🤒 TREE 442: Down in it

You know Rogue Rosalie (aka Teresa Roberts) by now. She’s an artist, TREE contributor, thoroughly good human and one of the wiser people I know. Because you are very lucky, the next three days are all from her – words, images and music. Soak it in. This is good stuff.

Grow slowly
Jeff

One.

Sometimes we are just “down in it”. I’ve been down in it for two months now. Stressful and tragic things happen. Plans change and fall through. For me, this often triggers a grief cycle. Understanding the grief cycle, and what triggers it, helps me navigate. I don’t experience all the stages of the cycle, just Denial, Anger and Acceptance and sometimes not even in that order. One of the magical things about understanding this cycle is that it places emotions in a finite space and time. In essence, this is where I am now, but not where I will always be. It lets me acknowledge and feel my emotions while not getting lost in them.

Things that trigger a grief cycle are not always what you would expect. I have a daughter with ADHD and Autism. She is a beautiful and kind person. I just got smacked in the face with the reality that she might never be able to live on her own with a “normal” life trajectory. Every day I have track how many prompts I give her. It’s a lot. My grief over this encompasses both my life and hers, but we will not always be where we are now. We will be up above it.

Two.

Three.