6 Months of Grief Project: Day 176

Grooved

This is Day 176 of my #6MonthsOfGrief Project. To learn more about this practice, feel free to visit Day One, where I explain this project in more detail.

I have been living with this grief for long enough now, that it has worn deep grooves into my heart. It has woven itself into my DNA, so that I barely remember what it feels to be truly carefree and joyful. I have many moments of laughter and distraction, thanks to my amazingly supportive friends — but those moments are always tainted by the grief that flows underneath every waking moment of my life.

The other night, I was driving home very late. It was one of those summer nights that is like liquid velvet. I was sunburned and exhausted and a song came on and for one brief moment, I was 16 again, driving around on a summer night, without a care in the world. My whole life was in front of me and I was actually optimistic about the possibilities of the future. That feeling came crashing down quickly, as I remembered that I am NOT 16, but a 44-year-old widow, and there is nothing to look forward to, except more grief, more anxiety, more suicidal thoughts, more loneliness, and more exhaustion.

I want to remember what it is like to be free of this pain. I want to feel truly happy and hopeful again. Is that even possible? Or is this who I am now?

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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:

• Filmmaker Gemma Green Hope made a short animation in memory of her grandmother 
• Photographer Sarah Treanor Takes Moving Self-Portraits to Cope with Her Fiance's Death
• 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:

• Open to Hope: Finding Hope After Loss
• Widowed Village
• Camp Widow

• Soaring Spirits International

Living with Grief Resources:

• Death and Broken Cups by Ivan Cenzi
• What Joe Biden Has Said About Dealing With Personal Tragedy And Grief
• Death, Grief & Shattered Assumptions
• Stifled Grief: How the West Has It Wrong
• How Grief Can Make You Sick
• What's Your Grief?
• The Grief Geek
• Modern Loss's excellent resource list
• The writings of Tim Lawrence
• 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 Losses, 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.