In my very recent blogs there has been this trend of love, loss and relationships reflective of my experiences over the past week or so. In fact, it's been one week today that he left me and I feel as if I'm ready to move on with my life. I'm not going to go out and find a new boyfriend or anything but I'm far from broken, too. Either way, I guess, it all works out.
But this whole experience has made me wonder if I've ever loved anyone at all, or if I'm even capable of love. Anyone who reads this and really knows me might look at me in shock but I really do wonder if somehow, deep inside, I'm broken. I started thinking this way when I first learned of the grief process.
When I was in high school I was involved with Peer Mediation and took the class which was a very basic intro to psychology. Somewhere in the first semester we learned about the stages of grief. At the time I thought it was weird but I never actually gave it much thought since I hadn't really lost anyone all that important to me at the time. It wasn't until years later, just a few weeks after I turned 21, that the power of grief really hit home for me. I lost my grandfather to a very hard battle of cancer.
At the time I remember laying in the bathtub crying, hurting so much I couldn't see straight. I'd only seen him once since he'd been hospitalized and that was for all of an hour. For a long time after he was diagnosed I was in San Francisco going to culinary school. I was told that he asked for me a lot but I didn't know how serious it was. When I came home I begged my mother to take me to see him and she did, finally, but told me that we weren't staying long since she doesn't like hospitals and didn't want to see him like that. That was something I don't think I ever forgave her for.
My grandfather and I had always been close. While he chain-smoked in the back yard I'd listen to him "rumble" (as he called it.) about projects he'd been working on and his past in the military and in Japan. I'd talk to him about my fights with my mother and my horrible choices in men. He was one of those remarkable people that never once told you that you handled a situation the wrong way, he simply suggested that you could have done it better. He always made me feel as though I weren't the stupid child I was but somehow something a little better. I look back on our conversations now and I see just how much of a child I was back then and how I wish I'd spoken to him of something with more substance.
I found out he'd died one night after work. It was a Monday. I'd just met my Greg friend starting this new job and it had actually been a really good night. When the phone rang some time after closing I didn't give it much thought. The restaurant owner's wife picked it up and spoke for a few minutes. I went on cleaning and didn't pay any attention until she approached me and told me my mother was going to be giving me a ride home from work that night. I immediately knew he was dead. I normally walked the mile home and it was down the main street in town, well lit and generally safe.
His wife didn't say a word on why but I knew anyway. I asked her if he was dead and she shook her head. "I'm so sorry." she said but I felt lost from that moment and didn't really understand her. Greg came out from the kitchen and I went out front, crying and waiting while he held me. I think that's why Greg and I have always been so close. We met and he was there for me through a very important loss in my life. Anyway, I remember riding home and my mother telling he that he'd died and that it was a good thing because he'd left before he had a chance to be in a lot of pain. I went in the house and ran a tubful of hot water and just soaked in it, crying softly. I didn't sleep very well that night. But less than three days later I started functioning again. I still missed him but I knew there was life outside of my bedroom.
It's been this way through every loss I've ever had. It's been a super short grieving period and I've skipped most of the steps. With my grandfather I had the shock, denial, possibly depression (though it was super short as far as depressions go) and then acceptance.
I asked my teacher about it when I was in the class since every loss I'd ever had was a minor one and my grieving time was short. She told me it was normal from some people to skip steps in the process but that most periods of grieving take from a few weeks to a few years sometimes. From this I gathered I was mostly not normal. Since then I have wondered if it's possible I never loved anyone at all.
You see, losing Patrick this past week was hard the first day or two but after that I was fine. I am fine. It's been widely agreed on that I wasn't in love with him. From previous entries I've explained why I believe this to be true. And since Grief is the process by which our minds and hearts cope with loss and the trauma losing someone does to us does it mean you don't love someone when losing them causes you relatively little trauma?
Losing my grandfather was hard on me. There were moments I thought of him and cried. Does this mean I still mourned for him all these years later or did I mourn for my own loss, not being able to talk to him or hug him. There are those that say it's unusual not to mourn that long. Others say there's nothing wrong with me and that the mourning period is different for each person. There is no definitive. Does this mean love is in my own hands? Have I loved because I believe I have or is love something more powerful, a force that makes itself known beyond a shadow of a doubt? What is this ineffable force in life?
Perhaps I'll never know but I will keep working toward it.
Day 27 - 338 Days to Go
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