From the blackness of grief to a rainbow of colours
Grief…along with anxiety, stress and depression….is just plain exhausting. It consumes every single aspect of every single day with no reprieve in sight. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to take even a short break? A mini-holiday? I was about 6 weeks into my grief journey when I discovered that I could do just that, so I thought I’d share my experience. It began one day when I went outside to put something into the bin….
This is an important topic, and I was thinking about it recently during a somewhat expensive (but blissful) 20 minute shoulder massage at Dubai airport before boarding my flight back home to Australia. In a life now in the past, I would instead have been sitting in an uncomfortable plastic chair at the Gate, maybe with a polystyrene cup of coffee to keep me awake. So what’s changed? Have I won a lottery?
“Do you have someone to stay with you tonight? No? Then you’ll need to sign a Waiver.” The nurse admitting me to hospital for surgery gazed at me before pushing a form across the desk and indicating where I was to sign. I was relinquishing their responsibility in this matter. This is a story about one of the aspects of being a widow (or even just being single) that you don’t even think of…until it happens.
I will not be recommending that you need to sit on a special mat on the floor, or have to cross your legs in an un-natural way, or send yourself into a trance or need to repeat “Ommmm” over and over again. That’s for serious meditation people who wear flowing clothes and probably eat raw food. 😀
My life was all laid out for me. I was married to my soul-mate and looked forward to the ‘golden years’ ahead. A relaxing retirement together which stretched into the future and promised lots of travel and fun times. I knew who I was….and I liked that person. Then instantly all this was snatched away from me, leaving me asking “Who am I?”
My second foray into travelling solo was going along perfectly well and then it fell apart in 5 seconds flat! One minute I was sitting on the hotel bed to take off my walking shoes after exploring a new city….and the next minute the room started to slew to the right and the floor was spinning around my feet. Vertigo! Aaargh!!!!