Loss

Loss

Move on say they that have not experienced the full wrecking effect of loss. Some will suggest that a year of mourning is acceptable. To reinforce this attitude, they will reply to your musings about your loss with a few seconds of silence followed by a complete change of subject. The power of minimising your suffering stems from their naivety and inexperience of the subject. Most of us lack compassion towards those suffering grief. Pretending to care is better than trotting out platitudes and the standard lines. More is to be gained from talking to the one you have lost than talking to the living. Talk to the one you have lost daily, hourly if you want. You are not insane. You have joined a club that do this until they pass away into the ether, gone too and it no longer matters. Someone anew can enter your life and provide adequate distraction and compensation. Yet, the loss lingers. We ask the wrong question. It is not, what to do to make things heal, but why would you want to forget and thereby lose even more. Forgetting about the departed and moving on is adding to the loss.

My mother and father’s daughter said to me in a critical tone that everything I do is always bigger, better, and more grandiose. Maybe it is not becoming of me to be like that. Maybe I could win competitions and collect prizes for being narcissist of the day. The greatest most prestigious narcissist. Or that the things I have done are indeed bigger, better, and more grandiose than her. Why shy away from talking about the subject of grief, loss, and personal sufferance when you can boast about it. So, whether you lost a partner through ill health or had the most unwelcome unexpected breakup imaginable or suffered sexual abuse as a child, you can speak about it boastfully. You can recant the details of endurance, coming out the other side, and how it made you such a finer person thereafter. You choose the benefit and highlight the enduring pain that loss brings. Loss of innocence and loss of control in the case of childhood horrors. Boasting is contentious in this area. Contentious things attract significant interest and debate.

My loss entailed losing someone that listened rather than say yes and change the subject. I lost someone that I could explore the world with and explore the things that I hold dear. Dance, art, deep conversations, and unbridled intimacy. The loss holds a unique bugbear, for it was not though accident or misfortune that the loss occurred, but the result of spiteful, discriminatory scum pressure. Pus spoken with the pretence they were on the right side of moral reasoning. Sentences that passed an ill-judged sentence on me. She had the perfect physical form with buckets of unquenched curiosity. Living in the moment is only surpassed by living in the moment with someone that engages with the moment, engages with the environment, and sees opportunity around us. My loss is bigger than any of your losses for it happened to me. I too care most about me. We all care about me. Unless it is about someone that affects me. That is human, animal reality. We are too optimistic, too hopeful that others will show deep meaningful interest in our loss. You may find another word to replace boast but what you won’t replace is the power that concept has with making people engage with your grief. Boast, then listen, then debate, then see others sharing their feelings towards loss with you.

Time heals a little bit until a reminder smacks your chest hard, making blood rush up into your face. You really feel it. A physical emotional jolt of terrifying alarm. Light headiness and fractional faint. For a moment you think that the impossible has happened and that the loss was a dream. The scar is torn open again. You are alone in your lust for what once was. It is a devil to deal with the chemical shock that pervades your body for the rest of the day. No distraction makes the discomfort vanish. No more tears left to cry it out. When people say one needs to be strong, that isn’t the half of it. Philosophical medicine lasts longer than surrendering yourself to the knockout effects of wine. A deep breath, a bath, a walk, a talk again to the departed, a treat, each little step gets you closer to getting through to bedtime. I need a plan. I need to see what that reminder is telling me. It has given me a clue. I know from my history that I was bolder the second time. The plan before was enacted and became an erotic highlight in my passing through time. Ponder, plot, plan, enact something worthwhile.

Curiosity drives us in useful powerful ways, but it also messes with our handling of loss. Selfishness is always there, and the wretched reward machine has gotten thirsty. The return of the lost one would sate all three drives simultaneously. Damn. If only.