Category: Grief

Trying on my Old Self: part 2

On By JesseIn Grief, Life, Motherhood, Prose, Thoughts, WritingLeave a comment

By the end of the day last Monday, I was completely exhausted and I’d learned a few things.

  1. I neeeeeeed more bright colors in my current wardrobe. I’ve always liked bright colors, but I seriously underestimated how much joy it brings me to wear them.
  2. I felt prettier than I’ve felt in a very long time trying on all my dresses and heels.
  3. It turns out, this whole thing was never about the clothes at all.

When I first started putting things on, I felt so happy! All my bright, beautiful clothes felt like old and much-missed friends I was seeing again for the first time in a awhile. But pretty quickly, memories of all that I was and all that I did back then began pouring in.

I did important, fulfilling work in those clothes. I had great conversations with smart people who cared about the same big problems I did. I got to contribute to the personal and professional growth of people I respected, cared about, and was (still am) so very proud to know. I had conversations and made decisions that impacted every citizen in my state . . . I lived a completely fulfilling life.

I miss that. I miss working on problems bigger than my home and family. And, I hope this won’t be misunderstood, but I am not completely fulfilled by motherhood. The part of me that is fulfilled by motherhood is the part of me that wanted children, loves my children, and enjoys the process of coaching them into adulthood. The mom part of me is fulfilled and the wife part of me is fulfilled by my life as it is . . . but all those other parts have been languishing for years.

On some level, I’ve been aware of this, I know, because I’ve been working on bringing other parts of myself to the fore for the past couple of years. But putting on all those colorful, old clothes and remembering my life before really put it in black and white for me.

I am not fulfilled. Something is missing from my life-something that has to do with community, important work, and my purpose outside my family. I used to think it was writing, now I’m not so sure. Writing always has, and always will be, part of who I am and what I do, but lately its the sharing of my work, the messages I get and conversations I’ve had with strangers and friends about life, grief, healing, fear, growth, and so much more that have given me little tastes, here and there, of that fulfillment I’ve been seeking. So now I’m thinking it’s more to do with connection.

Most importantly of all, in this moment, I’m ready to actually take literal steps toward figuring out what it is and making it part of my life, or rather making my life part of it.

A daunting, but exciting prospect to be sure. : )

Stay tuned!

How to Handle a Miscarriage

On By JesseIn Grief, Life, Motherhood, Poetry, Thoughts, Writing3 Comments

Step One

Hold very still when you realize what’s happening.
Lest you collapse immediately
and drown in the first wave of grief.

(Or drown here.
If you do choose to wait, there will be other opportunities.)

**Helpful Hint**
When presented with opportunities to drown,
always choose to wait.

Step Two

Tell everyone.

“I have lost someone I never had.
There is nothing to bury but these feelings.
There will be no services.”

Or maybe say nothing
If the weight of even one pitying glance
might push you under
and you aren’t strong enough to come back up.

(Or drown here.
If you do choose to wait, there will be other opportunities.)

Step Three

Go back to work.

If you don’t already have children,
bring your sadness with you in your purse
but don’t take it out.
grieve quietly between the lines of your emails
remember to eat
and smile often
wait until you are in the shower, or in bed at night
to wonder if you are only grieving the child that wasn’t
or if the dream of motherhood altogether
is dead and you just don’t know it yet.

If you do already have children,
grieve quietly,
remember to eat
and smile often
fold your sadness into the clean towels
press it into the pages of bedtime stories
it will always be there
but only you will ever see it.

**Helpful Hint**
Remember, if all else fails, sheer force of will-
will see you through to the next step.

Step Four

Read or let people tell you about why it isn’t your fault.

Then, wonder often if it was something you did or did not do.
Wonder less over time.

(Or, drown here.
If you do choose to wait, there will be other opportunities.)

Step Five

Let people and animals love you.
Ask yourself if it matters whose fault it was.
Either way, the little soul has left
the child is not coming
there is nothing for it but to be sad
and let yourself be loved
until you have the energy to love others again.

**Helpful Hint**
If you hold on long enough,
you will have the energy to love others again.

Step Six

Every once in awhile,
when you are alone, and all is quiet,
reach down down down and so carefully
retrieve the memory
of that sweet soul
only you
ever had the privilege of holding.
And cherish it as
only you
are able–
that precious memory
made entirely of feelings
as invisible as the sweet forehead you’ll never kiss.

