Give Me a Break
There is a lot going on a normal day in my life. I am serial perfectionist who takes on too much because I enjoy the stress of being busy. But 2019 pressed me with new stress. Stress I was not prepared for nor wanted. 2019 was a little bitch and it knows it.
Most days I wanted to scream from the top of my lungs, Give me a fucking break. Do you know what I am going through? I just lost my father and you want me to perform at 100%. I am mentally incapable of being me right now, please phone again later. Much later. Like, maybe in a year.
What I have observed in my life, my mother’s life, and those around me grieving, is we don’t get an actual chance to grieve and try to understand our emotions. Most companies, luckily not mine, but most, give people three days to grieve, then back to work. Are you kidding me?! Emotions are complex, life is hard, and losing someone you love magnifies all of that. ALL OF IT. 3 fucking days?! Hell, I got two weeks and to be honest, I probably could have taken months off and still not be okay.
I lost my father in June and it wasn’t until September that I started to feel like I could really handle work at my normal capacity again. September was when I could listen to Miranda Lambert and not cry every other song, I could think of my father and smile instead of cry, and I quit trying to call him three times a day to just be let down that I couldn’t. 4 months before I started to actually cope with losing my father. 3 days doesn’t do shit.
What I did notice was people couldn’t understand why I was crying, why I was so forgetful, why I was exhausted 24/7 because they had never been through such a loss. Although I am happy for those people who have never suffered a loss so great, it also sucks because until you have been in these shoes, you just don’t get it. You lack a part of compassion that only a great loss can bring. I have learned a lot about compassion in my loss.
I remember when I returned to work someone getting short and rude with me, normally I would roll my eyes, but I was so exhausted I just cried. I sat in my jeep and cried. I wanted to resort to violence and instead I cried. I went to call my father for advice and when I couldn’t, I cried more. Again, I wanted to scream, give me a break. This all too much, I can barely navigate how to be compassionate to myself let alone figure out how to deal with someone else’s emotions. Be softer right now, I have lost a huge part of who I am, and I need a break.
But—people do not care. People are so focused on what they have to do and who they are, they forget that everyone is going through something. I get it. That was me before June 21st. Losing my father, taught me that people have scars or wounds we cannot see. The person yelling at the gas station, the person crying because her food order was wrong, the person slamming doors, everyone has a story that we are not privy too and it’s a story that can manifest in anger or sadness. I get it now.
The months after my father passed, I could only eat milkshakes. It was 9/11 and I went into my favorite ice cream store, Amy’s Ice Cream, to get a milkshake. The girl was busy cleaning but started asking me about my day, and I just started balling hysterically. It would have been easy for her to ignore me and just hand me milkshake, but instead this young girl asked if I was okay. I got to tell her about my dad, the firefighter, and how I honor him every 9/11 and this year was harder because it’s my first without him. She handed me my milkshake without charging me and told me what an amazing man my father sounded like. She gave me a break. A needed break.
It is easy to turn the other cheek; not pay attention to people around you and what they have going on. But as humans, it’s nice to know we are not alone. It’s nice to know that sometimes strangers care enough to say hi at the grocery store, or ask how your day is going. Life gets busy, so busy we only focus on what’s going with ourselves, I get it. I have been there, I now try not to, but I still slip into my self pity. I have noticed in those times when I am not open to interactions with others, or I am only thinking of myself, I stop learning. I stop learning how to be a good neighbor and a good friend. I forget how to be a good human to others.
In grief it often hard to see anyone other than yourself and your love for those lost, but I am trying to learn from what I have lost. My father taught me to treat the janitor the same as the CEO, and that goes for strangers as well. Treat everyone with the same level of respect and compassion. We are all dealing with something.
