I cannot understand how I sometimes have absolutely no control over my emotions and other times, I'm the pillar of strength and downright stoic. Today should have been easy. It was a gift I couldn't take advantage of--a lovely inservice day. My chief pleasure on such a day is in the gathering of colleagues from several campuses, giving me a chance to see work friends I don't see on a daily basis. The morning passed without incident. I began to falter in the afternoon after several people came over to talk to me. One of my co-workers dubbed me Miss Popular; I can't help it if people love me :) I hadn't seen many of these colleagues since before Maura became ill. Some didn't know about Maura, and, of course, the subject of my absence came up, and I told them, and well...Others came to offer their condolences. That was a good thing--no awkward silences. I'm glad they did not ignore me. And I'm glad they did not probe or try to say anything else. Lots of I'm sorries and lots of hugs. Just right! But all those expressions of love and concern and friendship drain my energy and bring my sorrow to the surface. When the speaker began, I was already in a fragile state. Jonathan Sprinkles is an excellent motivational speaker for college students, coming from a background similar to many students on our campus, so I had looked forward to hearing him speak. Unfortunately for me, he asked us to write down recent challenges in our lives (I didn't) and how we had solved them. (Uh-oh. Here it comes.) My chin quivered; my eyes welled up; and I'm sitting at a table with all my immediate co-workers. Darn. Double darn. Then Jonathan proceeded to tell us that most of our greatest challenges are 1) temporary, and 2) never turn out as bad as we think. I never heard what number 3 and 4 were. Oh, thank you, God, that I was near a door! A friend followed me to make sure I was okay. Then she retrieved my belongings from the conference room, and I headed for home. Only I didn't go home. Instead I came back to work for awhile, needing to get my mind busy. Well, that didn't work either. I got some work done, but here I sit, unable to concentrate, using my work computer for personal blogging. I think they can fire me for this. If you are reading this, and you have the ability to fire me or to get me fired, please don't. It's 6:50 on a Friday evening, and I'm a wreck.
Addendum, 7:30 Saturday morning: I'm better now. Still, I go back to my original question: Why do I have no control over my emotions? So many times I can talk about Maura, or I can listen to people making insensitive remarks, or I can read or listen to self-help gurus. No tears. I'm fine. I've got this grief thing under control. And at other times...
Emotional triggers? Nothing and everything.
About Me
- Erin
- This is a picture of my daughter, Maura. She died from metastatic high-grade unclassified sarcoma* on May 19, 2009 at the age of 22. For one year I wrote about her journey with cancer. I don't know if I'll keep writing now or if I'm done. We'll just take it a day at a time. *Sarcoma is a little-known, under-researched, under-funded cancer. To contribute directly to research please consider giving a gift directly to: MD Anderson Cancer Center- Donations, PO Box 4486, Houston TX 77210-4486 ****(Please write "In memory of Maura de Souza " in the memo portion of the check to make sure it goes directly for sarcoma research.)
2 comments:
There are rules in Logic. If A, then B. But grief, that is shades of black and gray and white and purple and no If I do this, then this will happen. A+B does not alway = C and people are too complex to design rules for grief. That is my logical or rather illogical logical explanation. I am reading this after bursting into tears in my kitchen for no reason at all. I just suddenly felt, not even sad, just emotional and I did not just lose my daughter to cancer. God gave us a heart. WIth that heart, we can do so much good but as is everything here on Earth, our heart can be broken. I read a quote once about giving the broken pieces back to God and He will fix it. He just doesn't work very fast and often times, the heart we get back still has a few cracks. Argh, I am rambling. I think what I"m trying to say is, a beautiful heart bleeds sometimes. It always will and that's what makes it beautiful. If it didn't, it wouldn't do so many of the good things you did and are doing. In pop music, there is a song by a group called Incubus called Love Hurts. The refrain "Love hurts but sometimes it's a good hurt and it feels like I'm alive." There I go...rambling again. There is a message in all that blather. God isn't going to give your heart back fixed and without memory of Maura. NOr do I think you want Him to. Love ya.
Kathy
I know the feeling sometimes. Well my own version of those feelings and moments.
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