Complicated Feelings
I left this as a comment on Amanda's blog, but it is still rattling around in my head and so I will put it here too. There are so many complicated feelings associated with loss, and there is for me, one moment in which I experience them all: that moment when I first wake up.
I wake up refreshed. I feel good. I know that it has been a long time since I felt this rested. And then I remember that the reason I feel rested is that he is gone, and I miss him.
And that is what my life is right now. It is not a bad thing, just a complicated one.
To be human is to feel a lot of conflicting, complicated emotions.
ReplyDeleteI remember a turning point in my therapy for my childhood abuse was when a therapist suggested that I could mourn the "death" of my relationship with my mother. That even though no one had died, the relationship had died.
ReplyDeleteNow for you, nobody died, and it looks like Evan will still be a part of your family forever. But when relationships change so drastically, it is a kind of death. And it's okay to mourn it and have a full grieving process for it. So conflicting emotions are to be expected.
Sending you strength!
m - i think you've hit it right on the head. we do need to give ourselves permission to mourn this "death".
ReplyDeletei'm still waiting to wake up to relief, but i think i'm pretty close :-)