After living a half-life for so many years, little by little I am starting to live again. Grief and loss took a toll in my mind, my emotions, and my feelings. It has taken years for me to come to terms with the consequences of the actions of others and the circumstances of life. Living with grief is like living inside a membrane that makes everything dull and it doesn’t let happiness or joy flow. They bounce back out and it does not matter how badly you want to feel happy, you just can’t. So, you avoid people or you fake happiness for the sake of others, and then you feel like a hypocrite. It is a
In my case, loss became part of me and that membrane of grief was a second skin and repelled everything that was good. However, I am very smart and a good actress and most around me did not notice the problem. However, I will tell you what made me want to cut that membrane of grief around me. I will tell you this story and maybe it might give you the incentive you need to break your own membrane called grief.
I was an Army Officer and my job at the time was to travel all over the world to Army posts teaching a class on the proper handling and shipment of medical hazardous materials. I was living In Maryland and I had to travel to Korea to teach a class. On the way back, I had to wait for three hours in Japan for my next fourteen-hour flight to the US. I was at the Narita Airport reading a book and there was this mother with a pair of twins. She had four-year-old twins and two-year-old twins traveling back to the US.
I am a single woman with no children. I have three nieces and three nephews. I spoil them rotten, but I get to give them back to their parents at the end of the weekend. If I ever babysit that long. So, when I saw that woman, with so many tax deductions, potentially flying in my flight to the US, I wanted to cry. All I wanted to do for fourteen hours was sleep. So, I tried to ignore the Gymboree of laughter. The kids were playing with Legos, and all I could do was watch. My book laid forgotten. The four kids played with those Legos, and the mother kept passing celery sticks, and I wanted to gag. How would anyone give celery to a kid? That was child abuse in my book, but the kids happily ate the pieces of softwood.
It was time to board the plane, and because I was military, the airline let Military members board first just along with mothers traveling with little children. Lucky me, there I was with the Lady and her Pre-k field trip. As we waited in the tunnel, there was this overly large person in front of us moving slowly in a wheelchair, I began having an anxiety moment. I was ill by then and was trying very hard to control my emotions and feelings without medication most times, very unsuccessfully I might add.
I was breathing hard, I felt my face very hot, leaning to the side wall, and my eyes were closed. I was dressed in civilian closed. No one but the airport workers new my affiliations to the military. Then a little hand held mine and pulled it. I opened my eyes to see the four-year-old twins holding my hands. They were a boy and a girl. The little boy pulled me and I went down to one knee and he said to my ear.
“Is Okay, I’m scared of flying too.” Then his sister said. “We are both scared.” They both said, “You can sit with us, and we’ll lend you our Legos. That’ll help.” and then I cried silent tears. The mother came, and we talked a little. She apologized, and I told her they were angel babies. They sat far from me. I said goodbye to my little angel friends. We boarded, and there were some crying kids in the flight, not much. I cried silently some more in the fourteen-hour flight, but because I had a pair of friends that were flying scared, I was fine in the end. That happened four years ago. I learn my first lesson that day.
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In that flight I learned I needed to place asside the things I used to distract me from living. I still live with grief and loss.
However, a pair of twins have moved in my home and they have created gaping holes in that membrane of solitude. I let grief and loss make over me. The twins are Happiness and Joy. These twins are fraternal and they are not the same. Happiness come with my naughty nephew that jumps in my pool and makes the biggest cannon balls just when I am passing by him. Happiness visits often when my nieces call for no other reason, but to say hello or when my dog go chasing a squirrel. I let Happiness come to me when my neighbor says, “Well, hello stranger” when she hasn’t seen me for a few days.
On the other hand, Joy must be searched like a lover that is hard to get, but you are so in love you must have by your side. I fell in love with Joy the moment that boy said he was willing to share his Legos with me. I wanted to be like him and he was only four may be five.
So, I guess you need to fall in love with an emotion. That was what happened to me. I want Joy in my life. I need to feel it. Joy moves the dark urges from my soul. Joy makes me want to sing and dance. Joy makes me want to jump in my pool and play like I am a little girl. Joy, lets me water my plants in the morning and marvel in the beauty of the flowers. Joy lets me listen to any instrument in an orchestra and see colors again.
So now you know my secret. Make the conscientious decision to fall in love with an emotion. I work on this even in the days that I am ravaged by depression. Hope is gone. But I look for my lover emotion, Joy.
And when I can’t find it, I think of the boy and his sister and their willingness to share their Legos. And I create in my mind an imaginary friend that shares his Legos, and I create a little plane that flies to Japan and suddenly Joy touches me and kisses the top of my head.
