identity

sometimes you may feel as if you do not know what to do with yourself. you do your days the old way, go to work, come home, eat... but you are no longer the you that you were. people treat you like you are normal, no one stops and stares at the grocery. but you are going through your days like a paper bag of broken glass.

it is the oddest thing ever to rediscover and rediscover and rediscover the loss, like a tongue worrying the hole where a tooth has fallen out....

you will find that pieces of your old self are in that bag-- that some of the things that mattered still matter. but there are a lot of unfamiliar pieces too. maybe some days you will also look in the mirror and wonder who you are. you are no longer the person you were, you are no longer the person this had not happened to...

you wake up each day
day after day
this is the first thing you think about

you may not even remember when you were worried about other things, your job maybe, or getting enough exercise. now much of life may seem to be on automatic pilot- you get up, brush your teeth, go to work, interact as if you are normal, come home, eat, sleep.
but this is always with you. sometimes you look in the mirror and cannot believe there is not a gaping hole in your chest.

there is such loneliness in this. no one else is you. it is not as if someone else grieving with you would make you feel less alone. of course, lots of other people are grieving too. it is just that no one can lessen the load of it for anyone else. at night, when you close your eyes, it's just you.

try to be gentle with yourself. a few months in, when the funeral is well over and people have returned to their lives, you will find yourself alone in a different way. you may need to seek out friends, they may no longer be seeking you out.

i used to go driving. or to a bookstore. somewhere where i was away, but around people, but not needing to interact.

but one of the haunting things, one of the things i worried most about, was who i was, who i was becoming. and oh, missing the person i had been. it is nested grieving. the loss of your loved one, your friend, your partner. and the loss of the you that you were.