Fussing The Way Back to Comfort

It took about 4-5 attempts to rearrange furniture after the fish tank fiasco, but today, I feel pretty content with where things are. Mostly it involved moving a dresser, end table and some craft organizers and in a way that kept my curious cats from making a mess of any new arrangement. They're pretty proficient in asshole architecture so it didn't take long for them to show me the flaws and adjust accordingly.

The drawing display is supposedly coming sometime today. I already ditched the Wacom drivers to avoid any interference with the new drivers for XP-Pen. My cat is contentedly hogging the more accommodating space I made in the window, looking out at the rainy day. I'm vibrating with restless energy and jumping up every time I hear what could be a delivery van.

I have a half-made dragon scarf awaiting the rainbow yarn I ordered to finish it. Along with an assortment of 12mm doll eyes for unpainted doll heads that will become painted doll heads at some point. There are also a few open Scrivener files on my computer: UnHeard, the short stories branching from my current two published series, and another literary fiction project I titled Shared Silence. There are no lack of things to do, but after moving furniture, I'm content to scroll through Netflix and Hulu and enjoy some rest.

Tomorrow I may take the kids to the park or something. They've been cooped up playing video games all spring break, but between me working most of the week, my sister's reparative finger surgery and Dad working too, none of us could get out to do much else either. If not for the rain today and yesterday, I would have taken them to the park so I'm hoping for a sunny day tomorrow.

Death, of any significance in my life, always leaves these awkward gaps. The routines, once so seamless and unconsciously a part of me, are now muddled spotlights where I stand immobile, numb and scrambling for something to fill it. It's not a physical space where certain shapes or convenient liquids end up making it right. It's not a landfill of mismatched things either. Some people make the lovely comparison of the Japanese art of using gold to repair cracks, which is a great mental exercise in healing but isn't a fix either.

I've read that death changes you entirely, that you will never be the same and, in truth, you don't want to be. Would we really have never known that life at all rather than be transformed by the pain of loss? Rather, I don't want pain to be paralytic. I want some sort of closure that keeps me moving. I had a sort of paralytic pain when my dog died but the deaths started to pile on and survival meant I couldn't keep wallowing as I did that time. Even though it's the hardest thing I've ever had to do, I forced myself to both feel and keep moving. When my friend Fermín passed, I finished school and focused on crochet. When my mom passed, I focused on my health goals and kept writing the books I talked about with her. I lived my life and kept my promises to those people, even though they wouldn't be there to hold me accountable.

We must be accountable to ourselves as if we are keeping promises that will be weighed. Because they will be. You will have to face the guilt, shame, disappointment in yourself for failing your own expectations too. You will also have to decide that grief plans made you overly ambitious at times and forgive whatever overachieving plans you couldn't accomplish. Grief can leave you in total darkness or shine a vicious spotlight on you. It's rarely a grey area so you need plans for that violently rocking ship you might be struggling with.

I find comfort in that struggle. I see it as a place to test my strengths and weaknesses, to learn about the new person I will be. It's nothing to fear. A full life often means many drastic changes in the journey to find yourself. Find comfort where you can, but leave comfort to reach for more fulfilling risks.