This is probably going to be a long one, but hopefully worthwhile.
A lot of conversations in my life recently have involved
grief. It makes sense given my recent
situation, but it never fails to bring up some new questions. While some people have known me throughout
all of the losses, others have come and gone throughout. Your circle shifts constantly. There are those who remain in it forever, and
others who stay for a long time, even their lifetime, while others sort of
wiggle in and shift out on their own.
Which is, as you can imagine given the title of the blog post, the topic
of discussion here: our circles.
While the ones who have known you throughout have already
had their opportunities to ask questions or attempt to offer comfort, new
people haven’t. That’s not even
factoring in the questions they might have over previous losses that they don’t
know how to approach. This has happened
a lot, actually. Someone hears that I
lost numerous siblings and it’s natural to me for them to want to know what
happened. But they feel like since it
happened a while back that they don’t want to ask to rehash things. But I remember it all the time. It’s not like I suddenly woke up one morning
and forgot they were gone. Though I’ll
admit there are moments and when you remember… out goes that rug, right out
from underneath you. But in general, no,
I do not forget that they’re gone; nor how they died. But, given how they died, how young they
were… it creates more curiosity. And
then they say something along the lines of, “I didn’t know you back then/didn’t
know you well enough back then to ask, but how did your sisters die?” and when
the answers are, “Suicide and murder” you can imagine the reactions.
But then, there’s also even more curiosity involved. Just because this was a trauma in my life I
still am not clueless that it’s human nature to be curious. Like sayings involving train wrecks… you
don’t want to watch, but you can’t help but look. You want to know. But they don’t want to ask. Or if they do ask, they’re pretty nervous
about it. But I just answer. It’s what happened. What upset me happened. Talking about it doesn’t necessarily upset
me, and even if it does.. that happens anyways.
That’s a part of my existence.
Ask me. I’ll answer. But don’t assume the same for everyone else
who is grieving because I know a whole lot of people who prefer not to ‘revisit
traumas’ and that’s fine. It’s a
personal journey. I just happen to be a
pretty open book about most things and I think because of how much loss I’ve
experienced it’s changed a lot of the ways I view things like that.
Not only have I lost people, but I’ve lost that ‘first phone call’ person more
than once. That is nothing short of a
nightmare.
So then the question comes up about how you cope with it..
How do you cope? I
don’t know, but I know how I do.
A new question brought up a train of thought that I’d like to share to see if
it resonates with any of you wonderful folks out there reading this.
My response involved your circle. Your
circle may not be what you think it is though.
You have your inner circle, your extended circle, your outside circle, and your
rotating circle.
This can vary. One might assume that
your inner circle is immediate family.
It can be, of course, but not necessarily. What about the person who lost their
family? The only child who lost their
parents? You can’t just assume that
everyone has living people in their immediate family, NOR that they are close
to them. While in an ideal world we
would all remain close to our parents, siblings, etc… that isn’t always the
case. But what happens in those cases,
in most of those cases, is that you still create an inner circle for yourself,
it’s just not people related to you.
Your extended circle… Now, I come from a huge family yet there are some
immediate family that I wouldn’t even put into a rotating circle, let alone
outer, extended, or inner… but in this case we’ll use me as the example.
My inner circle involves my husband, children, and a few friends that became
family.
My extended circle mostly involves close friends, but there’s a cousin or two
in there.
The outer circle involves the people you deal with on a daily basis that you
may not even realize are a part of your circle until they become absent from
it. Maybe even social media friends that
you don’t even really talk to much except through likes and comments.
The rotating circle consists of the people who are a regular part of your life,
but not people you talk to on a daily basis or even a regular basis. Your mailman, UPS guy, pizza delivery
person.. say you work in an office that orders items but you only talk to that
person every few months or even once or twice a year, but it’s always the same
person.
