My grandfather is not long to be with us. I don't want to write about him on a forum where I post naked pictures of football players - he hates football - but that doesn't preclude navel gazing. I haven't lost anybody this close in 15 years and I think in a lot of ways 12-year-old have better mental equipment for this sort of thing than 27-year-olds. At my age, especially sans baby and responsibilities, one is enmeshed so deeply in consumer culture that the notion of loosing something you can't pick up another of from a specific store or internet site just boggles the fucking mind. Mostly I'm fascinated by my different comportment around different people as my brain struggles to deal.
1. General public = outright hostility. These days I hate the world for real, perceived and anticipated injuries. The real injuries come from living in an environment de-prioritizing these relationships; I don't forget the number of people shocked I went to Yorkshire instead of, say, Barcelona last March. Grandparents? Visit? Wha? Do they smoke drugs? The perceived ones come in imagining people want me to get on with caring about their own shit, which I can't and frankly don't want to. Finally anticipated - no one has said this to me yet, but I dread them doing so because it will probably inspire me to put the beats on them - consolations like "Well, at least he's had a good run!" I don't fucking care he's had a good run. I'm still losing him. Fuck off and die. Honestly.
2. Figaro = needy hostility. I don't usually tell people what's happening - unless I become visibly upset and need to explain that - because I don't think most people have a right to care what's going on and that any sympathy they demonstrate would be insincere. Figaro, however, has a right to care, and when he acts like he does I believe him and feel some comfort. And yet if he says anything like the wrong thing, I have to swallow a massive urge to say something nasty that I would never dream of saying to anyone else without deep, proddy, pokey provocation. Why are we such bitches to our lovers?
3. My mum = gross, circular schizophrenic sympathy. I want to make her feel better; more than anything in the situation I want to be able to comfort her. And yet she's my mum, so I want her to comfort me. But I know that's not her job anymore, at least in this situation. This is primarily her grief and I want to make her feel better; more than anything in the situation . . .
4. My analyst = snotty gulpy kiddy tears. I guess that's why he makes the big bucks, because they don't come out anywhere else, even though they always want to. Sometimes I think the combination of Calabrian appoggiarsi sulla famiglia and English Banker Stiff Upper Lip I was brought up with are what's costing me $60 a week with him.
9 commenti:
That's a big comfort to know. Thank you, and I'm *not* just writing that because that's the normal thing to write.
I'll try not to put the beats on you; maybe we can just get snaked and watch Superman in 3-D.
I'm sorry. :-(
Anything I'm could say is going to sound stupid and trivial and meaningless, but honestly there is no single way of dealing with loss or with grief. It's perfectly valid and reasonable to feel all these ways and more.
That's good to know too. I feel inequipped to deal with this, yet I think the equipment is there but so unfamiliar to me that every way I feel and react seems wrong. As if there *should* be a single way to deal and I just haven't figured it out yet.
This is the one thing that my (bastard) shrink left me with - the idea that no emotion is ever WRONG. There are constructive responses, and non-constructive responses, but you have the right to feel whatever it is that you feel.
There isn't a road map to loss/grief. Even those "stages" things that psychologists talk about are guidelines. Though they can be helpful, in terms of knowing that horrible feeling emotions like Anger and Denial are a perfectly natural part of the process.
It was weird, when my grandmother died, that suddenly my mum's role and mine had reversed, that I was comforting her. But in the end, we were comforting one another, and there was that sense of continuity and understanding, that I realised she had had a similar difficult but ultimately strong relationship to her mum that I had with mine. Kind of made me stop taking her for granted, in a way.
Anyway. Be strong. Be weak if it helps, too. You will puzzle your way through.
Huh, my shrink said the same thing was possible with my mum, in terms of helping *each other*. It sounded so strange, that helping each other could resolve my little schizo circle there. But also so right.
Life seems to get simpler in some ways now that we're adults, but also so much more complicated. Especially when dealing with the loss of our loved ones. Especially grandparents, especially.
I am sure that you will be a big comfort to your Mom and vice versa.
As for the jerks that expressed shock when you wanted to see your grandparents..I can only feel sadness for them that they don't know what it feels like to truly love and respect the parents of your parents. Anyone who says "Well, at least he's had a good run!" has never lost a grandfather before.
Let me know if you need anything darling!
Thanks, honey. I know you know how shit this sort of thing is. So you know what I need? I need to go to Bluesfest!
Let me know what's going to be up tomorrow night, okay?
Hey, I just tried calling you..very excited to see you this weekend! I just talked to Sugarplum who was going to pick up your pass..
Me too babes! I sent you an email with my deets.
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