Tension

I went for a walk this evening near my house. The weather threatened an impending storm, but I went anyway. The entire time I walked it got more and more windy, until leaves were blowing in my face and it seemed like the atmosphere was going to explode, there was so much tension. The trees bent over, the air swirled around me, everything seemed to be crying out, "Rain, already!"

I made it home without so much as a drop, and I was kind of disappointed. I, too, was anxious, waiting for the rain. I thought about how it would be kind of exciting to get caught in a storm. A little drama to jolt me from my apathy. Something to break the tension.

I realized that this feeling of "waiting for the storm" is much like how I live my life lately. I feel that I am in a holding pattern of grief. I anxiously wait for something, anything, to break through, to interrupt the slow, plodding, slogging through life that I'm doing right now. My entire body feels tense with the weight, the STRESS of grieving. I crave something to break up that tension. I wish for a lighting bolt that would magically jolt me forward, past this time of sadness.

A moment with friends, when I can laugh so hard I cry, and momentarily forget—or am distracted from—the HARDness of life right now.

For people to treat me "normally," and not feel like my children's deaths are the elephants in the room.

To be able to remember my boys and smile, thankful for the time we shared... and not always dissolve into tears soon after.

To feel like I can take a deep breath again, and move forward, and be FREE of the grief that weighs so heavily on my heart. Not to be free of my precious boys, of course, but to be free of the Constant. Aching. Dragging. Pain.

I think I do have moments now, fleeting ones, that are free of the tension of grief. I am starting to taste joy again, here and there. But I can't wait for this weight, this tension, to lift from my heart. That may never happen until heaven, because I will always miss my boys until I see them again. So I guess the next best thing is to learn to live with the tension of grief, and the knowledge that something is missing.