Grieving without platitudes

Plus my mojo dojo casa house experience.

First, the mojo dojo part.

The moving company arrived today to pack up our house and, even though I knew they would all be men, I wasn’t really prepared for them all to be men. I found myself shrinking into my husband’s shadow as he interacted with ease and talked shop (which I am glad he can do). I didn’t know who to look at, I didn’t know what jokes were funny (especially the ones about hunting mounts) and I found myself thinking thoughts like, “I’m just better off taking care of kids, I don’t belong here. I’m not good at interacting with the world,” etc.

This wasn’t the fault of the movers, they were courteous and good at their job. And I am prone to insecurity. But it did make me think of the Barbie movie (as referenced in the meme above) and how the tropes it riffs on are actually true. Even in an enlightened society, is still very hard to be a woman. Especially if you’re not a kick a** woman who can’t bring herself to say what-the-h****, even to fit in. Haha. Society is peculiar.

On to the next side of this story. Out of the six people in my family, I didn’t expect my newly five-year-old to have the hardest time with our move. I’ve held her for hours this past week, my heart wrecked by her sobs over leaving her friends. It’s her first experience with grief, and it’s hitting her hard.

Much of how I’ve interacted with her grief has come from wisdom in the book The Anxiety Solution, by Curtis Chang. In it he defines anxiety as “fear over what we might lose.” Grief, by extension, is the result of the loss we feared. He discusses how we are often so quick to “comfort” children with platitudes, “you’ll make new friends! Think of all the adventures you’ll have!” without letting them, teaching them, to sit with and experience the weight of their grief. They need to, and we need to as well. Platitudes really skirt the issue, the issue that we intrinsically fear rising to full consciousness. So I knew my daughter needed me to sit with her as she cried over pictures of her friends. I knew I needed to be prepared for there not to be a definitive end to the crying, it had to run its course. And then run it again. I didn’t make her promises about the future or make light of her current loss. And I reminded myself to operate that way too- I’ve been afraid of facing my own grief as I leave this place I’ve lived for the past seven years. It’s frightening to face, but so necessary.

I think there really has been comfort in grief for all of us. I know there are greater griefs ahead in life, ones that will challenge us much more deeply. But for now we’re practicing in the smaller things. Practicing and resting.