This One's Gonna Bruise (9)

[girlfromipanema]

I know I'm late with my comments, but I was stuck in my head for a few days and lost my ability to type much. But now I'm betta, so here goes...

What the author advocates is an embrace of the mourning process, an extraction of the "I" from the "we." In mourning, one passes from loss to the restoration of independence. You may not end up the same person you were before. You may be scarred and damaged and more emotional and who knows what else. But you are whole again. And in that wholeness, you have the chance to transcend what you had become - the compromised individual - and develop into something greater. A phoenix, bursting from the flames of a R spiraling out of control into the depths of hell. A wonder to behold, springing from the abyss itself.

I like what the author is saying, but what happens when we find a new relationship? Does that mean we are no longer whole or once again compromised? Or is it our responsibility to understand how to maintain our new found wholeness once embarking on the new relationship?

I can definitely relate. I've spent months now in mourning. Look at my thread title if you don't believe me. But will I be a phoenix? I don't think so. I think it's more like the Darwinian fish, pulling itself from the depths to flop about for awhile in the muck at the edge of the water. I gasp and gasp and gasp and think I'll die, but I don't. So I lay there for awhile ... and I'm not dead. And I prop myself up on fins that were never intended for walking, and I set out to find something new. It's all painful and new and I don't want to be doing it, but here I am and I am and I am and I will.

This was so good. I'm always amazed how so many of you can put my thoughts into words so eloquently.

What I wonder at is my W. The succinct one. The decider. No show of emotion on her part. Complete focus on the task at hand. How does that work? Is it denial, total detachment, apathy, avoidance? Hard sayin' not knowin', but I'm glad I don't do that. I'd rather annoy my friends by talking about my feelings too much than never say anything to them about how I feel.

I'll take the feeling talker over the stoic any day. Hopefully your wife will realize the importance of sharing what goes on in that head of hers someday.

Have a happy night, lodo.