Grow through Grief

Grief. It’s a sneaky bitch.

One day you can be completely ok and within the next breath you are not

There is this void that is impossible to fill

We either fill it with vices to get through

the pain or escape from it completely.

For me, I escape and I try to fill that pain with other vices that make my soul

content for the moment. Anything that will fill the empty hole inside my heart.

However, I am finding myself escaping more now so than ever.

I rather not sit and reflect on anything painful. I like to look forward and grief has a way of bringing you backwards.

I’m slowly learning that you have to sit and reflect on that pain to move forward because if you lock it up in a box, it will find a way to catch up to you.

I escaped it for 3 years and I still find myself escaping. A guy showed up a month after my mom passed, he made me happy at the moment where I didn’t have to think about what happened. He became my person, my support system, the person I ran to in doubt and he lifted me up like how my mom did. It became a crutch. I didn’t realize it until I started going to therapy...

Now that I’m on my own again, for the better. I’m slowly reopening that wound that was left before he walked into my life and it is painful.

I’m grieving both losses. The loss of my mom and what was with the relationship. You don’t have to lose someone from death to grieve. It still counts as a loss. It’s still a messy healing process. I’m grieving of what was before it became a mess. I’m grieving the person who I once loved to see him as the person I no longer knew. I grieve the ordinary moments. I grieved the life I had when it was good.

Reliving the past and trying to move forward all at once has my heart torn. I have all of these emotions and I don’t know what to do with it. I could scream and cry and some days I’m totally content.

I’m trying to change my perspective of the depths of loss and pain. I’m ready to get excited again and refill my cup that has runneth over. I am ready to start living for myself again without going backwards.

Who knew growth can be so painful?

There is hope that I can see light at the end of this tunnel. When in doubt, I think of caterpillars. How this little bitty insect can transform into a beautiful butterfly in just a matter of months.

However, there is no time span for humans of when we will get to that next step. Which can be painful, but also yet rewarding to know we are never done growing.

It is literally an endless journey of countless questions and doubt. The only thing to do is have a little bit of faith that someday you will get your feet planted again.

I try all of these things, like going to grief support and I’m 4 months into therapy, but there are some days I feel like will I ever make progress? When will the rain stop? it can’t rain forever.

But you see, grief has no time limit. There is no set date of when you will stop grieving.

I think of it as this analogy: there is ball inside of a glass jar. It starts off as small as a peanut and then it grows as big as a tomato. It never leaves the jar, the ball grows into the jar. You are the jar and grief is the ball. You continue to grow with it. You don’t grow away from it, you grow through it.

It’s apart of me. There is this huge hole of sadness, it’s right here where I can feel it even on my best days. The great memories I had with my mom were great. The sad memories I had are still very sad and it will always be.

What I’ve learned along the way, is how to take that grief and make it into a beautiful mess. I talk out loud to her, I see the signs she gives me and it will show up if you are willing to receive those little blessings in disguise. I dream of her. I talk to her in my dreams. I even feel her at night. She is still so much with me here in the physical world and to have that connection, I am grateful. I still am able to be connected, just a different way than normal. It’s not ideal. I would rather hug her in person instead of my dreams and call her instead of praying.

I want to say this sucks because given the circumstances, it really does. I lost her at the age of 23 and here I am standing at age 27. I still very much need my mom. I miss her advice, her hugs, her stern motivation speeches to help me in times where I feel so low, the jamming sessions in the car and just her presence alone. She won’t be there in person when I get married, she won’t be able to help me with pregnancy when that time comes, or have my babies call her Mawmaw. I won’t get any of that.

I was too young to lose her. I am not done needing her. A daughter will always need her mom.

Despite feeling cheated on life, I’m trying to take all the negatives and switch it into positives. Dwelling on her death will not make a difference, it will not bring her back, it will only hinder for me to move forward.

I’m thinking that those experiences that I have went through made me to be the person who I am today. It wasn’t my dream to start a grief support for my age group, but here I am having the idea to do one. I want to take that pain and make it into something beautiful. I want to help others by writing, talking, start something, because everyone has a story. If my experience could help one person out there, then that’s all that matters.

Before my mom got sick, my dream was to be a RN nurse at the Oschner in New Orleans where the amazing group of doctors and nurses helped my mom and discovered her rare lung disease.

I was in college when she had the transplant and evidentially I dropped out because I couldn’t focus on school with being the care taker of my mom. I could always go back.

For the longest time I wanted to go into that field, especially hearing only a few transplants are completely successful without developing some sort of cancer.

If I could research on how to stop a disease from someone else getting a second opportunity at life, I would in a heartbeat. My mom had a second chance at life and it was taken two years later. It’s not fair, but life isn’t fair.

Life is not handed to you on a silver platter, it’s honestly what you make it. It’s not meant to be sunshine and rainbows , you can’t get that outcome without the rain. So how do we deal with the rain?

I’m figuring that out. You just have to do what is best for you, even if you don’t know what that is. To start of, I name three things in my mind of what I want: peace, confidence, and gratefulness. My second question is, how do I get that?

For peace, I’ll find a hobby- like writing on this app, maybe get into painting, yoga, hop back on my moms spin bike, spin classes, hike, etc.

For confidence - I will stop my old habits of saying sorry too much, I’ll hold my head up high and carry myself differently.

Gratefulness- this sounds silly, but it has worked for me. I have a grateful rock. I found a rock in my yard, wrote in sharpie the word grateful and I pick it up every morning before work and say three things I am grateful for. Start affirmations as soon as you get up in the morning to get your day moving.

Some days can be so rough, that getting out of bed is a struggle. Grief really does make you feel like you are suffocating, waiting for a breath of air. What has helped me is, the 5 second rule from Mel Robbins. You count backwards from 5 and as soon as you get to one, you get up. You do something. Get out of head and make it better

Beat your brain from stopping you on making a change.

As someone who I look up to told me, ask yourself “what am I going to learn today” take that question and make it into your habit.

Grief is tricky, but it could also be a beautiful mess if you let it. Let it be messy and be patient with yourself. Find the beauty in the mess and Grow through the grief.

“Death leaves a heartache no one can heal and love leaves a memory that no one can steal”