Can't Check it Off the List

The rain this morning matches my mood.  I am just sad and teary and I just don't get this grieving process.  I've been putting one foot in front of the other and although I still can't find the joy in life right now, I've been moving forward in some sense, accomplishing tasks.  But last night, grief snuck up on me again.  It was triggered while I was eating dinner, alone, at the table.  There are many people I know of that sit alone each night for dinner.  So I am not unique in that.  But my mind turns to the fact that I'm nourishing my body and I have no interest in nourishing my body.  Because nourishment is vital to survival and I do not feel like surviving.  I would really like to just crawl into a hole and wallow in my grief.  But I know I can't do that because it's selfish and as much as it would be easier and less painful, I know I can't and so I must try to move through this grief.

I am just annoyed because there have been "good" days--defined by getting through the day without tears, without feeling my broken heart.  And so I think I'm learning to adjust to my new life, my life without Ed.  But then a day like yesterday hits me, defined as a "bad" day, and I feel like I can never move forward.  But, as I've said before, grief is not a forward process, it is sideways.  And so I take a deep breath and I try to keep moving.

And that is what I will do today.  I will get ready for work.  I will plug through my day with the goal to just make it through the day.  I am just so surprised how difficult this process is.  I keep wanting to think of overcoming grief as a task or a goal that you set and that one day you can just say "accomplished" and check it off the list.  But I'm realizing that is not the case.  Grief is now part of my life and it will be something I carry with me forever.  Some days it will stay in it's nice little compartment and there will be other days where it sneaks out.  Obviously, today is one of those days.