Running From Grief

I'm realizing that you can't run from grief. 

Lately I've been trying to stay busy, trying to do all the things that make me feel somewhat happy, or at least distract me from feeling sad...but it's starting to backfire on me. I read something a while back about grief that said, "the only way through it is through it." And boy, am I finding that to be true the hard way.

In the beginning, I feel like I was doing okay handling the grief. I mean, I felt horrible, but I expected to feel that way. I took 2 months off of work when Matt died. I let myself be sad and mope around and cry. I took walks and listened to sad music and just cried and cried and cried. For almost a year, I pretty much cried every single day. I exercised, walked, journaled, and spent time with friends. I let myself grieve. When I felt a wave of sadness coming on, instead of running from it or trying to distract myself, I let it come and rode it out. I would curl up on the couch and cry for hours if I needed to. I knew it was okay and necessary to let myself be sad. 

But over time, I got tired of feeling that way. I didn't want to feel pain anymore. I didn't want to mope around and be sad all the time. I was tired of crying. I didn't want the grief constantly hanging over me anymore. I slowly began to feel a little better, started having hope for the future, started finally feeling ready to move forward. I wanted so badly to just be better, to start feeling "normal" again, maybe even happy...

I started chasing anything that would make me feel good. I found that when I stayed busy, I could avoid feeling sad, at least temporarily. So in the last month or so I've been going, going, going non-stop. Honestly, I've been avoiding being alone in my house, because that's when the grief tends to hit me. That's when I get sad and depressed. So I haven't sat with the pain like I used to. I haven't had a good cry lately. I've been fighting the grief...and I can tell. That's when the exhaustion and anxiety kicks in. When the sadness starts to come, I start to get panicky and try to push it away, because I feel like I shouldn't feel this way anymore. Because I don't want this to be my life.

But it doesn't work like that. Grief is exhausting, but fighting grief is just as exhausting, if not more. You have to face it and let the waves wash over you. Even though I feel like I'm finally at a point where I want to move forward, I have to remind myself that I'm still grieving, even if I don't want to be. I have to remind myself that when I have those "off" days, the days when I just feel sad, that it's okay and to let myself feel it. There is no timeline to when grief "ends" and I start feeling better. And even when I do feel better, I still have to remember that I'm going to have bad days still. That's just how my life is going to be from here on out. Grief cannot be rushed. It has to run it's course, and I have to learn to live with it and stop fighting it. Yes, it sucks. It doesn't feel good to feel sad. But in the long run, it's the only way to get through it and to heal.

So today, I'm giving myself permission to have those bad days, to feel sad, to go back to what I did in those first few months when I would let it come and face it and just cry it out. I'm going to make time for myself for the down time I need, instead of constantly trying to distract myself so that I "forget" about the grief. I'm going to stare it in the face, and even if it feels so horrible in those moments that I may not even want to live, I can sit with it, I can cry out to Jesus, and I can know that I can make it through just as I have every other time. I will keep telling myself, just one more day. You can make it though one more day.