December 11, 2020
Things happened since Monday that made me lose my peace. I felt the structures I had carefully built through November fly apart, while I tried desperately to hold them together — unsuccessfully. It got worse on Wednesday after an unfortunate interaction with the spouse and then an inner darkness broke loose. I tried to not externalize it but by Thursday I felt I just wanted to claw my head and my gut apart and release that pressure that was threatening to detonate a bomb within. I couldn’t bear that feeling.
It got worse as the day proceeded and even a stint on the treadmill did nothing to calm me. I did explode at the spouse for something that perhaps needed challenging, though not in the way I had done. I forced myself to go collect my blood report and see the doctor. I even bought the inks and notebooks I had planned to do, but without any joy. Later at home, I refrained from opening that gorgeous Malbec as I was worried that if I opened it, I might drink it all, but I did binge watch Netflix till midnight. I filled my waterman with one of my new inks and I immediately hated the colour, regretted the purchase, and wanted to fling the bottle at the wall. It took all of my remaining control to refrain from doing that.
I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t think. I wanted someone to make it better and was angry that nobody could.
I fell asleep and woke feeling drained, exhausted, limp and peeled raw.
But I could finally identify the process I was going through. Loss and grief. Specifically a 9-stage grief process —
- Hope —Tormented Hope.
- Anxiety —Anguished Apprehension.
- Depression —Angst-Ridden Sadness.
- Denial —Confused Rejection.
- Pain and Guilt —Agonizing Self-Blame.
- Anger and Bargaining —Bitter Resentment.
- Acceptance —Practical Relief.
- Depression —Second Round of Sadness.
- Reverie and Revival — Renaissance.
— And I had woken this morning to acceptance. Also the grey ink wasn't as terrible as it had been last night.
I was/am grieving many things but mostly I realise the loss of 2020. As I slipped into December I felt an urgency to make the year feel meaningful. To end it with having something concrete to show for the year which had disrupted every hope and plan I — and many or most of us — had made for it. For me that last hope took the shape of a draft of the book I had begun working on in November, but which had stalled completely.
This year has been hard. Harder for many others than it has been for me. I have been listening to others talk about the difficulties about this year — from getting medical appointments for what would be emergencies at any other time (yet not in these covid times — someone told me that they were only getting an appt to fix a broken molar in march), to losing work as free lancers and worrying about survival.
I don’t know how many times I had hoped that covid would magically ebb, that the virus would have had enough of us and leave, and we could all emerge from devastation. I also remember the times I felt overwhelming anxiety that it would never be done with us. I saw many who managed to negotiate this time so much better than I did and I felt bitter resentment. I blamed myself and others for my failures. And I bounced between these stages not even realising that I was until they amplified themselves over the last two days and broke to something akin to relief this morning. Relief of recognition perhaps?
I also saw that the book I tried to work on in November — the story of a twin who loses her brother — is my attempt at working out some of the loss I feel about losing mine, not to death but to a painful separation. I am stuck in the state of denial and numbness around that. I can’t write that book till I try to work through the processes of grief around this or perhaps allow myself to use the book to feel them fully.
I don’t know how the next weeks will unfold. I know I have been through a tempest that tore apart some veil within that clouded my ability to know. I still feel the other states — anger, shame, anxiety, depression — along my edges, though I am at a temporary state of relief. I hope the knowing of what is going on will help me be gentle with myself at this year-end.
I don’t know if others are feeling such states and would love to hear how your year has been.
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