Still Tossing it Around in My Head

I just returned form the open mike. I am home alone and I am not crying. I can feel my brain wanting to cry -- my brain has a brain of its own -- but I am feeling strangely in control.

I wish I knew why I don’t want to let go of my grief. I can understand not being able to let go, but not wanting to let go is something else. My grief has become like a teddy bear to me. I hug it in bed, I sleep with it, hold onto it when I am upset -- and I think I have grown to love my grief the way an abused person loves her abuser. It doesn’t love me back. All it does is hurt me and hold me back and I keep going back for more because in some bizarre way, I love it, I need it and I just can not walk away.

If I stop grieving, that means I will be over the loss of my Chris. Until the end of my grief means something different than that to me, I am not going to be able to release my panicked bear-hug grip.

Chris’ cancer was evil. Grief is evil. I feel victimized by the latter. I feel as though I am in a giant room enveloped in darkness, groping around looking for a window or another escape, but I just keep coming up against the same wall, hoping to push through it. It never gives way.