A Letter To Grief
Having only ever had to deal with losing guinea pigs and fairly distant - albeit very lovely - family members, the concept of grief is still fairly foreign to me. I'm very lucky in the fact that I still have all four grandparents; in fact, I'm lucky enough to have extras - all six wonderful, huggable lovelies are still very much in my life.
However it seems that soon I will, most likely, have to come to terms with this emotion that I've really quite enjoyed not knowing.
You know what, Grief? You can just wait in the line over there, and maybe you'd be so nice as to let other new emotions go ahead of you. I don't feel I really want you in my life quite yet, thanks. Oh, you're pushing in anyway? I should have known. Grief doesn't listen to reason or follow rules. You can't bargain your way out; this isn't the Sims. Maybe luck will be on your side and some huge wall will spring up between the two of you just when you need it to, or a hole will open up in the ground and whoops, bye Grief. But then sometimes the path is very clearly set out. It has been spray painted on the ground and Grief is ambling towards you, relishing every step just like you knew such an inevitable and unavoidable monster would.
Hold up, Grief, the last thing you need now is a spurt of energy, my friend. (You are so not my friend. I hate you and I wish you would turn around and leave, thanks very much.) If you could kindly slow down and restrain yourself from bombing up this path like your unthinking and insensitive backside is on fire, that would be ideal. I'd appreciate if you could please make an appointment next time, which I will then cancel, obviously. But the very least you could do is give me some warning. Look around, can't you see I haven't prepared for you at all? I wasn't expecting you for a good few years yet, mate. You're really not welcome here, and you'd do well to be reminded that turning up unannounced like this is actually very rude. Maybe don't do this again. You know, ever.
Not that I don't want you here (I don't, you have absolutely no idea how much I really don't want you here), but rumour has it there are actually some people who'd appreciate a visit from you. I'm sure you must have observed by now that basically nobody actually wants to see you, but there are some who have been waiting for you and expecting you for a while, and there's not a lot they can do about it. That's the word on the street, anyway.
So you know what you should do? You should make a U-turn where possible, aka right here because goodness knows I will do anything to create space to make it possible for you to about-turn right where you are, and bumble off to people who'd actually be relieved to see you. That's not me. It's so not me and it's so not the rest of my family, whom you may have noticed are all here with me because we heard news that you might have been popping round. Well just pop right back off, okay? Because we're not answering any doors to you. The curtains are already closed and we've followed the very literal lesson the Three Little Pigs taught us, because that crackling sound you can hear is coming from the fireplace at the bottom of the chimney. Comforting and warming for us; less pleasant for you, should you decide that a Santa-style chimney descent is a good idea. It's not, by the way, and you should just abandon that plan right now.
I've done well to keep my cool thus far, Grief, but I'm losing my patience and I'm getting desperate. You have to leave. There is not one single soul here that is even remotely okay with your anticipated presence, and I physically could not hate you more than I do. Can you hear the squelching? Yeah, that's because when I heard word on Sunday of your likely arrival I flooded this uni accommodation into a marshy swamp with what you may have seen on what I'd guess is a fairly regular basis, being the liquid optical physical representation of a combination of fear, sheer terror, sadness more accurately described as devastation, raging anger, frustration, and all too often, stupidly perhaps, helplessness and this overwhelming sense of being completely and utterly useless. I hate you for it. I hate you.
You could not be less welcome, but that doesn't seem to deter you. We're delaying you, but you are what they might call 'an unstoppable force'. So as it seems that we may be seeing more of each other over the coming days, I guess we'd better say hello.
However it seems that soon I will, most likely, have to come to terms with this emotion that I've really quite enjoyed not knowing.
You know what, Grief? You can just wait in the line over there, and maybe you'd be so nice as to let other new emotions go ahead of you. I don't feel I really want you in my life quite yet, thanks. Oh, you're pushing in anyway? I should have known. Grief doesn't listen to reason or follow rules. You can't bargain your way out; this isn't the Sims. Maybe luck will be on your side and some huge wall will spring up between the two of you just when you need it to, or a hole will open up in the ground and whoops, bye Grief. But then sometimes the path is very clearly set out. It has been spray painted on the ground and Grief is ambling towards you, relishing every step just like you knew such an inevitable and unavoidable monster would.
Hold up, Grief, the last thing you need now is a spurt of energy, my friend. (You are so not my friend. I hate you and I wish you would turn around and leave, thanks very much.) If you could kindly slow down and restrain yourself from bombing up this path like your unthinking and insensitive backside is on fire, that would be ideal. I'd appreciate if you could please make an appointment next time, which I will then cancel, obviously. But the very least you could do is give me some warning. Look around, can't you see I haven't prepared for you at all? I wasn't expecting you for a good few years yet, mate. You're really not welcome here, and you'd do well to be reminded that turning up unannounced like this is actually very rude. Maybe don't do this again. You know, ever.
Not that I don't want you here (I don't, you have absolutely no idea how much I really don't want you here), but rumour has it there are actually some people who'd appreciate a visit from you. I'm sure you must have observed by now that basically nobody actually wants to see you, but there are some who have been waiting for you and expecting you for a while, and there's not a lot they can do about it. That's the word on the street, anyway.
So you know what you should do? You should make a U-turn where possible, aka right here because goodness knows I will do anything to create space to make it possible for you to about-turn right where you are, and bumble off to people who'd actually be relieved to see you. That's not me. It's so not me and it's so not the rest of my family, whom you may have noticed are all here with me because we heard news that you might have been popping round. Well just pop right back off, okay? Because we're not answering any doors to you. The curtains are already closed and we've followed the very literal lesson the Three Little Pigs taught us, because that crackling sound you can hear is coming from the fireplace at the bottom of the chimney. Comforting and warming for us; less pleasant for you, should you decide that a Santa-style chimney descent is a good idea. It's not, by the way, and you should just abandon that plan right now.
I've done well to keep my cool thus far, Grief, but I'm losing my patience and I'm getting desperate. You have to leave. There is not one single soul here that is even remotely okay with your anticipated presence, and I physically could not hate you more than I do. Can you hear the squelching? Yeah, that's because when I heard word on Sunday of your likely arrival I flooded this uni accommodation into a marshy swamp with what you may have seen on what I'd guess is a fairly regular basis, being the liquid optical physical representation of a combination of fear, sheer terror, sadness more accurately described as devastation, raging anger, frustration, and all too often, stupidly perhaps, helplessness and this overwhelming sense of being completely and utterly useless. I hate you for it. I hate you.
You could not be less welcome, but that doesn't seem to deter you. We're delaying you, but you are what they might call 'an unstoppable force'. So as it seems that we may be seeing more of each other over the coming days, I guess we'd better say hello.
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