getting on the bike

Grief. Why is there the expression "good grief" what about grief is good? I hate everything about it.... Don't get me wrong we need to grieve, it's the natural reaction to have grief when losing something. Humans and animals both know what grief is. No one grieves the same, no one person has the same "definition" of grief. There is no right way or wrong way to do it. There is no manual of the step you have to take. Grief comes in different forms...it can be sadness, tears, anger, frustration, self pity, depression, hiding etc. I can't tell someone to go through the grief process the way that I am and no one can tell me how I'm supposed to be going through it. Grieving sucks! However avoiding the process of grieving is even worse. We've been told that if we do not handle grief then grief will handle us. Some people think it's awful that I'm still grieving. Yes I am and guess what, ill grieve everyday for the rest of my new life. Grief is a full time job. You may not ever know when someone is going through it because grief is as quiet or as loud as people let it be.

Hmmmm lets see how many times I've said grief in the paragraph...now multiple that by say...a billion....that's how many times in a day the feelings or thoughts of grieving go through my mind. I've been told that people miss my smile, I've been told ill get through this but right now I can't smile. And if I do well it's about 75% fake. I can't do fake. I won't do fake. I can not hide the pain that lives inside of me. I wear my heart on my sleeve, always have. So my broken heart is now on my sleeve and the people in my life have had to see my pain. The pain is in my eyes, the pain is in my breath, the pain is in my voice, the pain is in my thoughts. The pain and grieving is all I seem to know right now and I will not sugar coat that for anyone.

I feel like a child learning how to ride a bike for the first time. This bike is on a very rocky road with lots of potholes. I keep falling off the bike and I am covered in all these bruises. Every morning  I get up and back on the bike to see how far I can get today. Some days ,in the past 7 weeks and 5 days, I get a bit further, where some days I can barely turn the peddles. I am so raw. I am so broken. I know that I will learn to cope, I will learn to live again, and maybe one day ill peddle down a new road. A road that may have a lot less bumps, a lot less rocks. A road that has sunshine and rainbows. A road that leads me to a happy place.

In our support group we talk over and over about self preservation. This is something I've never known. I have always been the care taker in my life. I tend to always think about myself last and everyone else before me. I am learning to take care of me, myself and I right now. This may come off as selfish, this may make people who don't know what we have gone through think that I'm a bitch, this may make friends and family give up on me but I don't care. I can't care. Because if I care I won't be taking care of me. I need to survive this grief. I need to get on my bike every morning and see how far down the road I can make it. At the end of each night when I speak to my beautiful Delaney I want to be able to say " today I made it again, I did it for you baby girl, I pushed on" and when I say it I need for it to be real. I need to know I've done everything in that day that I can to self preserve and take care of myself through this grieving process of a mother that lost her biggest dreams.