Each person in your circle provides you with something and you provide
something in return. There’s always give
and take. When the give and take doesn’t
exist the relationship usually gets an expiration date. You may not realize what they’re providing
you with, and it may not be the obvious thing.
One might associate mothers with nurturing; a natural enough assumption. We can’t forget though that there are
exceptions to every rule.
For example… Not every mother is nurturing.
But everyone needs it, so someone else in your circle provides you with
it. It can be a grandparent, an aunt, a
cousin, a sibling, a friend, but it is provided.
Without it, you’ll feel something is missing.
You might not even be able to place what it is, but it’ll just feel
incomplete.
Same thing with wisdom and advice. It
might be a parent or a grandparent, an aunt or uncle. I think we sort of associate wisdom with age
so we look for it from those older than us, but it can just as easily come from
younger peers or even your own children.
One might also assume that your spouse is the person who will make you feel the
most attractive. But let’s use this
example.
You’re married. But your spouse isn’t
really flattering and doesn’t make you feel physically attractive. Now, let’s say you stop for coffee every
morning before work. It’s your treat,
part of your routine… not even something you really think about because it’s
become habit. You wouldn’t even consider
that coffee shop clerk to be someone in your circle. But let’s say that every morning when you
stop in there, the clerk compliments you.
Something simple, but just a little pick me up that starts your
day.
Because the flattery fulfills that need you haven’t even
realized that your spouse doesn’t compliment you anymore. It’s not something that is even on your
radar.
But now the clerk’s shift changed, or they got a promotion, or they moved. They’re not there anymore. The new clerk barely acknowledges you, just
takes your order and you move along.
Not something you’d necessarily even pay much attention to.
Until a few days goes by, or a few weeks.
Now you’re feeling weird. You
start to notice that your spouse doesn’t compliment you anymore. You’ve lost your pick me up. You start to get mad at your spouse for not
making you feel attractive anymore. But,
until the coffee shop clerk wasn’t there, you were fine. Your spouse thinks you’re coming up with this out of left field. You get into a big fight. They’ve always been this way, you see, you
just didn’t notice because before the need was still being met so it wasn’t an
issue.
Now it’s causing issues in your marriage.
You don’t realize it’s the coffee store clerk though. You can’t even put your finger on why all of
the sudden it’s an issue. Because it
wasn’t. Not until the circle
shifted.
When your circle is intact things can be amazing. Really amazing. Lots of forward momentum. Lots of drive. You have support. You feel loved. You feel whole.
You move right along, like a wheel just rolling down the road.
But then a piece of your circle goes missing…
If you take a piece out of the circle it’s not going to keep
rolling right along, the gap from the missing piece causes the wheel to catch
on something.
If you don’t know what’s missing it can be really difficult to figure out what
the issue is.
If you don’t figure out what’s missing and manage to correct
it, it’s really easy to get stuck.
You don’t feel like you’re moving forward, because you aren’t. The circle is broken.
If it’s just a tiny piece missing it may just cause a bump or two in the
road. But if it’s a big piece it’s
almost impossible not to get stuck somewhere, at some point.
Sometimes the missing piece is really obvious. Someone died… a parent, child, sibling,
friend, etc.
When someone dies that is part of our circle it’s easy to know what’s
missing.
Even when someone leaves the circle because of some friendship ending fight, it’s
obvious what’s missing. There was a
clear catalyst.
Side tangent. How you lose the person
can really affect how things pan out.
If you lose someone to death, your memories are still intact. If anything they now have a rose colored tint
on them. You can still treasure them.
When you lose someone to a friendship ending fight or a divorce or whatever it’s
very different.
Now all of those memories you have that they were involved in are anything but
rose colored.
More like they’ve been splattered in shit.
It also doesn’t have to be *just* the person you lost in the
divorce or fight either. You don’t just
lose the one person, you lose their circle.
You might have been really close to your in laws but now things are
strained. You might have had drinks each
week with other couples, but they were your partner’s friends so they got them
in the divorce too.
