The Art of Being Fine

The last blog post was rough. Thanks for hanging tight with me guys as I tried to express what Scott meant to us. We seem to be slowly melting our way back into regular life, letting the pain of loss fall away little by little, but the scar remains tender. Tender enough to finally catapult me into action.

It is through this grieving process, the ache that is so deeply uncomfortable, that I have started to take a closer look at loss and the scars we carry, the way they build on top of each other. My son, an insightful pre-teen, has been encouraging me to find a therapist since my diagnosis of a brain tumor a couple years back. My need to support and protect my son during that scary time, made finding a therapist for him a priority. For me? Not so much. The concept totally made sense, we were dealing with some scary shit, but to actually follow through? Somehow I couldn't pull the trigger. I felt I was handling it all fine.

Now, after a string of earth shattering developments, losses, and changes, I have finally taken the step forward to seek help. It isn't easy to turn to someone else when you have been able to cope just fine. No matter what life has handed me, I've always been fine. Don't we all have dings from the crap life threw at us? Aren't most of us fine? I almost felt bad taking up someone else's time since I am fine and I know there are some people that are truly in dire need of support. I felt like I was taking their spot somehow.

First thing the therapist tells me on session one is that I said I was "fine" several times in 1/2 an hour and that I can no longer use the word in respect to some of the daunting life occurrences I've weathered unless I agree to being FINE... F*#ked up, Insecure, Neurotic and Emotional. I laughed so hard I cried. Here I finally realized just how FINE I've been and the discovery seemed to break open my mind's eye like the quick, powerful smack of a window scraper on a windshield covered in thick ice. As the car sat in the sun, warming just enough that with that single blow, the entire ice sheet splinters and falls away revealing the shiny, clean windshield underneath.

There have been many gems I've gleaned from my sessions so far with this therapist, the biggest is to admit the many losses that have occurred for my psyche, not just the deaths of those we love. Simply having been ill and the symptoms that altered my existence, the diagnosis and the fear that comes with that, the fear for my son should the worst happen to me, the wear and tear on my marriage as we tried to understand my body's changes and the emotional stress, family dynamics and maybe the biggest one...the loss of identity. A loss of innocence that bad things can happen and we are not invincible is a hard pill to swallow even when you thought you were aware of that already. I will never see the world the same, and I need to form a new identity that has grieved the loss of who I was before. To truly grieve the entire process I went through. It probably sounds simple, I know I intellectually had grappled with these concepts and decided...wait for it...that I was fine. But it is a far cry to sit in that uneasy, uncomfortable space where your psyche comes to peace with it.

Add in the other life changing elements, and suddenly a lot has happened in the last couple years that has become a muddled mess. Layer upon layer of pain, loss, grief and plenty of being FINE has mixed together. This mix is not like a finely made Old Fashioned with the sugar, bitters, slice of orange and cherry being thoughtfully muddled, pressed together to combine flavors, no my muddle is more like a sea of people snatching things off shelves in a mob on Black Friday, full of chaos and confusion. Layers of self identity crisis varying from after 2 years of sickness and injury, I no longer fit in my ski pants, to what would I like the world to look like for my son if I'm not in it, to turning 40, to who am I really? If my work does not define me, being a mom or a wife does not define me, who is it that is left?

It is easy to turn to a glass of wine, get back inside my head and debate existential ideas, climb into my nice comfy "fine" place and hide. But, I will resist the temptation, I will continue to feel the ache and hopefully come out on the other side clear of the ice I've let build up. I will take that glass of wine though, after all, it is the only thing left that is truly 'Fine'.

-Cheers from the Vivác Winery Family!
www.VivacWinery.com