Finding the Balance

I think there's a fine line between replacing old memories and creating new ones.

After a loss, especially one of those that devastate you, there's so many different ways to respond. I have a tendency to both surround myself and yet still bury the memories. I surround myself with their things and things that remind me of them. And at the same time, my instinct in the past as been to try and never remember them. There's so much pain wrapped up in those memories - even the happy ones now - that I had put great effort for years into shoving them so far down that they have only recently been resurfacing, and only in bits and pieces. I'm glad they're resurfacing - and I was always told they would when I was ready for them - but they're still hard to maintain.

And on the other hand, going back to the idea of surrounding yourself with them, I assume sometimes you want to just wrap yourself in those memories and you live in fear of forgetting.

I've been thinking about this lately, and it struck me today as I put up a new (and recent) photo of my aunt and I on the wall. I love it, she looks so stunningly happy, and it made me smile as I sat on the couch and looked up at it. I looked at the other photos in the nearby vicinity, one taken just a few years ago with another aunt, one taken about ten years ago now but with someone I had lost. But I noticed them all mingling together. And so I started thinking about it again.

When I first moved in, I didn't have a lot of things that were purely mine. That sounds really dumb, I definitely have more things than I need, but so many of them were keepsakes or inherited items. And I loved that, I love that I have these sweet items and I'm grateful I didn't have to purchase a lot of things, please don't misunderstand any of that. But one day I looked around and realized it was almost like my whole apartment was a shrine to those I had lost. It didn't even feel like mine, it just felt like a memorial to everyone who had passed away.

And there's nothing wrong with honoring those you love and wrapping yourself in the warmth of their things, but.... at some point, when is it your life? When is it your personality injected in there too? After all, you live there. You come home to it every day. And I noticed some days it just felt like a funeral all over again.

And to be fair, I didn't have the headspace or the desire to change that for a few years. You don't realize, until you've been through it a few times, how long grief can last. That first year, for me, is always just shock. That second year is hell. And the third year, it seems, I finally start to gain a little ground. And I don't think it's just me, I think there's some substance in that. That first year you're just trying desperately to stay alive. The second is when the shock has worn off, and yet somehow you're still here, and the pain and the misery hits you in full, with no protective shock barrier anymore. And  somewhere around the third, you've started to develop a few new memories to ease some of the loss.  

And, to be fair, in those first couple years, you don't want to develop new memories. Why would you? It just means you're creating new things without someone you love so much. Why would you even want that? I had zero desire, for anything, for about two and a half years after grandma died.  I have just, within the last few months, felt some ground steadying beneath my feet. I didn't even feel like I knew what my personality was anymore during that time. I didn't know who I was. I didn't know even what I liked. People, so sweetly, kept saying I should find something I enjoyed and do it. But I didn't enjoy anything. I didn't realize how much pain I was in, I just know whatever was happening I had no idea how to navigate it.

But this year, I started splurging a little bit more. I bought a few new things I realized I did like. I made a point to buy a few seasonal items throughout the year, because I discovered that tremendously helped my depression. (I think it helped me feel like I was moving through and actually celebrating the year, instead of constantly coming home to the same thing every single day.) I decided I was going to try plants, even though I didn't really know what I was doing at the beginning and had the lowest of interests in it - but it was interest and I desperately clung to it. Now it's turned into one of my favorite hobbies. While I still don't have a lot of things I do outside of the apartment to fill free time, I've noticed enough growth and change and development now, that I'm less worried about it at the moment.

Which brings us back up to today, when I noticed the mix of photos and began to look around my apartment and realized the new and old now happily mingling together. It is now less of a shrine and more of a home. My grandmother's old mirror stands among my fall decorations and my ZZ plant. Next to it is a new lamp, that is one I love but also happens to be reminiscent of one she had. :) On an old table, one that I've never known life without, sits photos of new children added to our families. New experiences with loved ones, like the carnival with my aunt, are hung next to a birthday party from two years ago and a get together from my grandpa's years ago. My mom's sunflower coasters now hang out with mine from the Plaza District and McMenamins. Tickets from art exhibits. A new Halloween costume created sitting at my grandma's dining room table.There's a little bit of life here now, and it genuinely makes me cry, but they are happy tears. Finding the balance. Learning that we're not forgetting, and not replacing our old experiences and memories with loved ones. Just adding to them.