We have had an unusually sunny Spring this year. Not that I’m complaining. It’s been a refreshing change from merely surviving through the early grey, dark months, living off a prayer for brighter days.
And it’s a nicer backdrop for experiencing grief. This sounds like a ridiculous sentence. But allow me to explain. Grief is a difficult topic at the best of times. It is hard to talk about, and even harder to allow oneself to feel. And this is what I’ve been trying to explore the last few months. To sit with, and feel, my grief. Grief, like unpaid loans, does not simply go away by itself. Once accumulated, it remains in the background, accruing debt onto the beholder. The emotional tax levied over time becomes a heavier burden to bear, leading it to become angrier, louder, more debilitating.
Looking around oneself externally for inspiration doesn’t seem to yield meaningful breakthroughs. Displacing grief with a focus on work, seems to be the most obvious and ‘easiest’ of solutions, at first glance. Subtle and unsubtle clues from those around you can make it appear an almost non-negotiable first ‘point of call’. It wont be long, however, before work simply becomes the place where the grief spills out of you, leaking from tiny pores and slowly gathering momentum.
In my experience, any means of dealing with grief other than simply…dealing with it will simply take you further away from it. With a heavy price to pay. The currency we pay in this system is a dangerous one. It is the currency of the Self. Attempting to rid yourself of a part of you through any means – ignoring, suppressing, displacing, fighting, rejecting – will demand to take the rest of you too. You may end up away from your grief, but you will also be away from the most valuable thing of all: yourself.
So, I decided to sit with my grief. And it isn’t easy. It certainly isn’t a bright and sunny landscape, to dwell in these fields. Which is why a sunny Spring makes for a welcome backdrop. Because it serves as a reminder; that though you may feel the despair and hopelessness the grieving process brings with it, there remains a brightness. That transitory states need not be a sentence. That duality exists; you can grieve and you can live.
And that’s what I’ve been doing. I’ve been grieving and living. I’ve felt anger, and then hope. I’ve felt hopeless, and then still tried. I’ve tried, and then failed. I failed, and then tried again. I succeeded, and then felt overwhelmed. Its messy, its inconsistent and its difficult. But I remain there, underneath it all, ready for when the Spring ends and the next chapter begins.
Halahealing 
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