Something I Didn’t Expect

Grief does not look or feel how I expected it to.

I expected to cry more than I have.
I expected to be more depressed than I am.
I expected to think about her all the time—and I do.
I expected more of a physical heartache.
I expected my appetite to be suppressed for longer.
I expected to recluse and refuse to answer the phone.
I didn’t expect to be able to function—like, at all.

I expected I wouldn’t shower for days. Or cook. Or clean. And yet, while I don’t particularly want to do those things, I find myself with no choice. Because life goes on, and the world does not stop spinning, even while you grieve.

So here I am, grieving, and figuring out what exactly that looks and feels like. All the while, having a particularly difficult time sorting between what I did and did not expect out of this experience.

Here’s what grieving actually looks like for me:

The smaller, albeit inconvenient, difficulties of life seem more like mountains than molehills.
Simple tasks take me hours to complete.
My brain feels foggy and sluggish and doesn’t seem to be working property. Requires reboot. Try powering off and back on to reset.

I’m mad at myself. I think of her constantly, and somehow it feels like I’m not thinking of her enough.

It appears I’ve simply run out of tears to cry. There are a few occasions where tears still flood my eyes, but it’s less often out of sadness, and more often out of frustration. Like how that one 45 minute hold waiting for customer service to pick up completely wrecked me.

My heart hurts unbearably, but more than that I just feel exhausted—all the time.

I’m busier than I have been in as long as I can remember, balancing normal day to day tasks with things like sorting through her belongings. I’ve driven to her house almost daily. This is by choice, not obligation. I’ve found it’s comforting for me to feel close to her.

I’m finding new struggles and problems, on top of already existing struggles and problems, on top of just simply missing my mom.

I feel like everything is just so much harder. Every single day.

I sleep decent at night. I wear clean clothes every day. I actually get dressed, and I fix my hair, and I put on my jewelry. Thought I will admit, I haven’t had the courage to wear mascara in weeks.

I have conversations with people. And I smile. And it’s genuine, too.

I also feel numb for large portions of my day.

I don’t listen to music much. When I do, there are absolutely zero lyrics involved. I don’t have the capacity to hear the words.

I talk to God, a lot. Although my quiet time is often disrupted.

It all feels so different from what I expected.

But how do you really know what to expect?

If you’ve never experience this before then you have no point of reference. Maybe the movies. But they make it look so different.

The movies make me feel guilty for the way I grieve. Because it doesn’t look or feel even remotely the same.

My way. Simply grieving by feeling, or trying to anyway. Just experiencing and processing and navigating the unknown. It’s a swirl of new painful emotions I’ve never had to understand before.

And it’s confusing. And it’s hard. And it’s exhausting.

And somehow it’s a blessing(?).
It’s a blessing that we get to feel.
It’s a blessing that we get to experience emotions.
It’s a blessing that these moments challenge our thinking, and our faith, and our experiences.
It’s a blessing that we don’t have to do it alone.
It’s a blessing that we don’t have to have it all figured out.

And it’s a blessing that as we walk through this season, we are stretched and grown into a new version of ourselves. One who can do hard things, feel their feelings, and support others who will inevitably experience something similar.

Grieving is not for the faint of heart. And there are so many things that I just didn’t expect. But I’m learning that the process is kind of the whole entire point.