A friend on the opposite coast has just had a breakup. (So have I, but it isn’t the same one!) Also dissimilar is his reaction to it. He is really feeling sad, and is grieving hard. Me, I’m feeling a combination of sad, bewildered, relieved, proud, and tired. Proud that we tried, tired and bruised like I’ve had the flu but I’m in that stage where I know the worst is over.
But I know that I have felt that hard grief before, and I absolutely will again. Just not this time. I think the person on the other end of my recent breakup is grieving hard, this time. Having post-divorce relationships (or lots of them) is like passing a certain point in a videogame and getting extra time or lives, such that you might have the opportunity to experience multiple nodes of the breakup spectrum: instigator but sad about it, relieved dumpee, cad, person-who-had-an-epiphany, person-who’s-had-enough,-thank-you, thunderstruck innocent, saboteur, quitter, or (more frequently than you might think) person-who-was-secretly-married-and-must-move-back-to-South-Africa.
My friend found a great quote by the singer/songwriter/icon Nick Cave, who not too long ago lost his son, that Cave posted as a response on his website.
It seems to me, that if we love, we grieve. That’s the deal. That’s the pact. Grief and love are forever intertwined. Grief is the terrible reminder of the depths of our love and, like love, grief is non-negotiable. There is a vastness to grief that overwhelms our minuscule selves. We are tiny, trembling clusters of atoms subsumed within grief’s awesome presence. It occupies the core of our being and extends through our fingers to the limits of the universe. Within that whirling gyre all manner of madnesses exist; ghosts and spirits and dream visitations, and everything else that we, in our anguish, will into existence. These are precious gifts that are as valid and as real as we need them to be. They are the spirit guides that lead us out of the darkness.
So, with the understanding that we feel grief at different degrees, and at different times. I’ve repurposed this sweet, insightful quote in a couple of forms, so that its force might be amplified or diffused depending on where someone is on their grief spectrum.
Of course, no expression requiring thoughtfulness and care is truly worthwhile unless Minions say it, and that is why, if I ever get married again, the wedding will be Minion-themed with lots of Renaissance Faire performers and we’re going to get tattoos in languages we don’t understand to demonstrate our trust for one another (and her tattoo artist ex-girlfriend).
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fully support a minion wedding! personally i have avoided much grief etc by giving up on intimate relationships, but I realize this doesn’t work for most people. (sure, it’s not ideal, but it is, if nothing else, emotionally RELAXED. or dead. YMMV,)
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Sometimes, when these things happen (and these things sometimes happen), I will violently shake myself, lifting myself off the floor by the neck, and say, “Why isn’t relaxation enough?”
What losses and grieving Snuffy has experienced is an interesting thing to think about.
Author
There’s something to the fact that he never calls Big Bird anything but “Bird.” That’s not a friendship.