How someone can look me in the eyes and tell me "Yah, you're kinda F%#ked-up right now" and for that to be a comfort is hard to explain. I am broken. I know that. I'll always be a little broken and I'm ok with that. I sat with a group of women a few days ago that laughed over feeling like we were terrible employees. And we sat at the table and would smile and shake our heads recalling some really bizarre things we did after our losses: activities that were easier to just do at the time than it would have been to absorb and truly comprehend that information we had been given. There's a person you love very much but they died. Your brain under those conditions protects you from that reality. I sat at a table of amazing women that could understand how "ok" it is to be a mess right now. Grief is messy in so many ways.
When you tell someone that hasn't experienced deep grief that you feel broken, that you feel crazy, that you feel insensitive, that you feel screwed up...They want to tell you that you're wrong, that no you'll be ok, that everyone is a little screwed up. It's frustrating. In some ways I need that affirmation that I'm a mess: my memory is terrible, my emotions are out of whack, I have a really really hard time focusing, I do some bizarre things. I'm mean sometimes...and it's for no reason...and it kinda makes me feel awful. But I also kinda don't give a shit if I'm mean...Yah, I said it.
Early in grief, especially, I simply existed. I felt so incredibly alone. I felt so rejected. I felt so out of place. Most widow grief groups or blogs cater to the "traditional" widow. The men and women in their 60s and 70s. Terrible word to use, I know, because there's nothing "traditional" about grief. The grief experienced by someone that was married 35 years, however, for many reasons is dramatically different than loss of a soulmate in your 20s or 30s. It's not anything but different. So you feel isolated - as though you must be the only person in the world to experience this pain. There is some comfort I've found sharing with my MIL. But even grieving the loss of the same person - Ryan - from the standpoint of a spouse and that of the Mother of an adult child is dramatically different. (post: The "Worst" Loss)
I walked alone so very frequently for many months and do have those feelings still now though I react differently than I did early-on (post: But to be Alone)...I wandered down the aisles of a grocery store, within the break room, in the very corner of my bedroom and whether I was surrounded by other human beings or not, there is something awful about feeling excised from all of society because of your pain and your grief. And then, when I was ready to give up...I found my tribe.
I found people that made me feel less of a pariah.
I've found my peers among young widows
I've found my peers among suicide spouses
I've found my peers among those who lost a fiance
I've found my peers among those who lost a first responder
I've found my peers among those young adults who lost someone they loved deeply
I've found my peers among those divorcees that are my advocate because they understand lost dreams.
You know what is so amazingly badass about this tribe? I've surrounded myself with these beautifully broken and effed-up people and they have shown me more compassion as strangers, as human beings halfway across the world than most old "friends" in my own city. They're mending their brokenness at whatever speed they can but they understand in a way that I couldn't find anywhere else.
I've removed the people around whom I felt so alone, so rejected, so awkward. The ones that said "anything you need" and then never answered your text when you needed to see another person's face and asked for coffee or a run. The ones that tried but could only help for a short time. They were thanked for their contribution and they were released, a technique I learned, oddly enough, from The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up.
I replaced 95% of those old ones with my new ones. My tribe is very small locally but they are global digitally. They are a gorgeous collection of hurting and fallible human beings but they're
gathering the remnants of a life they may not recognize and they wake up
every day to fight through pain and suffering.
They earn their widow
badges.
They take care of their families and strangers
and friends.
They do all of this even though they are themselves hurting.
They will pick up
your phone call from the ER at midnight.
They will chat with you through
an anxiety attack or a horrible screwed-up day.
They will cry with you and send you hugs and true words of encouragement.
They
remember the dates that are bad.
They step up when what you thought
was a good day turns bad.
They are a band of bruised but scrappy fighters.
They have opened my eyes to how much pain there is in the world. They have reminded me how cathartic is is to share. How good it feels to support another person. They have kept me alive. They have reunited me with "society". They are not a traditional group of friends: we talk about fixing drywall from bullet holes and screaming at the dogs and panic attacks and crying on the bathroom floor after everyone goes to sleep. So many times these men and women's stories start with "I can't say this anywhere else but I know you understand..."
If you've not grieved hard (as I never could have understood), though, these are not incessant sob sessions. They have been the source of some of the deepest laughs I've had. Of laughs over lost grooming standards, pathetic attempts at feeding yourself (yes, which are hilarious...), flipping off the photo of your loved one because your day is rough and it makes you feel better, jokes over the poor state of affairs for sex if it does actually happen again down the line, "what I wish I could have said to that insensitive asshole but didn't..." Some of it is dark humor and some of it is just honest conversations covering everything from nonsense to deep emotional information. We bare our souls to each other because we trust each other to protect that honesty. We stick up for each other.
My tribe lets me say Ryan's name as much as I want, tell as many stories as I want and express any emotion I want. And I love to hear about those they love. Months later. Years later. We let each other say their name every time, with no shifty-eyes or awkwardness (post: Say His Name). They don't try to direct my healing but they do stand next to me, and sometimes hold my hand, as I help myself.
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