I mentioned in an earlier post that, over the last few months, I’ve gotten into the habit of meditating. The app I use provides daily meditations with specific subjects to focus on; and the other day, I did a meditation on grief.

Ordinarily, grief wouldn’t have much of an effect on me. It simply isn’t a topic I think about often. However, six months ago, I started a treatment program (for my heart condition ) which focused on both the physical issues my condition presented and the emotional ones. Grief came up multiple times, and I soon found myself venturing into the dark, hidden corners of my heart – the filing cabinets I occasionally pass to get to other memories, but haven’t dared to open. In order to get the most out of my six weeks of treatments, I needed to access those files, so I slowly started moving further and further back into the grieving part of my heart.

During my meditation the other day, I was reminded that grief is based on death, but it isn’t exclusive to a person dying. I think that’s a common misconception with grief: we mistake it for another, perhaps less severe emotion if it isn’t in response to the physical death of a human being. But grief, as I’ve learned over the last few months, can be a response to the loss of an array of things – not just a loved one. Keeping this in mind was helpful as I began going through the files in my heart. I found many memories from Hairspray, a show I’d done when I was 13, and realized my subconscious has been grieving that show since it ended. I’ve done many community theatre productions, but that one was especially significant because it took place in a time of great change in my life. Hairspray gave me a home and a special, goofy family when I had otherwise isolated myself, so when it ended, it took a toll on me. Seeing those memories and connecting them with grief was a big step for me. No one in that show had died, but I mourned the end of the experience. I haven’t listened to the music or watched the film since it ended. Now I know that’s because my heart still aches at the loss.

While my six weeks of treatment gave me a solid start at working through those emotions, I certainly didn’t finish sorting through them in that time. I’m still finding memories I’ve blocked out, experiences I completely forgot I’d had, and emotions I didn’t know I was dealing with. They’ve varied in significance and severity, but each of them holds an importance that deserves to be discovered and addressed. For example, during the treatments I realized I’m grieving my body, and the life I once imagined leading before my heart decided it didn’t want to do its job correctly anymore. However, that realization only began during the treatments – I’m still digging through that file, and I’ve found anger and sadness sporadically since I opened it. I’m sure I’ll elaborate on the grudges I hold against my body in a future post, but that’s too broad of a topic to go into here. This post is about grief. More specifically, this is about the grief that I discovered during that meditation the other day:

When I say “the other day,” I mean at about 3 a.m. when I used the daily mediation in hopes it would help me sleep (side note: one of the practices specifically geared toward sleep would’ve been a much better choice). As I lay in bed, focusing on my breath and the guided meditation, I almost immediately started bawling. I’m not sure exactly what was said that provoked that response, but all of the sudden there I was: in my bed shaking and sobbing for reasons I didn’t yet understand. I took inventory of my emotions, trying desperately to find the onion inside me that had provoked such a powerful waterworks display. I soon realized that onion was an old “friend” (I have to use that term loosely), and I felt as though I’d been punched in the gut. I think of this person a lot, but her image usually provokes anger, fear or insecurity. What was this face doing in my thoughts about grief?

This friendship was brief – lasting about six months – but it has weighed on me and affected nearly every decision I’ve made in the four years since it ended because, although it was short-lived, it was intense. We were young and dumb (a phrase I use with both regret and endearment), and we dove wholeheartedly into each other. I felt so lucky to have caught her eye and been given her attention, and I wanted to repay her with all the love I could give. I wanted desperately to be the best best friend she’d ever had, to be her #1 Shoulder when she needed to cry and to right any wrongs that had been done to her. I never accomplished any of those things, of course, because a) that was unreasonable and kinda crazy, and b) the nature of our “friendship” would never give me a chance. I was desperate, I would’ve done anything just to prove that I loved her and wanted her to be happy, and that made me very easy to manipulate. To use, to bully, to take advantage of, and, should I ever question her, to gaslight. Of the six months I spent hoping she’d validate my love for her, about five of them were spent in a cycle of verbal abuse that turned me into not only a desperate lackey but one who was also terribly paranoid that she was crazy. (See what I mean? Anger, fear, and insecurity.)

Now, years later, that stuff doesn’t really matter. I’m here, I’m moving forward, and I wouldn’t be who I am (a fairly decent, although foul-mouthed and high-maintenance, human being) without that experience. The treatments especially prompted me to work on forgiving this girl, and I’ve been trying, truly, but something has been blocking me. Something has stopped me from moving on, and it wasn’t until 3 a.m. the other day that I realized what it was: that relationship was hideous, and it broke me in ways I’m still struggling to fix, that part is undeniable. But regardless of all that, there was a time when my dumb ass was so happy and so in love with someone that I wanted to become a better person in order to deserve her. And in the four years since I broke free from her, I’ve never given myself time to mourn the loss of that moment or the version of myself that existed then. There was a time when she made me the happiest I’d ever been, and I lost that, but the only emotions I’ve dealt with are the ones that came after I realized I’d been duped.

I’m not sure what I’m hoping you’ll take from this. Perhaps it’s just that, no matter how effed-up your experiences may have been, it’s natural and okay for you to grieve them in some way. Or maybe it’s that even the shittiest moments can create beautiful things if you allow yourself to see them. Or maybe it’s just that I need to get more sleep and not do hella-triggering meditations that provoke profound(ish) realizations in the wee hours of the morning. Who knows? Take from this what you will, and give yourself a break. You, like myself and the girl I once loved, are only human. We're all still learning, still creating ourselves, and still learning how to be people. All of that is rough, but I think we’ll be okay.