6 Months of Grief Project: Day 79

There is Only Me

This is Day 79 of my #6MonthsOfGrief Project. To learn more about this practice, feel free to visit Day One, where I explain this project in more detail.

My Grief continues to show me new depths. This morning, I woke up feeling the deepest loneliness I have felt in a long time. I don't quite have words yet for the feeling, but it was a realization that there is only me in my life. There is no one else here with me. I have to face everything without a partner, without a companion, without a teammate.

I wanted this project to be a companion to me. I wanted these daily creative acts to be a healing salve and a way to process my grief, and I guess it is doing that, but it is also making me feel sad. I'm not even halfway done with this project and I feel like quitting. I don't want to face this Grief anymore and take the time to create an image. I don't want to have to feel that much. I don't want to face myself and see how truly broken and empty I feel. But I have this workaholic perfectionist inside me (named Gerta), who will not let me stop, because I have committed to this project and I'm going to finish it.

I am in awe that I have already made 79 images and written 79 posts about my life of grief. It is amazing and sad and weird and strange and fascinating and exhausting.

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I am very aware that this project can bring up a lot around yours or other's grief and loss, I will always follow every post with some online grief support resources that have helped me. Please feel free to let me know of online support that you have found healing in your grief, as well:

Art with Grief:

• Photographer [Sarah Treanor] Takes Moving Self-Portraits to Cope with Her Fiance's Death by Jillian Wong
• When the Fall Comes, a film about Grief by Adriana Marchione
• Self-Portraits: Expressing Emotion Through Art on What's Your Grief?
• The Hard Romance of Grief by Mark Liebenow
• The poetry of John O’Donohue

Resources for Widows:

• Widowed Village
• Camp Widow

• Soaring Spirits International

Living with Grief Resources:

• Modern Loss's excellent resource list
• The Rules of Grief are for Other People by Shawn Doyle on The Good Men Project
• Grief Bibliography on Grief Healing
• Teresa “TL” Bruce's What to Say When Someone Dies
• They Brought Cookies: For A New Widow, Empathy Eases Death's Pain by Ann Finkbeiner on NPR
• A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit
• Megan Devine’s Refuge in Grief
• The Geography of Sorrow: Francis Weller on Navigating Our Loses, interviewed by Tim McKee in Sun Magazine
• How to Be a Friend in Deed by Bruce Feiler in the New York Times
• 12 Things to Know About the First Year of Grieving Someone You Can’t Live Without by Laurie Costanza in Elephant Magazine

And remember, I am sharing this project on a variety of platforms, including my Instagram, Twitter, & Facebook feeds, as well as my Pinterest page on Grief. I use the hashtag #6MonthsOfGrief, so it can easily be found on any platform. Please share this project with anyone you think might need it.

Thank you, and see you tomorrow.