memorly dot com

Amazon.com depression: logging in to see all the things in my cart that I wanted to get my dad for his birthday/christmas. :(

Silver lining: it’s a stretch, but I did get a little smile at the site’s book recommendations for me, topics including etiquette, fashion, and database optimization. It’s funny how all your passions and insecurities get laid right out there on your amazon home page, like tarot cards of absolute truth.

Yesterday was actually a pretty good day. Lizzie and I had some fun online girl talk before I met up with Chris and Jenn and company at the bar. I had two beers with a tall glass of water between them, but somehow felt like I had four times that. It was nice to be in a familiar, comfortable place with familiar, comfortable people, and it ended up being a really nice night. it sort of felt like how things were before they weren’t.

in other news, i just realized that talking about the bar like a second home makes me sound like kind of a lush, but it’s not that bad, i promise. on with today’s state of grieving address!

In The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion talks about grieving as an involuntary reaction to loss, whereas mourning is an active and ritualistic/symbolic response. If I had read her distinction before I created the “mourning” tag for these posts, I would have named it “grieving” instead. I realized that I really, really haven’t done any mourning yet, so that’s today’s point of reflection.

My instinct was to make a list of my conscious and voluntary responses to my dad’s death, but there are only two, which is hardly a list. I took him out of my phone. I put a(nother) picture of him on my refrigerator. Those were the only things nobody made me do.

I feel like this is important to think about, like maybe through pondering the active/passive responses to loss I’ll come up with some helpful rituals, something symbolic to feel more in control. For the first week, all I wanted to do was throw rocks. I had a crazy urge to throw rocks. Something that felt violent but wouldn’t be destructive. I was so consumed at times by my desire to throw rocks that ironically, I missed obvious opportunities to throw rocks. At the river in the metropark? Why didn’t I think of it then?

I don’t really feel like throwing rocks anymore. I don’t have any identifiable instincts or desires. But I’m thinking about it and I’m feeling okay.