Please Don't Lecture Me

Please Don't Lecture Me when I tell you that I hate my life sometimes right now.

Please don't lecture me when I tell you that I wish I could fast-forward through the holidays and my birthday... Even though it is Carolyn's first Christmas.

Please don't tell me to just 'get over it' already in regards to my grief.

Please don't tell me that so many other people have it worse and I should be grateful for what I have.

Please don't tell me to count my blessings instead of my losses.

Please don't tell me how to feel, how to grieve, or how to deal with my husband being gone for six months.

Please let me feel my feelings.

Please don't expect me to spill my guts to you because this once you asked, "How are you?"

Conversely, please don't recoil in horror if I DO tell you how I am really feeling.

Please don't judge me because I feel angry at people that I love right now. My anger is part of my grief too.

Please DO tell me that I'm doing ok, and that I did ok prior to my loss, during, and immediately after.

Please DO know that I am going on, that I am trying, that I do count my blessings, that I soak in every moment of joy that I have with those that I love, and every moment that is less than joyful as well. Please know that I am doing my best, trying, putting one foot in front of the other--and that is an accomplishment that *I* am proud of.

Please just let me feel, let me be, let me express what I am where I am how I am and when I am ready.



One of the reasons I feel so isolated at present is that I truly don't expect others to know to do these things. And those that would, I don't feel need the weight of my burdens on top of their own. Maybe I'm underestimating people. Maybe I'm not. Maybe I'm just being prickly. I'm afraid of hearing others say the same things the tapes in my head torment me with. The things that bring on guilt and make me chafe and feel wrong in my feelings.

But it is partly the fear of these things that keeps me clammed up. I miss my safe places. Seems that most of them are on other continents, dead, or disappointing.

How lonely deeply, dazzlingly, dark emotions can be!