08 December 2010

Bodywise

Something is wrong.


Even if I didn't possess a single coherent thought, even if the events of the last several months were wiped clean from the slate of my memory, my body screams it. I don't have to think about it; there is no need to call it to mind. But my body knows. Something is wrong.

Energy lags, and though I clock plenty hours of sound sleep, I feel as though my limbs are full of lead. My body feels depleted, and my eyes frequently relax out of focus so the world becomes a hazy blur. I don't want to feel this way. With no particular thought or memory to induce them, hot tears streak down my cheeks.

I'm meant to be taking care of my son right now. And I am reminded that though grief is a mental and emotional event, it is a physical one too. I could distract myself from thought and emotion in any number of ways, but my body still remembers. For nine months, it supported a developing human life and was preparing to nurture and sustain him beyond his departure from the womb. For nine months, we were connected. For nine months, it sustained and prepared and held and then abruptly, he was gone. The flow was dammed, and now I try to adjust. My body remembers, and I can't convince it otherwise.

Tear-soaked pillows. Numbness creeping in slow on the heels of an impossible ache. The feeling of falling. Doing what I can: fresh air, exercise, eating well, resting, taking vitamins. Going out with friends. Laughing. But I always find myself back in that place. Or maybe the place finds me.

Understanding the laments of the psalmists, the cry from the cross.