With death people still often try to stay close. I still talk to a lot of people where the
person we had in common was lost, but talking to each other makes us still feel
closer to the one we lost. It keeps
pieces of them in our lives. Not always,
but there’s usually one or two.
Divorces and fights are always messy.
There are exceptions so if you’re sitting there like “I have no clue
what this bitch is talking about” then good on you. Seriously.
That’s fucking awesome.
And if you’re nodding along... I’m sorry.
I hope something in this post helps you the next time around. It took me a lot of really big losses to
reach a lot of the perspectives I have on things. I figured if I can help even one person by
sharing what I’ve learned then that’s probably the very best thing that can
come from it. It’s not just pointless
pain.
But what happens when you can’t find the catalyst to figure
out what is missing?
An example I had used with my husband while I was talking to
him was actually internet memes/jokes.
Now, I have my own sense of humour.
My husband has his. A lot of it
overlaps. We spend a lot of time
together laughing. But there are jokes
that I don’t find funny anymore usually because of one of the traumas I’ve been
through. It often just hits a little too
close to home and I’m sent to a place that’s still too dark for me to visit
often. This one time, years ago, he’d
said that he felt he couldn’t even laugh at the jokes anymore to which I told
him was fucking absurd. Of course he
can. If all my friends can bitch about
the stupid ass shit their partners do or say or find funny, so can I. I don’t want to be left out of the fun. Of course you still laugh. Just maybe not with me about it. Which was the example. He has plenty of other friends through social
media who find those jokes just as hilarious as he still does.
These people might not even be people he knows.
They could just be a random person he accumulated on his page because of
one conversation on a musician forum in 2003.
If they left social media or died or something, he may not notice right
away what was missing. He may not even
notice for some time that they weren’t still posting those jokes. But maybe not if it happens, after the big
conversation we had where I was discussing this entire idea for a blog post
with him, maybe he’ll notice sooner. He
might just feel like social media isn’t quite as much fun. The same as with his friends that share so
many things on so many topics. They all
give him something I can’t.
That doesn’t mean I’m not good enough. I’m
only one part of his circle.
I’m only one woman.
I’m sure you have friends like that too whether through
social media or coworkers or whatever.
People that you don’t consider part of your circle necessarily, but who
have the potential to really impact you with their absence. Just not in an obvious way.
I can’t help you notice it sooner, but maybe after reading this I sort of can
because maybe now when you feel something is missing, you’ll check your circle
to see if you can figure it out.
I’m calling things needs but they aren’t actual needs. But they sort of are. They’re personal so they differ from person
to person, but, it’s not like a physical need… more a mental health or
emotional ‘need.’
Things like that person you share that sense of humour with. It can be dark, silly, punny, etc. It’s that you share it. They can be your saltmate where it’s who you
bitch about the same things with.
Maybe someone you party with; a drinking or smoking buddy.
A neighbor. This can seem unimportant to
some people but get one super shitty neighbor after a super awesome one who
knew how to mind their own fucking business moved out. You’ll get it.
A confidante, whether religious/spiritual oriented, advice oriented, what have
you... we all need someone to confide in who gets it and doesn’t judge us for
every mistake we make.
Someone who goes on the same rants about their partner, but they know you still
love your partner… you just need someone to bitch about the bullshit with just
like they can do with you because when they do it you don’t take it as ‘Leave
his sorry ass, dummy!’ you just take it as, “I get it, That shit is annoying
AF!”
If you have kids you’ll have parent friends.
They may or may not have similar parenting styles. I’ve found that you do better having some
parent friends with different styles because they’re far more likely to suggest
something you wouldn’t have otherwise thought of should you be dealing with one
of those situations where you’ve already tried every possible thing you can
think of and nothing is fucking working.
HALP! Or just that you have kids the same age or whatever.
If you went to college, your college friends.
They are the others who keep the memories you shared and nobody else was
there so you maintain that part of your life through that connection to
it.
