Wallowing
Wallow isn’t a word that is typically associated with a positive activity. We’re always being encouraged to not wallow in whatever we’ve acknowledged we are wallowing in—frustration, despair, anger, etc. I don’t typically hear of anyone wallowing in a good time. Except a pig. Pigs seem to be okay with it. Even Googling the definition made it pretty clear that I was headed into negative territory.
Recently, in one of my writing groups, one of the writers mused that we don’t wallow enough. It happened during a remote meeting I was holding while I was at our family’s cottage in Maine. I had boldly decided to clear my calendar for three weeks and head north for a “break.” Grief and exhaustion have been the highlights of most of my days since Annie died and I felt like I wanted to take some time alone. The first week included Angelo and Luca, but the remaining two weeks were mine, mine, all mine. The break I was looking for wasn’t to get away from my grief--how could I get away from that? Instead, taking a cue from my writers’ group, I took two weeks to wallow in it.
The days passed both quickly and as though they were going in slow motion. There were glorious, beautiful days and rainy, gray dark days. The weather didn’t always match my moods, but then my moods have not been consistent at all. We planted a tree with Annie’s ashes at the cottage and I sat with her every morning while I had my coffee and wrote in a little journal I brought up with me for my two-week sojourn. Some mornings I chatted with her and other mornings tears streamed down my face. But I saw her everyday.
One night I woke up suddenly from a series of dreams I was having. In them, Annie was alive, but living in another city—like New York, but closer—and it seemed like she was worried about looking after Luca adequately. I kept trying to assure her that I’d be there to help her. She could come home. Then, on the heels of that dream, I began dreaming that my dad was back, too. But he wasn’t going to live with us, he was living in a senior housing apartment nearby. I was scrambling to figure out how to get him some furniture, a walker and, most importantly, his insulin. In the dream, I remembered that during the two weeks before he died, his insulin injections and his diet were way off, but it never seemed to impact him in the ways we were always afraid of, like getting too much insulin would send him into a coma or too many carbs would send his blood sugar through the roof. I bolted upright in bed, wide awake. I literally said out loud to myself, “No wonder I drink.” (Don’t get that look on your face…I drink wine. Wine’s okay.)
On another day, the plaque I ordered to mount on the memorial flower garden box arrived and I walked over to meet my friend Tracy to help me put it up. The flower box was at the entrance to Beach 9—the town beach nearest our cottage and the one our family used the most often. I knelt on the sandy ground strewn with pinecone scales and pine needles and screwed the slate sign into the wooden box, filled with marigolds and lantana and some of the wildflower seeds from Annie’s celebration. Afterwards, I walked back to the cottage to get my kayak and meet Tracy, who already had hers, back at the beach. We were going to paddle around the lake a bit. As she was getting her boat ready to head back out, I reflected about the task I had just completed and declared out loud for all the world to hear: “I am a fucking Amazon!” And it wasn’t all the world, actually, it was only Tracy and the two women setting up their chairs for a day on the beach. One of them misheard me and said, “I know! Amazon’s the worst!”
That’s what all this wallowing has allowed me to do though—feel a little strong again. If I made a list of all the losses and the repercussions and the changes and challenges that have come my way in the last eight years or so, my knees would buckle. And I think I’m doing okay…unless I’m totally fooling myself. My heart and my brain are working overtime trying to adjust to a new now, a new future. That’s where all the dreams come from, I think. And, even if I had suitable time to grieve and process each of the previous losses, losing Annie has been the hardest ever. My life won’t ever be the same and I don’t think I’m being dramatic in saying that.
So, as far as wallowing in grief…that’s just something judgy other people say about others when they’re uncomfortable.
Me? I say wallow…I think it might be good for you.
(A bit of word play: W-allow. W for the win - “allow.” Clever, yes? ;)
Even in the depths of your profound sadness you find the positive, Cindy. Just like your precious Annie. Wallow-away. Give yourself grace and permission to do so.
Your writing and storytelling are magic.
You’ve offered new meaning to wallowing and, I’m sure, given permission to others to follow your lead. Wallowing: W(e) allow.
Let’s all wallow in our grief and allow its natural course to heal what can be healed while helping us live with the scars and aches that will always remain. We are made stronger by living our authentic selves. Yes, we’re Amazons.