November 14, 2019

it goes like this:

“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.”

It's a quote from C.S. Lewis (the guy who wrote The Chronicles of Narnia) and I've been thinking about it a lot because there's been a lot of 

death

going around recently, and when things like death start to hit too close to home people start to do crazy things.

We become mean
impatient
moody

and we start to push away people around us because the hole someone leaves in your life when they die is like a big, gaping maw that can swallow everything up if you let it.

So instead we over-react and become hyper-sensitive to
everything
everyone

because the damage the distractions cause is better than facing what's in front of us.

We panic in the face of death.

And why wouldn't we? I want to. I'm scared shitless of dying.

My mind starts feeling like a level of Monument Valley the minute I start thinking about the idea of my consciousness not existing and the meat sack of my body rotting away and becoming hopefully part of a tree or some nice-looking edible plants like watercress or blueberries.

(I tried to lighten it up at the end there, did you notice?)

But panicking doesn't make anything easier. Not in the long run anyway.

And I've been thinking about that C.S. Lewis quote because I know a lot about how being afraid makes you say and do things you wish you could take back.

When you grow up afraid you lash out at other people as a way to make sense of, and to some extent, validate what you're feeling.

At least, in my experience.

Going through grief for the first time and watching other people close to me go through it

(in some cases way worse than I experienced)

made me realize that grief looks a lot like fear, just like Mr. Lewis said.

It's scary, but it's a reminder that in the face of that big, gaping maw that obliterates everyone we've ever known and loved

all we ever really had was each other.

So hold on tight.