Hello, junior high

Today my calendar tells me it's two months since Ramsy died, but time is such a crazy thing.  (I know there's a great quote from Einstein about relativity that would fit here, but you'll have to google it yourself.)  I can't really explain how it feels to me except to say that having Ramsy with me feels like a different lifetime.  The kids and I are managing, but every day is different, and we feel his absence in different ways each week.  I didn't know in advance that these two states could exist in me simultaneously: I am never not missing him, and at the same time a fair percentage of life feels what I suppose I would call "normal".  Grief is so odd.

From time to time someone will ask me what the hardest parts are of walking through this loss.  Depending on the day (or the minute) I will have a different answer, but one of the consistently difficult things is this: living with the junior high version of myself all the time.  At age 40, I had finally learned to quiet and/or ignore that little insecure, hesitant 12-year-old girl who would pop up in me on occasion.  Experience had taught me that mostly she worried without real cause, and that she could just relax and be a real grown-up person.  What a relief that was!

Well, she's back.  And she's noisy.  She keeps repeating to me those hurtful things that other junior high kids said to me in the 80s- your stories are boring, you talk too much, nobody wants to sit with you, you're so weird/annoying/goofy-looking.  (Ok, so it's true that at some point in the 80s we were all goofy-looking.)  Since I have had practice in telling this little person to be quiet, that she's mistaken, that we will just go ahead and be ourselves, I am often successful in calming her down.  But it takes energy.  Also, the junior high me has feelings which are what I can only call rawer (is that even a word?  Raw-er, as in more raw) versions of my regular emotions.  She has internal temper tantrums, she agonizes over the smallest decision, she wishes for something but when she receives it she sulkily shoves it away because she cannot really have the one thing she most wants.  She is sadly lacking in the mental filters which normally provide a bit of a cushion against the yo-yoing feelings.  Frankly, I don't like living with her.  I much preferred Ramsy's company.

The other part of this junior high state of being which is so difficult to manage is this:  having been a pastor's wife for 19 years, I had trained myself to become a good listener (I hope) and to be mindful that a conversation is when two people get to talk and share stories, when there is give and take on both sides.  This is something I have worked and worked on for my whole adult life.  Now, suddenly, I am thrust into a space where I have a great need to talk- and worse, in my opinion, to repeat the same things over and over, to retell stories in intricate detail which is very likely tiresome to the other person, to talk about me and my experience and what I am learning and feeling.  How do you allow yourself to be this person who you have tried so hard not to be?

Here's the bottom line: it is hard to need people instead of being the person who people need.  I don't think this is a pride issue- it is just hard to require something of people, to wish desperately that they will be tolerant of you and endure this terrible time with you and not be worn out. It is hard to need people but not be sure that they want to be needed. It is hard to suddenly be 12 again (I had begun to refer to this as "the larval stage" while I was teaching and dealing with adolescents last year!) instead of an actual adult human being.  I frequently feel as if I am walking around with all my feelings displayed on the outside of my body- like I have no clothes or even skin on, like I have been flayed and pinned to a dissection board.  And yet it does not feel right to me to run and hide.

The thing about life is that it keeps putting you into the same situation at different times and in different roles.  I suspect that in this particular situation, right now we all feel a bit like we are back in junior high.  When I have been in the role of friend or acquaintance of the grieving person, I have felt completely uncertain about what to say or do. Will I make it worse if I mention the loss?  Is it tactless to acknowledge their sorrow in the gas station or the drugstore?  Aren't I being presumptuous to assume that I know how they are feeling?  I know for a fact that many times I have chosen to be silent when encountering hurting people out of fear that my words would be wrong or inadequate and cause further hurt.  Now that I am taking a turn in the role of mourner, I find that I would rather hear something- even if it is simply, "I don't have any words," or, "I don't know what to say."  These acknowledgements are greatly comforting to me.  In the future, in the other role, I will choose to speak anyway- at least, I will when that junior high person inside can be persuaded that she is brave enough.

For now, it seems all I can do is continue to alternate between reassuring that 12-year-old and sending her to her room.  Maybe one day down the road she will grow up again.  Can't wait for graduation day.