Perhaps you’ve shared traumas or struggles.
Perhaps you suffer through similar medical issues or disabilities.
Maybe they’re you’re cheerleader and they give you that much needed pep talk
when you’re feeling down, but they do it in the right way.
Maybe they share the same darkness you do, going through
depression at the same time. They get
you.
Maybe you shared a childhood together. Your “Good ol’ days” friends such as
elementary school friends, friends from your neighborhood or street, kids you
rode the bus with, cousins, siblings, neighbors, etc.
Maybe a work colleague at a job you left some time ago.
A classmate.
Maybe you shared a phase together. You went
through the same punk, emo, whatever phase and you can laugh with them about it
now and then as you walk down memory lane.
Maybe you have the same tastes in music, movies, TV, fandom, books…
You do the same crafts or share a hobby.
You work in the same trade.
A military buddy.
A band mate.
Someone you debate with who can actually hold a fucking debate without trying
to change your mind or you change theirs, you just actually debate the topics
so that you can understand more instead of so you can control the other person
and refuse to respect their right to their own opinion; politics or religion
are good examples of true tests to that.
If you can debate politics and religion with someone without hating each
other at the end of the convo, you’ve found yourself a keeper.
Even sports fans with rival teams to jag around with.
These are all people we can find that make up smaller pieces
to our circle where we may not even notice it because that one thing is all
they provided. It didn’t seem
necessary. But the absence of them will
be felt.
When a really important part of your circle goes missing….
the silence caused by the absence of them…
It’s deafening.
When it’s someone you didn’t realize was even a part of your circle goes
missing…
The silence may just be the occasional whisper.
But the absence is still a gap in the circle.
Something I’ve noticed as well is that remaining people in your circle can get
jealous or feel they aren’t enough because of how deafening this silence is for
you. I was going to say it’s difficult
to explain, but it’s not now that I think about it. All of the other voices are still every bit
as beautiful, sometimes even moreso now, they are every bit as important. But they aren’t THAT voice. They can’t be. Their voice is their own and if their voice
goes missing it will be the same thing just with a different voice.
Your circle is a choir.
You can still hear a beautiful song with one or two people
missing from the concert.
But it’s nothing compared to the harmony of ALL of the voices together.
It’s nothing against your voice. Your voice is beautiful. I need to hear it. I LOVE to hear it.
So was hers and hers is gone.
It’s not comparable.
It’s just… an incomplete harmony.
Now, the more recent loss was a big one.
I’m struggling a lot, hence the unexpected break with blog posts. Things have hit me hard and that’s okay. I mean, it’s not, but it is. I was telling someone the other day though
that even though I KNOW this will get easier, that I know someday I’ll tell
those stories without crying, someday I’ll do better at honoring her memory
instead of just mourning her (though the mourning sort of always remains to some
extent, just not covering your existence,) I KNOW this will happen because it’s
happened every other time.
But it doesn’t matter.
Not when you’re in the thick of it.
When you’re in the thick of it… it feels like…. Like forever. And forever feels like, well, forever.
A really long time.
And it fucking sucks.
What happened after was, I believe, Gigi giving me a new
friend. She didn’t want me getting stuck
again with a missing piece of the circle so she sent me a new piece.
I recognized it for what it was. Too
many coincidences. Too many, “OMGS!
SAME!!!”
And I cried. I didn’t just cry… I burst
into tears at the dinner table.
I didn’t want a new friend.
I wanted MY friend back.
But that isn’t how it works, and that’s why I’m writing this post.
The new friend asked where everything goes now. Where do all of the things I would have told
my person go, now that she’s gone? I
thought that was a really good question.
Right now it’s getting spewed onto Facebook. It’s being spewed into writing that never
gets posted. It’s coming in the forms of
random outbursts and crying jags. But
right now, this is the really bad part.
And while I know it, you might not.
I’m trying to help.