I Love it Here

On By JesseIn Grief, Life, Prose, Thoughts, Writing2 Comments

Life will knock you on your ass sometimes. Out of the blue, on a sunny day, suddenly there you are—leveled by whatever it is. Getting back up is a struggle. It takes time and it hurts and it’s scary and even from your knees with bleary eyes it’s easy to see that the life you’re coming back to isn’t the same one you went down in.

Macular degeneration was one of those for me–completely unexpectable—TKO. Going (hopefully very) slowly blind was nowhere near my list of things to watch out for. I went down hard and stayed down awhile–angry, sad, depressed, desperate. Now, I’m working my way through those things (for neither the first time, nor the last) and back to my feet in a new life.

A life that brings with it a whole new way of eating, some serious sunglasses, a wealth of anxiety about vision loss, a lifetime of follow-up appointments, and the knowledge that my future includes someday losing my central vision and, with it, a good deal of my independence.

But it’s worth it.

I love it here.

There’s horses and whiskey and margaritas. I love laughing and lipstick and guiding my babies as they grow. I love the woods and the mountains, misty mornings, and wild thunderstorms. Music, poetry, snow-melt river water running through my hair, and warm sun on my skin.

My man, my friends, and my family are funny as all Hell and have kept me company, laughing or crying, through every nightmare I’ve ever had to face.

And I’m fascinated by the strange muddle of humanity I’m part of—clashing and connecting, messily growing into what we’ll all be and do.

Life’s wellspring of treasures is as infinite as our capacity to endure it’s horrors. And when I’m having trouble finding my feet in the darkest dark I keep at it, not because I have to or need to or should or can but, because I want to;

I love it here.

Enough pt 2

On By JesseIn Grief, Life, Poetry, Thoughts, WritingLeave a comment

So the container broke

I sifted through

and . . .

it’s all still here.

Well, all of it except

the crippling fear

that these words aren’t worthwhile.

Now, I’m left to wonder

was it really too fragile?

was it truly that it was struck too hard

by some malevolent or careless, outside force?

divine destruction?

self-destruction?

or . . . .

did I simply outgrow it?

Enough pt 1: https://blackinkbirds.com/2022/11/09/enough/

Enough

On By JesseIn Grief, Life, Poetry, Writing2 Comments

I’ve shattered again.

But instead of gluing the pieces back together

I’m sifting through what was in the container

when it broke.

There’s no one here to tell me I’m ready.

No one I can ask if it’s good enough,

if I’ve met the goal

achieved the end.

Just me and all these words

that look like everyone else’s.

All those years

how did I not realize

I was still storing my worth

in the eyes of others?

I am calling it back now.

From every mis-place.

Even if I’m shattered and

have nowhere to put it

yet.

Fall

On By JesseIn Grief, Life, Poetry, Seasons, Writing1 Comment

I’ve decided not to fall this year
Not to leap forward into the unknown
with an open soul
as I have always done.

There’s this anger inside
I’ve been shushing
this fire inside
I’ve been banking.

And Fall has come
with her chill breezes
her crisp apple snap
expecting that I will
rake the words she’s brought with her
into piles on the page and play
as I have always done.

But I’ve been watching the way
the woods catch fire . . .
Every leaf on every tree burning bright
until there’s nothing left
and they flutter away like so much ash.

Yet the tree is not dead.

I don’t want to die or
become someone or something else.

I just . . .
don’t want to think anymore.
Or plan or rest or try or ponder or wish.
I’m tired of insecurity and
this pervading sense
of uncertainty.
I’m tired of hoping despite disappointment
tired of working through it
as I have always done.

I’m tired.

Of everything and everyone
especially myself.
Nothing helps. I’ve tried it all.
Except letting go.
Which I have maybe never done.

So, this time
I’ll take the words
in burning hands
no tidy piles
no time for play
I’ll take the fire from the tree
and let it fly through me
instead of watering it down
I’m going to feed it these feelings
And watch them burn
Until it all flutters away like so much ash . . .

And I can change.

The Underworld

On By JesseIn Grief, Life, Love, Prose, Short Stories, Writing2 Comments

It might have been the incessant rain or the murder of crows gathering in the dead oak outside my window. It might have been the dying flowers in their pretty vase or even the candles—flickering their last at the ends of their wicks. Whatever it was, I found myself at the gate. Unlike Heaven, there’s no keeper. This gate is unlocked and you can come whenever you please, though it pleases no one to come here.

I tuck my heart close, lest I lose it, and set my shield down; having been here before, I know there will be no protecting myself from what I find. Next, I tuck my shoes and soul beneath it’s weight, comforted that they’ll have some shelter from the elements while I’m away. Whatever else you do, never bring your soul here—this is no place for the divine.

