Grief isn’t always an honorarium.
Too prolonged, it turns into a mortifying dishonor.
It’s horrifyingly self-heart-breaking to have to admit this. I’ve been wrong.
I accepted well-meaning, short-term advice as eternally acceptable; permissive and long term.
Took it with no intention of delving below the surface or coming up for air.
I haven’t decided which is the more appropriate analogy.
Doesn’t matter, they’re each tired in their own way.
I believed, because I wanted to. Justified by unlimited sources, repeating: there is no time limit on grief.
Day-by-Day. Hour-by-Hour, Minute-by-Minute were my only mantras. Which one depended entirely on the ebb or swell of absurdities; my stagnant situation, gladly perceived as permanent. It’s been quite the convenience; playing deeply into the dark places that have never scared me.
I’ve never been that Martina McBride “Happy Girl.” Although, I recognize myself at the start of the story. As much as I embrace it as a feasible concept, that won’t ever be me.
I used to take part, maintaining a purposely limited social life. Not because I enjoyed it, but because I was afraid I’d miss something big or a faintly-possible someone special.
Farcical charades, short spurts of semi-forced enthusiasm are easier to maintain than enduring the long-lingering disappointment of others and constantly being called on saying, “No.”
COVID’s been a bit assistive in this.
I’m not any lonelier than I was before, and that’s my enraged point.
I’ve lost almost 15 years to grief.
I’ve self-excused and self-approved my lack of future vision by embracing, without investigation, a kindly-offered axiom, as an exalted right.
There is most definitely a time limit on overwhelming sorrow and debilitative grief, and you’re the only one who can set it.
knabble 