Friday, April 30, 2010
This is where I'm continuing.
It's been so long since I've written anything that pertains to the aftermath of The Mom & Me Journals dot Net that most of my former followers probably think, despite my best intentions immediately following the death of my mother, I finally had to come to grips with the seeming inevitability of my mother's death fashioning an end to the journals. Certainly, our lived together life is over. What else is there to write about? "Poor Gail", I imagine some readers having thought, if anyone besides me thought about it at all, "she just can't let her mother go. Oh well, she'll get it eventually." Then, as weeks piled into months and postings seemed to stop, probably a few figured, "Ah, she's got it, now. It's over."
And, of course, "it" is. Setting up a grieving journal, In Sane Grief, was a part of my attempt to continue without continuing. Not long after I started that journal, though, I discovered that as I became more involved in a grief support group, I also became less possessed of the desire to talk or write about my experience of grief with anyone other than the members of the group. I alluded to this development a bit in the most recent post published at that site. Now, several months after having written that post, although I remain an active member of my grief support cadre (yes, we can legitimately refer to ourselves as a cadre; we don't just grieve, we have become a tightly knit community of people living with deep grief with a peculiar identity which allows us to extend our support and insights into our larger communities; an unusual development, yes, for a grief support group but, well, I guess I got lucky) I am discovering a desire to write about my experience of deep grief (not to be confused with complicated grief, even though, in my experience, what might be termed "common grief" can be quite complicated). I may write about that at the afore-linked grief journal. My experience of grieving has become so intertwined with the rest of my life, though, that I may post about it here. I'm not yet sure. Either way, I'll let you know if posts exclusive to my experience of grief begin to pile up "over there".
My interest in ancienthood and caring for our ancients has not waned, though. Neither has my interest in my mother's and my experience of mutual companionship over the last years of her life, nor my new curiosity about how our companionship changed me and what sort of person I am, now. For me, interest and curiosity always imply writing. My fingers may not have done much writing, lately, but my brain has. I'm feeling, now, that it's about time to transfer the activity of writing to the keyboard.
I decided it would be easier to write this part of my life out in a separate journal. No doubt, as I write, I'll be reminded of prior thoughts in pre-mom's-death posts. But, you know, I want a clean sheet of paper, which, if I bothered to analyze the desire, is probably "a good thing", or evidence of me "moving on", which would relieve many who know me, I'm sure...or you know, indicative of some other such common sociological nonsense. Whatever. This is my clean sheet of paper.
Later.
And, of course, "it" is. Setting up a grieving journal, In Sane Grief, was a part of my attempt to continue without continuing. Not long after I started that journal, though, I discovered that as I became more involved in a grief support group, I also became less possessed of the desire to talk or write about my experience of grief with anyone other than the members of the group. I alluded to this development a bit in the most recent post published at that site. Now, several months after having written that post, although I remain an active member of my grief support cadre (yes, we can legitimately refer to ourselves as a cadre; we don't just grieve, we have become a tightly knit community of people living with deep grief with a peculiar identity which allows us to extend our support and insights into our larger communities; an unusual development, yes, for a grief support group but, well, I guess I got lucky) I am discovering a desire to write about my experience of deep grief (not to be confused with complicated grief, even though, in my experience, what might be termed "common grief" can be quite complicated). I may write about that at the afore-linked grief journal. My experience of grieving has become so intertwined with the rest of my life, though, that I may post about it here. I'm not yet sure. Either way, I'll let you know if posts exclusive to my experience of grief begin to pile up "over there".
My interest in ancienthood and caring for our ancients has not waned, though. Neither has my interest in my mother's and my experience of mutual companionship over the last years of her life, nor my new curiosity about how our companionship changed me and what sort of person I am, now. For me, interest and curiosity always imply writing. My fingers may not have done much writing, lately, but my brain has. I'm feeling, now, that it's about time to transfer the activity of writing to the keyboard.
I decided it would be easier to write this part of my life out in a separate journal. No doubt, as I write, I'll be reminded of prior thoughts in pre-mom's-death posts. But, you know, I want a clean sheet of paper, which, if I bothered to analyze the desire, is probably "a good thing", or evidence of me "moving on", which would relieve many who know me, I'm sure...or you know, indicative of some other such common sociological nonsense. Whatever. This is my clean sheet of paper.
Later.
Labels: apologia
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