If I had to write...

This morning I was trying to settle my mind and meditate, which wasn't working out so well. And today is the day my parents were married 52 years ago. With my mother dying last April, there really is no 52nd year. My heart immediately went to thinking about my Dad and how he is holding up. I heard the voice in my head saying, "I know Dad, I've been there. I know this grief and you will get through it."

I heard his reply, "I don't have my whole life ahead of me."

"And I did not have the financial freedom you have Dad. We can argue back and forth over giving up, but there is always an answer for every excuse."

Suddenly, I understood something. My behaviour over the past year really has been very similar to that first year of the end of my marriage. I have felt the same uncontrollable craziness I felt then.

I am grieving.

It is as if something is off, I feel discontent and I had not connect that with grief. But this morning, I could. I understood that this desire to change things in my life is really related to not wanting the changes that have happened already this year. That driving desire to fill in that place of emptiness has caused me to search for something that will fill in the hole. Because there hasn't been success in filling in the emptiness, and so I sit at night and watch TV and distract myself.

Not tonight. Tonight I will offer myself some compassion. I will allow myself to sit with my loss. I will place my legs up the wall, support my hips and allow myself to just not be so controlled. I will allow myself the opportunity to grieve.