Things I Shouldn't Think

I have a whole handful of other things that I ought to write about here - things that happened before I was sidelined with the flu this week, or plans for once I'm well and truly recovered. But right now I'm stuck at work, still a little bit loopy from cold meds, and suffering from an underabundance of appointments, with my thoughts and a stack of journals to keep me company.

And I can't help but think....

Leishmania is a very disappointing disease, mostly because of its name. Whenever I see it, all I can think is that it really should be declared as leish-MANIA!!!!!! in the voice of an announcer for an after-Thanksgiving sale, complete with flailing Kermit-the-frog arms, fireworks, and confetti cannons.

It's probably a very good thing that the disease (which is very serious, incurable, and not at all fun or exciting) is vanishingly rare to the point of being unheard-of in this area, because the temptation to at least announce the diagnosis to owners with the aid of jazz hands and noisemakers would be too much for me to resist....

Yet More Thoughts, Less Silly

People say 'I'm not good at this' when it comes to grief, or loss, or dealing with bad news, as though it were a skill or a knack, or something they should have learned in school, in between square roots and diagramming sentences. The truth is, though, no one is "good" at it. It's not the same twice, or for any two people, and no one ever gets to be good at facing tragedy. That's part of what makes it tragic, and part of what keeps us human.

Some of us are trained in how to handle bad news and grief - we're born with an extra dose of empathy, or we take classes and learn - but that just teaches us how to speak to other people about it, how to listen and support and dole out comfort. It's important, it's vital, but it doesn't mean we're better at handling that news ourselves, or confronting our own emotions in those situations. I don't say this to complain, or to ask for pity or support - I say it as a kind of support in and of itself. We're all lost sometimes. We all hurt sometimes. No one person knows the true path through this forest, or the right way to handle it.

There is no one right way. Everybody grieves in their own way, and that's the way it has to be. Some people hurt, and reach out, and surround themselves with light and noise and comfort - and that's good. Some people draw in, and need quiet and peace alone with their thoughts - and that's good. Some people need to be busy, making things and fixing things, creating order to counterbalance the chaos they feel - and that's good too.

Sometimes, you need a touchstone - a pin, a string of pink Mardi Gras beads around your wrist that let you know, no matter how helpless you feel, that you did something, a scrap of paper with a note in someone's handwriting. Sometimes you need to be the touchstone for someone else, in order to feel helpful and real, and to know that there are other people in the world who are still alive, and feeling the things you feel.

And it's all okay.

And most of all, it's okay to feel like it's not okay. It's okay to fall apart a little, and to not be sure of what to do or where to go from here. Odds are someone nearby, coping in their own way next to you, will feel better for knowing that they're not the only ones falling apart, will feel better for being able to let you lean on them for a little while, and later on, when you've got your feet back under you, will need someone to lean on in turn.