I came across this poem and it struck a deep chord:
To Love Someone Long-Term Is to Attend a Thousand Funerals of the People They Used to Be
The people they’re too exhausted to be any longer.
The people they don’t recognize inside themselves anymore.
The people they grew out of, the people they never ended up growing into.
We so badly want the people we love to get their spark back when it burns out; to become speedily found when they are lost.
But it is not our job to hold anyone accountable to the people they used to be.
It is our job to travel with them between each version and to honor what emerges along the way.
Sometimes it will be an even more luminescent flame.
Sometimes it will be a flicker that disappears and temporarily floods the room with a perfect and necessary darkness.
Blog: In The Margins
Somewhere I’ve heard it said, “Wherever there is change, there is grief.” Priebe points out that this applies to our sense of identity. When we cling to the notion that personality is stable, discomfort increases as a rift grows between what we think is true (based on the past) and what is true… for now. As fluid bundles of complicated beliefs, developmental needs, life situations, values, and opportunities, everyday can mean change.
It seems appropriate to be sharing this with you during Pride Month, because this community lives with grief all the time. These are common topics clients often share:
- I have new understanding about what makes the most sense for how I see myself. It is different, maybe as recent as a conversation ago, or maybe it’s something I’ve known it for a long time but was not ready to speak aloud. Now that I know, the old “me” no longer fits and whether I wish I could or not, there is no going back.
- What does this mean, really mean to me?
- What experiences will this path bring? Acceptance? Rejection? Oppression? Celebration?
Yet you do not have to be in the LGBTQIA community to realize that funerals are part of life for all of us. These questions still apply if you are dealing with a major life shift like marriage or retirement, a health issue like depression or chronic pain, or even something small that chips away at a longstanding foundation on which a sense of self has been built. My hope is that we learn to accept loss as an inevitable part of life. Let’s avoid assumptions and instead, adopt an attitude of respectful curiosity as we traverse this wild ride we call life.