....Comes Around Again

Grief is like a staircase.

Not a normal staircase that you climb one rung at a time, easily charting your progress, step by step.

Grief is more like a spiral staircase that winds around on its self. You are making progress---step by laborious step---it's just that the view rarely changes. Just when you think you've finally, finally made some progress---gotten "better," or "stronger,"---the staircase winds back around on its self and you find yourself staring at the familiar landscape of loss again; a landscape you are pretty sure you have already traversed.

And you HAVE traversed it---its just that you're going to traverse it again. And again.

And probably again. Dear God in heaven, probably yet again.

It's a small comfort on those days to tell yourself that the elevation changes DO count, that the view--our outlook--IS different, if only incrementally. On those days it's much easier to just curl up in a ball, or rail at the unfairness of Life.

But everything changes. Even grief. Or maybe grief doesn't change--maybe grief changes us, I can't really say. Glib answers aren't really helpful and I'm still feeling my way along, learning, and re-learning as I go; what is helpful, and what isn’t.

So what DOES help? Drink water, eat enough, sleep enough, hug people, talk about your feelings. Yada yada yada. So basic, and yet so true. So I keep climbing. One foot in front of the other.

I’m still climbing.