 13 11 14).
There’s not much we can do about our situation right now, nobody can fix this for us, we just have to ride the rollercoaster out. Which we will do. We have to admit that some days are going to be harder than others and we just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
I’m hoping when the wind stops blowing and the sun comes out our moods will improve. I think this weekend we will play hookey from all our obligations and just spend two days doing fun things.
What do you when you are feeling down to lift your mood? All suggestions welcome.
Walking at night with friends really helps me. There’s something about the peace of it and the darkness that frees my tongue and my anxiety. I go home feeling so much better, and loved, at the end of it.
I’m going to have to start exercising aren’t I?
Stuff that looks after me – like massage, facials, yoga; happy food like yum cha and deep fried ice cream or pizza; and probably keeping my children close – watching tv/movies in bed on the laptop with the teen, doing jigsaws with the little ones. And lying in the sun always makes me feel good. xxxx
Love all of these.
Beautiful post Janine. I love how you keep the tone so light and warm in spite of how hard things feel.
Exercise and keeping busy are high on my list. Writing in my private journal helps, and also that thing that’s doing the social media rounds at the moment, of listing things to be grateful for, as well as reasons why I’m lucky. I just keep writing them down until I stop crying.
Lovely ideas.
Churchill I think it was said ‘when you’re going through hell keep going’ or as you said ‘one foot in front of the other’. My penny’s worth is keep writing, don’t be hard on yourself, take days where you can, cry when you want and we will cry with you and when you’re able keep busy, doing nice and fun things untill they are fun again and know I and many other people are keeping you in our thoughts.
Through ‘hell’ that should have said!
Fixed it.
You are beautiful Jane.
Hi Janine, the only good thing about the rollercoaster metaphor is knowing that at some point there will be chance to travel up….if only there was a neon light saying when, that would be much more reassuring! DVDs and doonahs sound good in this weather…I can drop in the seachange series? xxx
Hello Sara,
I haven’t had a chance to call you, we must catch up next week if you are free. Will check in with Therese as well. Thank you for thinking us. xxx
Exercise, eat cake and chocolate (after exercise ;)) and some kind of pamper treatment . Hope the sun shines again soon xx
Thank you for my manicure Emma, note that was my sanity saver on Sunday. Why do you all keep mentioning exercise? Clearly you have banded together in collusion with the counsellor and doctor in an attempt to get me moving. I’m happy to try the cake and chocolate though.
Janine
I am so sorry you are all feeling so down. Hopefully, the sad wind will blow itself out and a beautiful spring day will give rise to happier feelings for you all tomorrow.
Thinking of you.
Isn’t it weird how the weather can impact on moods, the wind is driving us crazy at the moment.
Just a further comment on the exercise thing. When I broke up with my long term partner, I was feeling grief and a lot of anger. The gym was my sanity saver – I did aerobics classes a couple of times a week and released all my anger and feeling in punches and kicks and “the grapevine”. Anger is a different fuel to grief, and I cannot compare my experience to yours at all, but I just thought I’d share this. xxx
I think there are similarities in the grieving process between a break-up and a death, same, same but different.
My go to feel better things are hot fudge, rainbow sprinkles, bubble tea, or a nice hot chai. Really anything I can eat or drink gets the job done though…
Oh fudge … yum. I had to google bubble tea. For anyone else who needs to know it’s “Bubble tea, also known as pearl milk tea or boba milk tea, is a Taiwanese tea-based drink invented in Taichung, Taiwan, during the 1980s.” First you introduce me to smores now this bubble tea thing.