Don't Tell Me What to Feel

Crying. Again. 

It was daily, multiple times a day, crying from that day in June 2016, until February 2017. 

I was sick of the crying. I would put on a happy face for the girls, take them to a petting zoo where they could play on a jungle gym, sit on a bench to the side and quietly sob with my sunglasses on. They would run over to me and I would switch gears so quickly to smile and talk excitedly with them. 

Then there were the days I couldn't wait to put them to bed, so that I could bury my face into the carpet and weep. Or cover my head with my blankets to cry there. 

Some days they saw me crying. I knew they had to also see the real me, but I didn't want to overwhelm them with how often these emotions came over me. "Please don't cry, Mommy," their little voices would ring. If only they knew how often.

I was sick of the crying. The grief. The anxiety of loss. The anxiety of the future. The death of a marriage. The death of a life I knew. The loss of the comfort of familiarity. The sorrow over knowing that there was no easy place to fall. One side was pain, the other side of staying was pain. There was no soft place. This was my lot and it weighed heavily on me, and I was worn out. 

And then one February morning, 8 months later, I awoke to what felt like an angel whispering in my ear. "Your time of mourning is over," the voice said. I clung to that. And slowly, laughter came back to me. I have to say the peace had never left. Not once, not from the start of this whole thing. Not from the day he said, "Hire a lawyer. We're done." I had peace that day, inexplicable peace. And every day thereafter. I would tell people (and still do) that it felt as if God was carrying me. 

And I still feel that way so much. I'm not quite sure how I made it through it looking back.

But here I am over a year later in June. And the crying returns. It's over, it's done. I have to start over. Yes there is joy. There is also sadness. I will never understand how I was there for so long with a person who never loved me, never "saw" me. All my effort, my painting the walls, my sewing curtains, my helping in his business - it was all for nothing. All dust. And the pain of it hit me. The largest of all: the loss of my children 50% of the time. I would miss literally half of their lives. I would never get that back.

"It will be ok!" "You'll be ok!" "This is good, Christy that you don't have to move furniture!" the friends said.

They mean well. But. 

Don't tell me how to mourn. Don't tell me what to feel. Don't tell me to think from a higher perspective. Let me mourn. Let me feel. Let me be pissed off, let me sob, let me worry - let me just be. I have to walk through this part. And I will no matter what someone else thinks. 

There is no perfect rounding out of this post. I have let it sit for many months before doing the final edits to publish it. Maybe that is good. Maybe now it is too mixed up. 

I will finish with a message for others:

Mourning. People sometimes will get annoyed when your mourning is not finished. Even you may get annoyed with yourself. 

But it's your journey. You went through the pain. You experienced the loss. Take your time. 

No one can tell you what to feel.

<3