righting the ship

Grief always hits me in a grocery aisle. The kids are always with me, so I’m able to sort of keep myself distracted as I load up our cart and bag everything up and somehow get us all back home. Tonight I had my mom keep both kids and I went alone for the first time. I haven’t been able to just wander down grocery aisles alone in like five years. But it surprised me how difficult it was. A third of the way in, my heart sank and I just got… sad. Being at the store, alone, made me feel instantly depressed. Just another stark reminder that this is my life now. Grocery shopping without you on a Saturday night.

Some days seeing photos of you or thinking about you fill me with bright light. Most days, actually. But then there are occasionally days or a series of days where laying eyes on a photo of you hurts me to the core. I’ve been having a few days like that and I hate it. I hate feeling so terrible when I see or think about you. It’s just the ache of all my love for you that has nowhere to go. I’m decent at funneling it into other ways to love you–typically just sending that love straight into our boys is enough. But some days it’s just plain old fucking sad.

I just burst into tears taking a frozen pizza out of the oven as I write this. I have to admit, I’m thankful that these outbursts are becoming more frequent. This is what fosters healing. I’ve been on autopilot for weeks taking care of business and now that I am trying to settle back into a routine and put more effort into laying down our roots, it’s not surprising that my emotions and feelings are coming back full-force.

I paid off our credit card and our car. Just like that. Two things I have lost sleep over for years and spent countless hours researching how we could possibly pay. I wanted it to feel more ceremonious but what I’m I supposed to feel? Proud? I didn’t earn that money. You died and I sold our house. I try to imagine that it’s just another way you’re taking care of us without even being here. The same way that the baby ate blueberries today from the bushes you’ve spent years tending to so they could bear fruit. The same way Axl is devouring popsicles that you got from BJ’s last summer for him.

This is what I keep calling righting the ship.

Bursting into tears over frozen pizza and wanting to sink into the floor and die if I can’t have you here is the ship tipping. I can either lean into that and wallow and throw myself in to drown, or I can right the ship and keep going. Thinking of all the ways you are still here with me, with us, helps me right the ship.

Sometimes you just want to lay there and drown. You get so sick of having to pull yourself, soaking wet, exhausted, back up onto the metaphorical boat. To me, “being strong” means continuously righting that boat again and again and again. Grief is the river that runs beneath you now, forever pulling you along in its current. But you gain the skills and the tools and the experience and eventually you’re an expert swimmer and survivalist. But you still can’t control when the rapids will come and tip over your boat. Sometimes it happens seven times in one day. Sometimes just once a week. And you get so fucking tired of it, but when it happens you’re only left with two choices: drown or fight. Because I have two kids, drowning isn’t an option. So I fight.