Grieving the living......

I had written about this years ago, early on in this story, and it is calling to me to take another look......I have had a lot of loss in this life......a fair number of people I loved fiercely pass on......and grief is perhaps one of the toughest human conditions to face......the heartache found in the missing of a person you loved.....having them gone from the fabric of your life......forever embedded in your spirit and heart.....carrying them with you as you journey along.....and once upon a time I thought grief was solely for that situation......and then......my ex husband left.....and what I began to experience made me wonder if I ever knew him at all.....seeing so many things happen that were not in line with who I believed him to be at all.....and grief found me again.....but this time the grief complicated and bearing extra layers.....because he is alive......and I have spent the last 4 plus years grieving him in lots of ways.....lots of layers being stripped away..... being called to grieve my little family of four first....but then the grief of learning and experiencing all I have from him bringing a different type of grief......and I have experienced it a few more time in this chapter......having been forced to grieve the living......relationships I once held dear, gone for lots of reasons......and they are out there.....but unreachable, similar to the way somebody's passing makes them unreachable....and so then the grief settles in.....but it is different.....heavier somehow....no end.....no finality.....a break that your brain doesn't reconcile the same way as it does when somebody passes.....while that can be disorienting and hard to process too, especially if it is sudden, eventually you find a way to hold it......because the person is gone, their spirit moving on.....there is a period on the relationship.........but when the person still is here.....and you have to interact some with them even......that grief becomes challenging to navigate.....and I wonder sometimes why I have had to have that experience a few times.....as part of my experience here.....and maybe will again.....but I have....and maybe when you seek to grow, change and evolve that comes with some goodbyes?? Maybe being authentic and showing up that way causes that some too.....or maybe it just is, a part of life I hadn't known so deeply......not really experiencing this part of life quite like I have in this chapter......and recently again.....and well......grieving the living is not for the faint of heart....letting go of a person you once held dear, a person you loved.........it is not something I have ever been good at....my heart feeling everything so deeply.....and my love getting deeply in to the fabric of myself, and others.....and I suppose I am lucky I have not internalized it, any of it....knowing that what folks do, or don't do is on them......and they are living their journeys too.......showing up as themselves too.......their current versions......and knowing that those breaks came with blessings in disguise, and perhaps some blessings to be discovered.....despite that living and breathing grief that is left in the wake of it all......and I would venture to say that grieving the living is perhaps the tougher of the griefs I have faced in this life.....more complicated.....harder to process.....but as I have said many a times.......we don't get to choose our lot.....only live it, the best ways we know how.....and if you are reading this and being forced to grieve the living.....I see you, applaud the strength that takes, admire the courage it takes to face that, and know some of the pain that lives there......I really really do.......xoxo