Just Doesn't Feel Right

there are some things about grief, and how it manifests itself in my life, that i don't even notice until it's brought to my attention.

i had the "ah-ha!" moment in support group a few weeks ago. one of the other mothers in our group mentioned offhandedly that she hasn't really worn any color since her baby girl died. i hadn't even noticed. but it was true. every time i saw her, she was wearing black or gray. and you know what she said about it?

it wasn't really a conscious decision that i made, 
wearing color just didn't feel right.

hearing that, i may have very well gasped. like so many other times in our support group, i heard words only heard in my heart coming from her.

up until very recently, i hadn't really listened to music at all since noah died.

when i drove in the car, the radio stayed off. silence.

i had no idea of any new albums being released, let alone make any sort of effort to get my hands on them. completely out of touch in that whole, entire scene.

i don't even really know where i would find my iPod.

leading worship. listening to worship music. what was once a huge part of my life and my identity. gone.

this was not a conscience thing. i never said to myself. i'm just not going to listen to music anymore. that's that. it wasn't like deciding to become a vegetarian. i had no reasons or justifications. i obviously didn't even really notice it was happening.

music just didn't feel right. almost offensive even.
maybe i felt just too vulnerable. like salt on an open wound.

grief is so weird. it changes you. changes you in ways that most of time you don't understand.

as i've been thinking about it... like, what in the world? why did she stop wearing color? why did i stop listening to music? i'm pretty sure it comes down to how we experience life's beauty. for whatever reason. and how we are physically unable to, in certain ways, when we are literally heartbroken. i guess our souls make decisions for us sometimes when we're trying to survive.

simply said - it's just not as easy to experience joy now. at least not in the ways it once was experienced, before our worlds were shaken off their axis. and in the places where sweetness and light naturally show up in life (ie. color or music) - grief does what it does. and smothers joy wherever it can.

i still have joy. it's just different. it looks different. feels way different.

because i'm different.

when a woman buries her child, 

everything she does is colored by that experience.

there's a hole in her soul that changes who she is.

-iyanla vanzant

***

lately, by some miracle, music has quietly, without fanfare, crept back onto the scene.

sufjan stevens' carrie & lowell,
mumford and sons' wilder mind,
bethel's we will not be shaken...

they're speaking my language.

dark. often mysterious. with rays of hope.

as is my soul.