I’ve been taking a while to collect my thoughts because today has been an absolutely incredible day. But yesterday was awful, so by comparison, any day is going to be an absolutely incredible day. Yesterday started with finding out about the death of a much beloved improvisor, and so much sadness surrounding everyone he knew. That was followed by the mediocrity (but still incredibly painful act) of pulling a muscle in my neck so that I could barely move my sad dumb head. I called out of work and stayed home most of the day, trying to make sense of the sometimes but all too frequent bastard of a world we live in. Then I played some mourning pinball (because I could literally only look down until I had enough whiskey, bless), accidentally busted 5 tables (sorry…totally not on purpose, it was a rough night), and went home to sleep off my rage so that I could be a bright and beautiful flower for my meeting with the school on Saturday morning. It was the first night I slept entirely through in a long time.
I woke up before my alarm and just laid in bed for a few minutes. I guess I expected to feel similarly to a kid on Christmas morning, but I just felt bad, inside and out. I didn’t have a hangover, but the booze wore off and my neck felt broken. It was dark outside and I was cold and sad still. But then my alarm went off and it made me laugh. I got a new phone a few weeks ago, so I updated all of my Legend of Zelda alerts. My alarm is now the Game Over sound & song from the original game. I excitedly told a friend about that a while ago and he said “Well that’s depressing” but it hadn’t hit me until he mentioned that, that yeah…it’s really depressing. And sometimes when you’re depressed, you laugh-cry about really dumb things.
I listened to the alarm for a little while and thought about staying home until my brain started screaming through my half-asleepness that this was neither the time nor the place for that bullshit, and I needed to get up and GO.
I showered and got dressed all business-like, made breakfast, did my hair and make up, and headed out to the car rental place. Everyone was super nice and happy and my car was ready and warm right as I got there. The radio was playing “Should I Stay Or Should I Go?” by the Clash as I got in. The Clash are one of my favorite bands, and Combat Rock was my first album of theirs. In fact, the radio station was doing a whole show devoted to bands who had their first big-label record from the year I was born! Totally had to be a sign, right? The car was awesome and fast, I had water and chewing gum, nothing could possibly break my stride.
Traffic moved well, but I realized around 9:48 that I was going to be a bit late for the 10:00am meeting. I called the Vice-President, Stephanie, to let her know that I was about 5-10 minutes behind schedule, and she said that was fine. She asked if I wanted some coffee, and I said yes, that would be great (I ❤ coffee always and forever!). She sounded so pleasant and I felt really good about everything.
About 25 minutes later, I still hadn’t found my exit. In fact, I’d passed through Elgin and was coming up on Lake Forest. That wasn’t right! I overshot by waaaay too much! When I first called Stephanie, I seriously had just passed a sign telling me I was about 12 miles away! I’d been cruising (ok…speeding…I miss driving!!!) along for a while, but my exit never came up. I called her again to apologize and let her know that I was turning around. Again, she was so incredibly pleasant and told me to take my time. I was so embarrassed, as I pride myself on being on time, if not early! I told her that I didn’t want to waste her time and really appreciated her kindness. She was so nice, but I just figured this was where all of the positive signs and good ju-ju ended.
I got to the school about 85 minutes after my scheduled appointment. I felt like the biggest dingus in the world, but I freshened my lipgloss, grabbed my things, and walked into the building. Suddenly, I was home.
Not home in the sense that I was in a place that felt like *my* home, but in the sense that I was exactly where I needed to be. Stephanie greeted me with a warm handshake and a huge smile. I almost hugged her because I was so overwhelmed with joy simply to be there. She took my coat, handed me a mug of hot coffee, and the tour began.
The school is literally, in all sense of the word, perfect. I gushed and babbled the whole time, like a teeny bopper meeting a celebrity. I said the phrase “THAT IS SO COOL!” so many times that I probably should have to pay some sort of toll or tax. But it was SO. COOL. I expressed how I wanted to focus on restorative art and alternative funerals, and she told me about different classes the school offers and workshops for once I finish. She gave me numerous resources to follow up on this year, from networking events to the books I can start buying before school starts, some conferences that will be coming up, and a few funeral-specific magazines and websites to check out. At the end of the tour, she cleaned out my coffee mug and gave it to me as a souvenir. I definitely teared up and almost started crying as though she’d handed me an Oscar or Nobel Peace Prize. It was…SO COOL.
It looks like this is completely doable as long as I stick to a fairly strict budget and game plan this year, which I can certainly do. I have to do this. If I don’t, I will regret it for the rest of my life, and I refuse to be that person. The only thing I need to get over is saying that what I’m about to do is weird. It’s not. It’s necessary. I often think about things people said to me when I worked in the morgue which completely caught me off guard and fueled my constant prefacing of everything about my choice to be “I know this is weird, but” (those things included dudes being super grossed about my day job whilst on dates (and sometimes seriously pulling the “Oh…I have to go. My friend is…sick” move), people making general comments about how they wouldn’t want to be touched by my warm and alive, perfectly normal hands after knowing they’d been inside a cold dead human, and creepy question after creepy question about my “relations” with the deceased. Folks. Come on. Don’t be gross). It’s not weird. I know that people think it’s gross or sad or strange but it’s not, and I’m much better prepared to defend it now and I ask you, if you’re like “yeah no Jessica you’re super gross” right now: Is it weird to become a midwife or a doula? Is it weird to work in Labor & Delivery? It’s culturally acceptable to talk about birth til you’re blue in the face. Birth is a miracle and death is scary and horrible and weird. But we all have to go through both of them, regardless of whether or not we want to. It sucks, my stars IT REALLY SUCKS. It sucks so much and often, it’s not fair and it’s not welcome and it can be gross for sure. But it’s going to happen and it’s not scary. I promise. It’s the unknown, whatever happens afterward, that’s the scary part. Maybe this isn’t helping…again, kind of in a weird mental space right now.
These past few days, I’ve been thinking about grief quite a bit. We grieve over more than just death. Anything that’s associated with loss evokes grief. There’s no wrong way to grieve, but it’s so important that people be wise and conscious about it. Reach out to people when you need to. We all forget to do that sometimes. What started me on my thoughts of grief was actually finding a few shorts essay I wrote about my big bad break up after I moved to Chicago. One was about how anyone could have charted when the decline in our relationship began based on the way we played video games together (he always sacrificed me in order to get a higher score and more lives), but I was too slow on the uptake to realize it. The other was about how, about two months before we even had the “We need to talk”-talk, I made a break up playlist without even knowing it. I’ve been grieving the loss of that relationship for over two years now and have honestly only recently realized that I could have been spending my time doing many more important things, like learning a different language or, you know, not giving a shit about someone who treated me like crap, anymore.
Regardless of the wound, time won’t heal it. Time will just turn the pain into something else. Time might make them feel as though it is less and less numb, but the scars are always there. You either look at them and let them define you negatively, or you wear them with a fondness for what once was, and marvel at how they’ve changed you.
This post was kind of all over the place. Sorry ’bout that.
...I Just Want Your Half. 