I tagged along with some talented women who were lunching at Moosewood today. One of them just returned from a sabbatical on the road in a Class B; she has a blog. Hi Barbara! I'm so glad I accepted the invitation. And spoke. I need to remember to keep doing that.
And the others: mashed mud? Hardly. Just not RVers. I'll talk more about them in my other blog, Great Therapists and Town Clerks I Have Known.
I'm going back to see if there are interior shots of their B. Annie and I are still tempted by the smaller rigs, but we were won over by a B Touring Cruiser we cruised at Camping World. Really more of a tiny Class C, but more spacious than the B's we've looked at. That's all harmless envy, because we've got the rig and it's loaded for duck.
So, I've got to just say it here and be done with it. I'm grieving my stuff. It had to happen, I knew it would happen, I expected it to happen, and it happened. I can say it here because you people won't chide me for mourning, even if the grief is for mere stuff. Grief is not always what it looks like. My therapist would say that I'm not really grieving a carload of unnecessary possessions, but a little of every other loss I've never completely grieved. Don't pshaw; you do it, too. Have you ever said, I don't know why I'm crying. It's just a stupid vase? You may have shattered a vase, and you may have liked the vase. But, it's also the dog you lost this summer who was 14 and your layoff you thought you were over and the fight you had with your husband when he stormed out and for a while you thought it might really be over.
My son is 23 today.
And ... you just witnessed my epiphany. Stop averting your eyes.
2 comments:
23 - how can he possibly be that old? I remember the day I met him at Annie K's, all sass and attitude and cuteness. He was, what, 13 then... must be, because it was just around the time I met MG, and that will be 10 years this January.
I can understand the grief of stuff - I am very attached to my stuff. When I think about the post-docs and faculty jobs I am applying to and how most of them will require me to live separately from MG for at least a little while, I anticipate being lonely not just for her but for our things. The furniture, the knick-knacks, the big screen TV.
I also believe that when I grieve a current loss, I am also grieving for previous losses that I have not fully mourned. And how do you fully mourn something, anyway? There's so much social pressure to move on, get on with life, cheer up, don't be such a downer. Who among us gets to cry our little hearts out until we are really done? Where is the line between grieving effectively and wallowing in grief and self-pity, and how often do we see peole that WE think are way over the line or who are in denial about their grief?
It's complicated. And don't take away my jewelry box!
Maria
Maria - yes, yes, yes. All of that.
23 is crazy. I mean, it's pretty much adult! I realized it when he started telling me about his insurance plan and retirement fund. Who are you?
A friend recently complained that people around her wondered why she was sometimes sad or depressed, because her mother had died nearly three months earlier. And, also yes to my own concept of what "too much grief" looks like on someone else. Sometimes I disgust myself with mourning; I think I cannot stand to cry one more tear. Plus, who wants to risk exhausting her partner? Pressure from within, pressure from without.
Thanks for validating my Stuff Grief!
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