CHRONIC SORROW

"chronic sorrow is the presence of recurring intense feelings of grief in the lives of parents or caregivers with children who have chronic health conditions. at it's core, chronic sorrow is a normal grief response that is associated with an ongoing living loss. it is the emotion-filled chasm between "what is" versus the parent's view of "what should have been" 

                                                                                          ~susan roos

purged some pent up grief today...

sometimes out of nowhere you are struck by a torrential down pour of overwhelming emotion...some days i have a profound sense of grief for all that has been lost during the past 10 years of chronic illness. there's been a lot of loss. there may be many more years of it to come. adding to that, sparky's recent accident and subsequent hospital visits triggered many painful and distressing memories.

sometimes life just feels overwhelmingly sad and tiring.

grief. fear. sadness. living loss. they are emotions you feel with your whole body, mind and spirit. they are heavy and they suck and it hurts to walk thru them.

healing is hard. it's a steady uphill slog. it's hard, exhausting and ugly. plus i'm dealing with a minor major hair color disaster at the moment so totally NOT feeling so cute right now either. (just keeping it real). part of me is like, "ok, shan, whatever it's ONLY hair" but on the other hand, it is really NOT nice. it's orange and yellow and that's NOT okay.  

some days nothing feels okay and everything feels sad and ugly.

and it all suddenly overpowered me as i was riding up a mountain bike trail on mt. seymour. all i could do was sink into a crumpled heap on the side of the trail, helmet askew over my fried hair, doing the big, loud UGLY CRY.

the grief, the pain, the sadness just bubbled to the surface and tears flowed unchecked down my cheeks splashing on my glasses before slowly rolling off and free-falling to the earth.

as the last few fell, the settled and remained on my glasses. through my blurred vision their pretty purple-pink hue caught my eye.

i saw my pain on my glasses...but the pain on my glasses was reflected in a beautiful light.

PS sorry the snotty kleenex made the shot! but a good cry is very cleansing - especially of the nasal passages! also, i have no idea how or why my tears were pink. probably from too many chemicals on my head