When all is as it should be, I step through and begin my descent. Down, down over eons of rot that squelch between my toes. Down, down through hallways of bones and teeth where I somehow know which belong to those I’ve loved. Down, down where moonlight can’t go. Down, down where the rain is full of salt and never stops. Down, down until the path levels out and turns to the broken dreams of the living. Only then do I know I have arrived in the Underworld.

It isn’t Hell, if such a place exists. Hell is for souls and there are no souls here. Just the end. The end of whoever it was you were in the middle of loving. The end of yourself as you were when they lived. The end of all you knew and all you didn’t. The end–where all that holds physical form loses it to water and worms.

Now that I’m here, I crinkle my brow the same way I do when I’ve just entered a room and already forgotten why. After all, I already gathered up the remains of my loves and left them here months ago. I stand at the exact place I stopped then and try to remember to no avail. Finally turning with a shrug to retrace my steps to the gate which leads right back to my life as I left it . . . it’s only then I realize my mistake.

I left the wrong way last time–returning to life as I left it—surrounded by empty spaces where love used to be. I let go of their bodies but held on tight to the emptiness they left behind. Turning back toward the dark unknown, I shudder. I want to go back to the gate: back to my shoes and my soul and my shield, back to familiar, if empty, spaces.

But I don’t.

I know I came for this—the sixth stage of grief. The one that comes after you find your way through your worst nightmares to acceptance. It took me a while. Acceptance cost me and I had to gather up fresh courage for this:

There’s new love, new adventure, new wisdom that await on the other side of all you go through when you grieve. More than enough to fill the empty spaces to overflowing. But if you want it, you can’t go back the way you know.

To reach the sixth stage is to set down your shield. It’s all heart. It’s running barefoot through the Underworld, soaked in the tears of everyone ever, in a darkness too deep for moonlight. It’s feeling the sickening squelch of eons of rot between your toes and pushing forward, knowing that if you keep going, you’ll love again and get hurt again . . . and again and again until your teeth and bones join the others here.

And it’s worth it.

Every time.

It’s worth it.

So I run. Heart wide open through all I’ve loved and lost before. I run barefoot through darkness as deep black as a crow’s feather with nothing but hope to guide me forward. Until I’m falling down, down into a deep, slow river. Cool, fresh water rinses the tears of everyone ever from my hair and washes the rot of eons from my feet. I close my eyes and float on my back, not warm or cold, not happy or sad, and not marking the moment moonlight creeps in–slowly turning blackest black into gray and gray into silver, until the sun rises–shifting silver into the pale gold of a new day.

Bucket List with a Twist

On By JesseIn Grief, Life, Prose, Thoughts, Writing4 Comments

I’m tired of feeling sad. I’m also tired of waiting for the next boot to drop. If you’ve been reading awhile or know me personally, you know the past four years have been some of the hardest of my life. But what I’m noticing now is that a lot good things are happening to and around me and instead of feeling happy or excited I just feel afraid of what’s going to happen next to take it all away. To be fair, when a lot of extremely terrible things happen, these feelings make sense. But when nothing terrible is happening, these feelings become a choice.

A few months ago, I made the decision to stop and promptly failed a lot of times. My most recent effort, was writing out a bucket list of things that would make me feel good to do. But when I was finished and read it over, I didn’t feel good, I just felt tired and anxious. Thankfully, sometimes the first, second, twelfth, or even twentieth failure leads us into the next possibility. And the possibility born out of that, most recent, failure is . . . well, it’s working.

Instead of a list of things to do, I made a list of things I want to feel. I edited it until every word hit right and when I was finished, I had a feeling I was onto something.


My Bucket List with a Twist:

Silly
Awestruck
Proud
Satisfied
Helpful
Beautiful
Determined
Connected
Strong
Known
Loved
Intrepid
Happy
Rested
Content
Butterflies
Successful
The Good Kind of Tired
Optimistic
Fun

So much of life we have no control over. Things happen to us and feelings rise up that have to be felt. But just about every day there’s some point when we get to choose. We can say yes or no to being around certain people, we can say yes or no to doing that thing, eating that food, how much sleep we’re going to get, or what to do that day, and we know before we do it how it’s likely to make us feel. This bucket list is about those moments and consciously choosing people and things that make me feel good.

Right after I got my list written, I made a trip to one of the most important places (because it holds some of the most important people) in my life. And for the first time in a long time, I let myself completely enjoy and give over to each moment without a thought to the future, without getting hung up in the past, and without anxiety over whether or not I’d be accepted/acceptable, or how it could all go wrong. Instead, I focused on each opportunity to feel good, then took it, and savored it.