Expect this.
I tell people that it’s the first 6 months when you need to be the most patient
with yourself.
This is new. This is
a huge adjustment.
Your circle is broken.
You’re not whole right now.
Grief can be incredibly ugly.
Where will it go though?
That’s really the question.
I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if it ended up being her.
I also wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if it was someone
else.
It’ll all find somewhere to go over time. Maybe to one person, maybe to a few, but it
will find somewhere to go. This is a
transition stage. You’re finding your
new normal.
It doesn’t feel like it’ll ever find somewhere to go, but it will.
But you see, people always want to bring up comparisons and
mention ‘replacing’ someone.
There. Is. No. Replacement. For. A. Person.
Ever.
Allow me to repeat myself a little bit louder for the folks in the back.
There. IS. NO. REPLACEMENT. FOR. A. PERSON.
EVER.
We don’t want to even THINK about replacing them. So what do we do? What is our natural tendency?
We fight it.
I do so love a good fight.
That is how the wheel gets stuck.
You’re not replacing them.
What you are doing is allowing yourself to feel whole again so that you
can move forward. You cannot get that
missing piece of your circle back. Even
if you do, it won’t fit quite the same way.
The universe has a way of providing things if you pay attention. Mother Nature loves her cycles.
If you fight it though, you remain incomplete and moving
forward is nearly impossible.
But if you stop fighting and appreciate the new person for
who they are and for their role in your circle… it’s not that you stop missing
the pieces you’ve lost along the way.
But your circle is complete again.
When the circle fills in the gap, the wheel starts moving again.
This job is made a thousand times more difficult when you can’t pinpoint what’s
missing or if you fight the inevitable.
We are social creatures. You can
claim to be as anti-social as you want since that’s such a hip thing to be
these days, but it is a basic human biological need. You NEED social. You NEED people.
We punish the worst offenders with solitude.
That alone should tell you something.
That’s not saying you can’t be introverted and prefer your alone time but you
are seriously delusional if you think that you still don’t NEED social
interaction.
Then again, maybe you’re delusional due to lack of social
interaction.
But then, that shouldn’t apply to you because if you’re reading this, you’re on
the internet… likely on social media as that’s where I share the links to it...
and are therefore still a lot more social than you’d like to admit to yourself.
I think of it like homesickness. When you move and you’re ‘homesick’ is
because a lot of pieces of your circle have shifted at once and are missing or
in different places. It’s once the
circle gets filled back in that the feeling of homesickness goes away and you
progress in your new environment.
But anyways, moving on.
Sometimes it’s a new person that shows up, which is why I wouldn’t be the least
bit surprised to find out that it’s the new friend who could fill the missing
gap at some point.
Other times it’s someone in your outer circle that wiggles their way
closer.
Either way, try to recognize it and appreciate them for who
they are. They are not your missing
piece.
They are a new piece.
When you feel things will never be the same, they won’t.
If anyone tells you any different they are outright lying to you or absolutely clueless.
What that means, to me, is that the path you’re walking now
is a new one.
The person who fills in the gap could very well be the person that gets you
back on the path you’re meant to be on. They could even add momentum and take you to
places you never thought possible before.
Your circle shifts pretty regularly.
It has shifted before and will again.
Maybe by learning the cycles, recognizing them when they happen even if they
circumstances leading up to it were completely unforeseen, it will become a
little bit easier for all of us.
The circle will go through another cycle.
The choice is ours, really.
Do we fight it? Or do we
appreciate it for what it is, each big and small piece that makes up the whole
and learn to accept that sometimes the circle has to break so that we can move
forward in a different way.
Our circle begins from the moment we’re born until the day that we die.
The circle will break and be repaired more times than we can
count.
But the cycle will continue.
The cycle of the circle.
The Cyclical Circle, if you will.
Thanks for reading! Let me know if any of this resonated with you or provided
you with any food for thought and have an amazing weekend!
