A tough few weeks

Well, my dear reader, I cannot lie. It has been one hell of a few weeks.

As I wrote earlier our community lost a treasured member a month ago. It was an expected loss, but I had been feeling rather low about it.

Then, rather unexpectedly, my beloved girl dog took a turn for the worse. There are so many things I would like to say, and so many things I can not. I can hardly bring myself to talk about losing her. And yet, I feel if I do not air it out I will not be able to move past it. Her death created some kind of creative block in me. Everything just came to a screeching halt.

I loved her so much and yet I could not save her. She was my everything, everything. And I feel so lost.

When I opened my etsy shop inventory yesterday I found that I had not entered anything new in it in 3 weeks. That is rather a long time for me. It was concrete evidence that I was somehow fallen into the dark. But I finished four felted Phrygian caps and got them listed. I edited my store for content and put up a coupon and new featured items. I feel as though I am stepping out of the shadows now.

And yet the grief is always lurking, just below the surface, threatening to overwhelm me at any moment.

That is the way grief works. I know this. The key is to not struggle, but also not get swept away. A fine line I am paddling today, back and forth across an eddy line.

Some one said online, about this photo below: "What a good life you have!" and I wrote back, "well, at least when I am on the water." And that's the thing I think we all experience. Life is a roller coaster, good days and bad days intermix. My prescription for grief above "not to struggle, but also not get swept away," could be applied to almost any part of life.

I have no wise words. I am not especially clever, nor a gifted writer. All I can offer is my own sense that we can all survive and emerge from whatever shadow befalls us. Maybe not necessarily intact or unscathed, but it is possible to survive; even possible to thrive, like a forest after a wild fire, bursting into bloom.

Right now I am scorched, and ashen. Right now I wish I had another person to cling to, to hold me. But I know I will make it to the other side, regardless.

I once wrote:

And this too shall pass,
As ripples beneath our boats,
As we quietly dip our paddles.

Indeed, right now, I cling to my boat and my paddle, the water carrying me along, to where I really know not.