Ladies and gentlemen, the initial results are in and . . .

. . . yeah, I’m definitely on to something. : )

So, I’m going to keep heading down this path awhile and see what shakes out. Sometimes, I’ll do a full post, sometimes just pictures tagged with words from my list and #bucketlistwithatwist. If you want to make your own list and join me, I would love that! If not, that’s cool too. This one is really just about me shifting myself back toward the relentless optimist I’ve been most of my life. : )

The Lipstick Letters: Intuition

On By JesseIn Grief, Life, The Lipstick Letters, Writing1 Comment

When I was trying to decide where to go next with the Lipstick Letters, I was torn between Memory, Perception, and Intuition. I was heavily leaning toward Memory for a long time, but even though I drafted several Memory posts in my head, none of them made it to paper.

Then, a few weeks ago, I went on a weekend alone to rest and sort it out. It was in that long, deep, lovely silence it became clear that my intuition had something to say.

I fought it. I was so sure it was going to say stuff like, “Get off your @$$ and handle your messy life.” But no. When I finally caved in, late afternoon on my first, full day alone, all I heard was, “Girl, you’re tired. Have a good sleep and we’ll talk in the morning.”

I slept from around four that afternoon until seven thirty, got up, had a snack, brushed my teeth and slept from eight until the next morning. And when I woke up, I could hear myself. I could hear myself so clearly it was impossible to deny how much I had pushed my intuition aside to survive wave after wave of grief in the midst of new motherhood.

I listened. And I learned.

My intuition is kind. Instead of being salty about being shoved down and ignored repeatedly for literal years, it was gracious and proud of me for slogging through, giving my kids everything I had to give, and making it to a place where I was strong enough again to go back and start working through that series of terrible losses.

Driving home, I promised to keep listening and act accordingly as much as possible over the following month. And I did!

I reached out when I felt like reaching out. I rested when I felt like I needed rest. And on days when my grief came knocking, I let it in and sat with it awhile instead of pretending I didn’t know it was there. I set a new boundary with my kids to ensure I get at least a couple of hours to cook or clean or lay down or fold laundry without interference each day.

I let my mind wander back through some choices I’d made over the past several years (another task I’d been avoiding) only to find that so much of what I’ve said, done, not said, and not done, was me in survival-mode. A mode I kept trying to get out of only to have another tragedy toss me back in.

Each whisper I tended to, I felt a little more of the weight of mistakes, the weight of difficult choices, the weight of loss, the weight of guilt, the weight of pressure to do and be more fall away. And even then, my intuition did not tell me to get out there and start rebuilding a new life out of the rubble of the unfinished one I’d semi-started here . . .

It told me to keep writing and sharing, to go get a hair cut, and to remove the gross, old wallpaper in the hallway. So. Yeah. Here we are. : )

I’m trying hard to avoid making these letters about advice. (If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my twenties and thirties, it’s just how much I don’t know.) But I have to say, if you’ve been shushing that inner voice out of fear of what it’ll say, then like me, you might be mistaking your thoughts for your intuition.

My thoughts can be anxious, angry, self-deprecating, and flat out cruel. My intuition is always loving, always tender, always gracious, and not just toward me, but toward everyone else as well. So much so, that nowadays when I’m confused about which is which, that’s my go-to way of telling them apart.

Bottom line? I’m beginning to trust myself and my inner knowing again. And it feels really really good.

Hair Cut

On By JesseIn Grief, Life, Motherhood, Poetry, WritingLeave a comment

“Your hair!” she exclaimed,
as she pulled up alongside me,
shock and a hint of horror in
her tone and wide-eyes

“I know!” I replied with a practiced, rueful smile
she was not the first and would not be the last to ask
“Why did you cut it?”

In a blink
every truth whipped through me:

We were tired,
my hair and I
straightened out by circumstance
when we were born to be curly.

Like Sampson, I mistook it
for more of me than it was.

I was feeling more like myself than I had in years
but still seeing someone else in the mirror.

Every time I pulled a wad of it out of the drain
I was disturbed anew at how closely
it resembled my thoughts.

My neck was creaking ominously
under the weight
of it–
living life
with so much death–
It had to go
I couldn’t carry it all
not one more moment . . .

“I needed a change.” I replied.

But she’d already seen–
she understood.
Her expression shifted to one of approval.

“It looks good.”
she said.
Then drove away.