Listening to the Dark

Sadness, grief, and depression each bring their own lessons.

Lately I have been feeling sad, depressed, and in grief over losses. Losses seem to come more frequently these days as I continue this aging path.

I experienced the loss of a dear friend recently. I hadn’t realized that this friend, who I came to know as we volunteered together at the zoo, meant as much to me as he did until he was gone. It strikes me how often this is true.

I visited the mausoleum where my mother’s remains lie on what would have been her 99th birthday. Has it been 14 years already? And with my father, has it already been 29 years? Where did all those years go?

I remember close friends that I have lost and feel how much I miss them. 

I remember pets. That is such a different kind of loss for me, the depth of which I cannot describe adequately. It is the loss of another being where I felt completely accepted and loved, just as I was. No masks or forced smiles were needed. The rawness exposed was ok. 

Losses of parts of ourselves.

There are losses of parts of myself. I can still feel, inside me, the young woman who felt seen in a different way, sometimes uncomfortably so, but seen. And now she has become invisible. 

I remember myself as the worker who felt part of a community as we drove to work each day, slower on the way there on Mondays and speeding home on Fridays.

I remember myself as the younger woman who was not fearful of adventures, not needing to be careful of various body parts and aware of what might not be as safe. It’s not that I took dangerous risks, but I didn’t have to so carefully weigh and measure risk. I didn’t have to take myself by the hand, pushing myself to do things, as much.

I remember myself in romantic relationships, taking my childhood dynamics and issues with me and acting them out there, unfortunately. Now I realize that I really needed to get to know myself better first before entering the dance of intimacy with another. I needed to learn my own dance steps first. I needed to feel where my boundaries were and what space I took up that was sacred and not to be violated. I have finally given myself the space now to learn those lessons, later in life. It is bittersweet. It is sweet to finally come home to myself, and bitter in wishing that I could have learned this sooner, perhaps been better able to negotiate the space of two separate humans being close to each other. 

Grief for parts of our lives. 

I grieve parts of my life that are coming to an end. I volunteer at the local zoo, having had that be part of my life now for over 11 years, with the elephants. We will lose our last elephant soon, as he will be moved to a beautiful elephant sanctuary in Tennessee where he can be with other elephants and live out his life simply being an elephant. No guests are allowed. There are thousands of acres there. I am happy for this wonderful creature to be able to move to this beautiful space, but sad to lose contact with him.

I may try and find another spot where they might need me, at the zoo, or at another facility that helps animals. But I will miss my sacred time with these majestic beings. 

Pre-grief, anticipatory grief.

Not only do we humans grieve, but we also pre-grieve losses that we know are coming.

Even our own mortality takes on a new and deeper sense of reality as we age. We see the breaking down of our bodies over time. We see and feel the loss of our family and friends. We see aging and death, and now more deeply realize that we have been in this dance all along. Our time is coming. The path ahead is much shorter than the miles behind us. 

And so, I feel sad these days. It hurts and sometimes I try and escape it with distractions. But it comes back, not to be denied. 

Sharing carefully.

 I am more careful these days as to where I share my feelings. Not everyone can hear grief and sadness without trying to somehow fix it. We are not taught how to simply sit with each other with all our feelings, to simply be close by and allow one another to feel what they feel and let them know that we are still there beside them.

 I am so grateful for writing here as it is one of my lifelines to myself. I feel seen and heard when I get responses and am touched when my writing resonates with others and they feel less alone, perhaps, for a moment in time. I feel the connection, even though we are not physically together.

Each of us travels this road alone, although we may hold each other’s hands along the way. As Ram Dass so eloquently wrote “We’re all just walking each other home.” But walk this path we must. 

Working through the paralysis that feelings can bring.

Sometimes the feelings are so overwhelming that I have trouble getting motivated to do anything else. 

It doesn’t help that I have had to reduce my walking because of issues with my feet lately. Walking in the redwoods is my medicine and therapy. Today I will wear my orthopedic boot and see how I can walk, perhaps at least a bit, into the forest. I need to be around those sacred beings. I need to feel their wisdom of the years and feel held by them, hear the wind whisper to me through their leaves. It is my church. 

Perhaps then, if I allow the tears to flow in a space where I feel that they are heard, understood, held, and accepted, I can begin to better give that to myself and then keep moving in this life that I still inhabit, for however long that I may have left. Maybe then I can once again immerse myself more fully into my life as I am able. 

 Sadness must be acknowledged and felt, for me, to feel the joy. Death must be acknowledged to more fully participate in this life that we have been gifted with for a while. Grief must be felt to honor the connections and love. Depression can remind me to pay attention to what I might have been avoiding inside of myself. 

So here I am, feeling it all. It’s not fun, but it’s all beautiful in its own way. It is part of the fabric of my life, and I want to honor it. I think that I have been trying to escape it recently, and when I do this, the depression increases rather than simply allowing me to feel the sadness and grief. So, I am diving into it, into this part of my being and life, allowing it to have the space that it demands inside of me. 

 I will do this with a sense of gratitude for it all, for this gift of being able to feel all these things, for the gift of this precious life.