Dealing with Grief

I came to a coffee shop to write this as I thought it’d make it less likely for me to cry.

Turns out that’s not the case and now my dirty chai is a little saltier than usual.

This morning my childhood dog was put down.

pause not for dramatic effect, but for me to do some fast blinks to dissipate the tears

For the record I’m doing my best to make zero eye contact with anyone in my vicinity and would probably be deeply embarrassed if someone were to come up to me right now so be prepared for me inputting jokes and quips to make myself laugh while I self-soothe and therapize via making it public knowledge of how I’m feeling right now.

We all deal with loss in different ways.

Some people shut down.

Some drink.

Some pretend it didn’t happen.

Some are like me and post it on the internet for whomever to see.

I do this because there was a time I held everything in. I thought crying made me weak and for lack of a more politically correct term I thought expressing feelings meant I was a pu$$y.

Expressing and having feelings is quite literally the most human thing you can do.

I don’t know about you but I have a lot of feelings.

And if you’ve met me you probably know I don’t know when to shut up about them.

Some of my biggest feelings I like to express are joy and gratitude. There may be people who think it’s not real or I can’t actually be that positive. Well, hate to break it to ya but I’m a ray of fucking sunshine.

But that doesn’t mean that I don’t have bad days. I just choose to have more good.

On any given day there’s something we can choose to be sad about.

Today for instance:

I have two foster dogs and am way over my head and trying to keep from drowning.

Everyday in the back of my head I have fear of the cancer returning.

My hair hasn’t grown back well and looks like the top of a strung out Q-Tip

Even though I run and train every single day I have not gotten 2 minutes within my mile time pre-cancer

My body a lot of the times doesn’t feel like my body

My little sister is engaged while I’m still single, with low likelihood of that changing anytime soon

My grandparents are getting older and ¾ aren’t doing that well

I pretty have zero savings

My childhood dog is now dead

These are all reasons I could use as an excuse to be down in the dumps, and sure that last ones making me tear up a bit, but I don't think you quite understand that just by you having the ability to read this we have SO much to be grateful for.

If you’re reading this:

You have your sight, there are people who never get to experience a sunrise.

You have education, can you imagine trying to get by not knowing to read?

You have technology, unless it’s a Samsung then you probably should be depressed about that.

You have internet, which likely means you can afford to pay your bills.

You have me… and once again, I’m a ray of fucking sunshine.

There will always be reasons to be sad, I urge you to find the reasons to be happy, because I guarantee there’s more.

I’m a little sad right now, but I know I’m only sad because of how much happiness Maizie brought us all in my family. 

I used that sadness to inspire me to write this, hopefully it does some good.

Also at this point I think it's important to mention that my urge to cry has subsided and turned to the urge to smile.

So thank you to giving me the opportunity to outlet my feelings in the way that works best for me. Maybe I'll have something a little more light hearted to write about next time.

Xoxo Mild Girl