The Infinite Sadness

Well, it’s been a spell since I’ve posted.  Truthfully I was waiting until I could write about anything besides grief and loss.  Turns out grief and loss have a tendency to eclipse everything else and if you wait until you are able to write honestly about happier topics it may be months in between posts.  So today I’m embracing what’s true and sharing some things I’ve learned about grief and loss in these long months.

In February I slipped into the Infinite Sadness. 

Suddenly, without much warning, about a month ago I fell into what I’ve come to think of as the Infinite Sadness.  Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness was a Smashing Pumpkins album from the mid-nineties.  I was in no way cool enough to be listening to The Smashing Pumpkins in the mid-nineties, but I remember kids in middle school wearing tee shirts with that album cover on them.  Of all the albums in the mid-nineties that I was in no way cool enough to listen to, that one has stuck with me for some reason.  I found my mind ruminating on that phrase “melancholy and the infinite sadness” as I was consumed with a heavy sadness a few weeks ago. 

It was a different kind of sadness than the one I’d been dealing with these months following my dad’s passing.  For much of January I had started to feel better.  Sure thoughts of my dad and this loss were never far from my mind, but they remained docile, manageable.  The moments of sadness spread out, and something like peace could be felt for long stretches. 

The Infinite Sadness was different.  It was heavy and thick.  I couldn’t shake it and found myself crying multiple times a day, every day.  I couldn’t look at pictures of my dad, couldn’t hear my dad’s voice on the answering machine, couldn’t handle any of life’s little inconveniences without falling to pieces.  I was coming undone by the weight of this grief but I couldn’t seem to shake it.  It threw me for a loop because for weeks before I seemed to be doing better.  And then all of a sudden waves of sadness crashed over me, knocking me down.

It was during these weeks that house hunting came to a head for Tommy and I.  In early February we started our search again after taking some months off when my dad died.  This time around though it had lost its shine as our innate differences rubbed against each other.  We both had vastly different priorities and couldn’t afford a house that would fulfill all of our requirements.  Neither one of us could see where the other was coming from nor were we communicating very well in the process.  In the middle of my Infinite Sadness we didn’t act quickly enough on a house that would have been perfect for us and lost it.  I slipped deeper into despair.  I couldn’t handle one more heavy thing in my life and it felt like hope was lost on us ever finding a place to live that felt good for the both of us.

It was exhausting, really.  I was tired of my thoughts, of the tears that couldn’t seem to stop falling.  I didn’t want to be in my head any more but couldn’t seem to escape.  I had a hard time sleeping at night, waking for hours at a time my mind racing.

It was hard to write honestly about everything during this time.   I worried my real life people would go on suicide watch with me.  I worried it would seem more dramatic than it actually was.  It felt like too much to share.  I was embarrassed by it.  Like I just couldn’t get over something that those around me had grown tired of.  I didn’t quite understand why, after weeks of feeling like time was starting to heal and hope may be around the corner, all of a sudden I was flung back into darkness and despair.

I realized during this time that I don’t know how to talk about sadness.  I know how to talk about stress or anxiety.  I know how to spin positive on trying situations.  I know how to talk about what’s overwhelming, but why I’m still hopeful.  I don’t know how to talk about despair, about the complete lack of hope I felt during those weeks of Infinite Sadness. 

Perhaps because this is such a new emotion for me, because for the first time in my life I am walking through something I can’t spin positive, reverse or fix, I found my sadness to be an incredible vulnerability.  I didn’t know how people would react to it and I didn’t trust it with anyone right away.   I wasn’t sure I trusted myself with it, honestly.  I berated myself for not being able to shake my sadness, for not just being happier, for being unable to control the flood of emotions that came at the slightest trigger.

And so I floundered there in the deep end of depression with only my hard, unforgiving thoughts to keep me company.

Needless to say, it was a great February.

A few things came a long that lifted me out of it finally.  Two of my nearest and dearest friends gave me a birthday gift a few days early that was so incredibly thoughtful and loving that a bit of hope pierced its way through the Infinite Sadness.  It was a gift that loved me, and my marriage, which has taken a beating in these past few months.  It was a gift that gave me something to look forward to.  But mostly it was a gift that made me feel seen.  That reminded me I wasn’t drowning alone and those who loved me saw me, and saw that things were still hard.

And then one of those same friends spoke words that helped me to change the way I grieved all together.  During one of our regular Wednesday morning play dates I opened up about my current mental state, apologizing profusely that I was still crying, still unable to fully shake this grief.  Lauren said, “Col, we fully expect this grieving to be for years and we are in it for the long haul so stop apologizing.”  It was such a simple statement, one that I’m sure any and all of my real life people would echo.  But to hear it out loud, to be freed from the timeline I’d created that forced me to bear this burden alone, there are simply no words for what it lifted inside of me.

As a grieving person I have more than once put a timeline on my mourning, given myself a deadline for my feelings.  Time and again I’ve found myself frustrated that I seem to have no control over what this looks and feels like.  Good days come just as unexpectedly as the bad ones and I never seem to be prepared for either.  I’m learning, once again, to be more graceful with myself.  And to have more faith in my people.  I have surrounded myself with some incredibly good ones and I’m not doing any of us any favors by bearing unbearable loads alone. 

I believe that God gave us to each other for more than just laughter and parties.  I believe we are called to walk hard paths together.  I want to do that with the people I love.  Both their hard paths and my own.

The Infinite Sadness may come again.  But this time I’m prepared.  I’m ready to enter into the vulnerability of sharing that which is scary to share.