Grief is a Process
1:29 PM
"I would like to communicate with you about Difficult Things.
We have connected.
I would like to love you if that is how it is. I would like to honor our connection with mutual openness. Or, I would like to lose you if that is how it is. I would not like to dishonor our connection with a lack of communication about the confusing things.
I would not like to lose said connection: connection is a spark, it is rare, a cause for joy. I would not like to lose said spark because of my or your inability to communicate about my or your fear. I do not mind fear: I fear, you fear. I would like to honor our fear by tending to it, by giving it light and letting it relax. I have learned this: when I am gripped by confusion I do not shut down: rather, I talk it out. It is a clumsy, simple tactic that works every time: by giving voice to that which I do not understand or feel comfortable about, my confusion gains sanity instead of calcifying into fear of fear.
If you are afraid, come here and I will hold you into me. Or go away, go for a walk and hold yourself sweetly.
I would like to assure you: I will never resent your fear. Rather: I would like to admire you for acknowledging your hesitation and I trust there are good reasons for it that I can not yet know. And I would like to care if you will let me look beneath your folded wings.
If I truly care for you I must care more about you than about my feelings for you."
"And if you do not tell me, I will fold my wings closed against your heart and I would not like to be friends. For such cowardliness is for children, though children have an excuse: they are children.
...I have made friends with myself, so I do not fear loneliness. I am even fine with disrespect, for my capacity to cease to care is contextualized by my good friend’s repeated advice over the years: “If she does not communicate, she is a child: forget her, you deserve better.”
And so, I say, I would like to forget you."
(Excerpts from Things I would like to do with you when we are confused.)
I am having a difficult time.
We have connected.
I would like to love you if that is how it is. I would like to honor our connection with mutual openness. Or, I would like to lose you if that is how it is. I would not like to dishonor our connection with a lack of communication about the confusing things.
I would not like to lose said connection: connection is a spark, it is rare, a cause for joy. I would not like to lose said spark because of my or your inability to communicate about my or your fear. I do not mind fear: I fear, you fear. I would like to honor our fear by tending to it, by giving it light and letting it relax. I have learned this: when I am gripped by confusion I do not shut down: rather, I talk it out. It is a clumsy, simple tactic that works every time: by giving voice to that which I do not understand or feel comfortable about, my confusion gains sanity instead of calcifying into fear of fear.
If you are afraid, come here and I will hold you into me. Or go away, go for a walk and hold yourself sweetly.
I would like to assure you: I will never resent your fear. Rather: I would like to admire you for acknowledging your hesitation and I trust there are good reasons for it that I can not yet know. And I would like to care if you will let me look beneath your folded wings.
If I truly care for you I must care more about you than about my feelings for you."
"And if you do not tell me, I will fold my wings closed against your heart and I would not like to be friends. For such cowardliness is for children, though children have an excuse: they are children.
...I have made friends with myself, so I do not fear loneliness. I am even fine with disrespect, for my capacity to cease to care is contextualized by my good friend’s repeated advice over the years: “If she does not communicate, she is a child: forget her, you deserve better.”
And so, I say, I would like to forget you."
(Excerpts from Things I would like to do with you when we are confused.)
I am having a difficult time.
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