Joy is hard…

I look at what’s happening now and I think: this is another defining loss. I was 6 years old when I had my first one (my dad) and that defined my being for a long time. And to this day, I know that a lot of who I am now and why I do the things I do, and believe the things I believe, is because of that loss. That loss was my secret name…another identity. Another life. A secret life of loss and grief and sadness that stuck by me until I became a young adult and finally understood what happened and really grieved that tremendous loss.

Again I have another secret name. This loss or I should say…this act of losing is becoming my secret name. You have your name and your being and then you have a secret name…a name that no one can ever really pronounce…because it’s who I am and what I’ve been through and what I’ve seen and heard and struggled with..and what I go through now. And weirdly enough there’s a magic to that name. My own particular brand..of..grief.

This isn’t like the other losses. This isn’t a death. Like all the ones before. Those were quick. Well, some weren’t. Some were months. Some were years. But eventually there was an end point. An end point to the suffering. And now we’re back in the thick of it…again.

The art of losing…is hard to master.

And it is as though I am living a double life. The one where I’m hungry for the present and the future. For building my own life and creating the type of impact I want for my life. A career, a family, travel, love, and a legacy. And then there’s my secret name..or in this case, a secret life of sorts. Where all the grief and the loss sit. And because I’m in the thick of it; because we are not at the end point (and may not be for a very long time) my secret name is there by my side, right beside me, always.

Somedays my life and the secret life inter-whine. Somedays I can’t separate the two. It can’t be helped and on those days, finding the joy is hard. I fight so hard to find it and as we keep going on this journey; as we remain in the thick of it and my secret name is saddled beside me, finding the joy gets harder and harder.

And I notice that other emotions…emotions I don’t readily experience or express want to find their way to the surface.

It’s becoming routine.

I envision myself standing in a room screaming and breaking things. Throwing vases onto the floor and watching them crash and shatter into a million pieces. Or hitting breakable objects with a bat. Breathing heavy. Tears rolling down my face. Destruction.

And yet the person you see in front of you is relatively calm. Some people notice that there are many thoughts and emotions not spoken behind my eyes. And some people don’t notice at all. Perhaps they are distracted by the tears running down my face. Always tears. And yet there is a stoicism to me. The tears flow, but what I am imagining more and more is an outlet for my anger and frustration and angst that I rarely utilize in reality.

Now with almost every phone call I field from her or everytime I see her, the after-effect is this image: me in a room screaming and breaking things. It’s becoming routine.

I remember while recovering from my last significant loss, a friend took me to the batting cages at Chelsea Piers for the afternoon. We just hit balls for a few hours. He could see the thoughts and emotions behind my eyes and that while I wasn’t showing my anger, that I was indeed angry and that energy needed an outlet.

The interesting thing is that there are those around me who act as though I’m a ticking time-bomb. They think that someday soon I will break. I won’t be able to hold it in anymore. But I don’t feel that bubbling sense of holding emotions in. I’m not pushing my feelings away. I let them out. I just do it in private. I don’t break things, but I cry and I scream into pillows and things. I go through the motions and experience this. I try to get as much emotion out of me as I possibly can at times because I don’t want to someday just breakdown in front of unsuspecting friends or family. That isn’t fair to them. I guess I just have an overwhelming need to not be a burden on anyone and that being in that angry, grief-stricken place is a very vulnerable place that isn’t for everyone to see. Remember…this is a secret name after all.