Friday was not such a good day.  With an interrupted and abbreviated sleep the night before, my body was not prepared to be anywhere near "normal", although somehow I expected it should be.

I spent part of the day running errands, and then took myself out for some down time.  I went for a drive in the country and stopped at a greenhouse where I walked around and looked at row after row of bedding plants being grown for sale in the spring.  The smell of dirt and the energy of growing things was lovely.  Then I took myself to a book store where I searched for the perfect escape.

After I had made my purchases, I sat down in the adjoining coffee shop and wrote.  This is what was in my head.

I feel like I shouldn't feel this way.  I should be strong for my husband and my child.  I need to be a pillar for them.  I need to move on with life.  I feel stupid that I feel so numb...I'm supposed to be the strong one!  I have sisu dammit!  I should just keep going!


Is this grief?  I don't feel much - just tired, empty and blank.  I'm not on the verge of tears all the time - I even feel fairly coherent.  But I feel like I'm weighted down.

I tried to push myself through it and finally I gave up.  I took a hot bath with epsom salts and crawled into bed.  And you know what?  When I woke up the next day, I felt better.

So what does this tell me?  It tells me that I'm not as evolved as I would like to think sometimes.  I still have it in my head that as the woman of the family I am responsible for everyone else's feeling.  I'm not.  I can't process their feelings for them anymore than I can heal a cut or a scrape for them.  I can help clean the wound, put a band-aid on it and give them a kiss, but I can't heal it for them.  I also need to remind myself that I am allowed to have feelings of my own.  I'm so concerned with everyone else and how they're handling things that I sometimes forget that I've suffered a loss as well.  You know what else it tells me?  That it isn't always valuable to push ourselves.  Sometimes the limits we feel are limits we should listen to.