The Thing With Grief And Silence
They don’t start as a choice, but can turn into one
Give me two minutes of silence and I’ll give you the worst case scenario of where this could go. I don’t even have to try, it happens naturally because loss and grief have made a perfect student out of me.
Moments drenched in quiet and demanding of time scare me. It’s probably what I should have answered when a friend asked me about my fears a couple of months ago.
Instead I went for other fears — publishing an essay, someone dying, grief in general.
He wanted smaller fears, fears I sat with that were simply mine, but what he didn’t know was that in the context of my life these fears were mine.
I wasn’t just scared of someone dying, I was scared of having to be the one to make life-ending decisions again.
I wasn’t just scared of grief, I was afraid of not making it…of not getting through it the next time I had to.
I wasn’t just scared of publishing an essay, I was scared of showing too much, of letting him or anyone else see that I’m riddled in fears…questions…experiences, and then having them decide that I was too much because of it.
So instead of sitting in silence, I’ve historically decided against it. I’ve chosen to not give myself room to sit in questions because they too easily, and too often, turn into theories and hypotheticals that have the power to turn into the scariest moments of my life.
It’s never taken more than a small moment, a trivial question or a seemingly unimpressive comment, to make me physically or mentally retreat to the same bathroom I sat in minutes before I was told my mom died.
Lately though I’ve been figuratively sitting in that half-bath all too often.
At the advice of my therapist I’m to sit in questions. I’m to let silence surround me and instead of searching for answers in my grief or in my relationships, I’m to just sit.
This is HARD for a girl who can go from 0 to 100, real quick.
I’m known to do it every time someone gets sick. PTSD kicks in when I have to call 911, or when I hear an ambulance, or hear the words “8th Floor — ICU” and I go from thinking that person is alive to dead faster than I can say the words. All the while they’re still breathing.
I do it every time a well-meaning friend takes a moment I see as triumphant in a relationship and unintentionally undermines it with questions like, “that didn’t scare him away?” or “have you talked since then?” To her they’re just questions, to me it’s her asking “so *you* didn’t scare him away?” All the while I know she’s simply surprised and genuinely curious that XYZ played out the way it did.
Grief informs silence for me because for as long as I can remember I would only ever sit in the quiet when I was thinking of loss. So switching up this routine is not only hard, but also messy.
It requires so much from me. I’m vulnerable and exposed in relationships that I would have otherwise been guarded in. I’m leaving certain moments up to chance, even though every fiber in me wants to have control and answers.
I’m stripped down to silence and grief, two things that scare me because they’ve always been imposed on me.
It’s not until now that grief and silence have become choices.
One of my friends describes this moment as uneven ground that I’m choosing to walk on. There’s a sense of agency in how she defines it for me. There’s also acknowledgement that this is hard and defeating at times; that I am likely to trip.
I’ve learned, thanks to her, to go “home” when I feel too heavy. She is one of a handful of friends I’ve learned to sit with in companionable silence. Her and them make it easier to take steps away from the thought that funeral homes are the only places I can sit with someone in silence.
The hard(er) part about having to teach myself to sit in silence though has been the reality that I also have to learn how to ask others to join me. On one hand, it’s the asking someone to physically sit with me and watch Netflix because I’m having a bad anxiety day, words have escaped me and I don’t want to sit alone.
On the other hand, it’s asking someone to stay mentally and emotionally present as I process moments.
In conversations with friends I’ve started vocalizing when I need a minute. That maybe they’ve had time to process whatever they’re telling me, but I haven’t and I deserve the silence. I want it. I choose it now.
I also, in what’s turned out to be freeing, try to give myself permission to sit in pain…in confusion…in not knowing why I’m sitting but sitting all the same.
Losing those I’ve lost has made me want to run in the opposite direction of sitting, because at least that felt like moving. In moments when I’ve only ever felt stuck, and maybe I should’ve been sitting, I forced action. I threw myself into relationships, projects or habits that I should’ve been backing away from.
Now I don’t. I’ve always filled silences with hypotheticals of worst case scenarios, maybe for once I’m giving myself other options.
***
Have similar feels? Comment below, tweet me, or email me.
vivian@toodamnyoung.com
