It’s a process

I’ve been thinking a lot about grief lately.  I’m much more familiar with the “somebody died” grief than I am with the kind that you get when a person is most certainly alive, but no longer in your life.  It’s very new to me.  My relationships have always ended relatively amicably,  and when I’ve lost friends in the past, it’s really been more of a trailing off because someone moved away or we just grew slowly apart.  This is the first time in my life that I’ve ever been hurt so badly that I made the choice to sever a friendship completely.  And I’m surprised to find that the process of working through it is a lot like death-grief, in that it’s completely non-linear:  just when you think you’re moving on and doing ok, it comes up from behind and knocks you on your ass.

I’m no expert on holding a grudge, and the truth is that even though I’m moody and have a temper, winning me over isn’t too hard.  (My sister is well aware of this and has been using it to her advantage since she was old enough to talk.)  Until now it’s been next to impossible for me to stay mad at anyone.  And I don’t want to be mad, believe me.  I want to be in a healthy, loving, accepting place.  Some days I feel like I’m getting there.  I start to feel tendrils of forgiveness slowly wrapping around my heart, slowly erasing all of those feelings of betrayal.  But when I least expect it, all of the anger and sadness and hurt and confusion and loneliness comes surging back and I feel as much pain as I did almost two months ago.

I don’t like this back-and-forth.  I’m impatient and I want things to be neat and tidy:  either I’m happy or I’m sad, either I love you or I never want to see you again.  But I do realize that life is about living in the shades of gray in between.  And I know I’ll be okay, whether we reconcile or never speak again.  Because I am blessed with a life full of amazing people.  The void is being filled, and I know that even painstakingly, tediously slow progress is still progress.