Thinking about Thinking about Grief

People who know me pretty well--especially my in-person friends, though I'm sure it comes through on-line too--tell me that I am always thinking, and that most of the time the fact that I'm thinking doesn't stop registering on my face.

And what I do is think about stuff. And then think about what I'm thinking about. It all gets very circular sometimes and can get me into trouble if I don't watch it.

All that to say that I have these observational thoughts about grief all the time now. They aren't like, "ouch that hurts" thoughts, though sometimes they spring from things that do hurt. They are just thoughts about the process. Thoughts that come from thinking about thinking about it.

(I'm really blathering here, so I better just get to the point.)

Today's thought was this:

When I get a cold or the flu or just something little and sicky, and I'm on the mend, I usually have a day or two when I try to resume normal activities before my body really feels up to it.

So I'll go out and doing the flight of stairs will just really wind me or I'll just feel so listless that conversing with people takes too much energy, and all of a sudden I will go... Hmmm... I guess I'm really NOT well enough to be out and about.

Well I found out today that grief can be like that too.

We had a weinie roast here at our house tonight for our neighborhood--pretty ambitious for Dad and I, I guess.

Anyway, I was out there and had the same sort of thoughts... I guess I'm not well enough to be doing this afterall. I'm not as far as I thought. This is really taking a lot more out of me than I expected and it's because of where I am in this recovery

I just thought the parallel was interesting. And I think some days I'd be more ready than others to do what I did today. But today felt like one of those early recovery days after an illness when I think I can do more than I really can and feel like I'm gasping for air all day.


So there is my thinking about thinking about grief thought.