Read on Twitter
Its been a few days but I keep thinking about how people’s tweets talking about the positives 2020 had for them were received with anger or negativity. Maybe it’s the timing, or maybe it’s weird EMDR memory flashes, but it’s made me think about how it was when Gran was killed.
It was something so awful &Earth shattering that I thought there was no possible way I could ever feel joy or happiness again. That there would never be anything but pain associated with that period of my life, with those memories. But when I look back, that’s not what I recall.
What I remember is trying not to burst out laughing mid service at my cousin trying to stay upright when her stiletto heels were sinking in the mud at the graveside, or when my other cousins nearly slipped carrying the coffin.
Its memories like my sister and my cousins hysterical laughter when distant relatives we’d never met and friends of my gran kept handing me money for a collection we didn’t have because I’d done the eulogy. I genuinely to this day don’t know where that money went.
We we’re in court for over a year. It was horrible and excruciating but it was also often ridiculous. It’s not the suffering I remember now but the five of us grandkids going for all you can eat wings after a hearing, laughing about disastrous camping trips Gran would take us on.
Even the last day of the court proceedings, when the sentencing finally happened, undoubtedly the worst day of my life. When it was all in the news, in comment sections, when Daily Mail reporters were harassing my mum, when we had to sneak past news cameras to go out & get lunch.
The thing that comes to mind first is that, when we went to leave after giving our statement, the camera crews filmed us walking. And in the footage broadcast across three national news shows, I’m snort-laughing because my dad is behind the cameramen, attempting to trip them up
So what I’m saying is: even the darkest most terrible times have happy memories. Being able to take joy and take progress from a dark time isn’t a bad thing, nor does someone’s positivity devalue your suffering. But positive isn’t the absence of negative.
Celebrating the positives doesn’t invalidate grief, nor does it diminish the severity of a situation. There’s a difference between insensitivity to a situation and finding positives to help heal or grow from it.
Being grateful and glad that, because of the trial, I saw my family more often than ever before and got to enjoy so much time with them doesn’t diminish or detract from the pain or sadness of why we were there. It’s not an exchange.
I don’t know if this helps, or makes any sense in the context. But after a year of such loss and struggling, it feels relevant to look back & remember how it felt at the beginning & how we moved on. When you’re grieving & suffering other people’s joy can be incredibly painful.
I’m not about to tell anyone how to grieve or process. But what I will say is that if you lash out and if you use the good others experience as a measure of your own suffering, you’re setting yourself up for more pain.
I remember, as life continued to deal us a shit hand in the months after, being furious that people could live normally while we had so much hurt. You can’t live like that. It’s not productive, it goes nowhere. Seeing that the world can still produce happiness isn’t a bad thing.
ANYWAY that’s my two cents, thank you for coming to my Sunday night grief musings. Also for what it’s worth Benefit They’re Real eyeliner is fucking legit and will stay put even after a day of crying and sweating in a court room.
