Grief

Today has been hard. The emotions tend to come in waves – sometimes it only lasts a few minutes, sometimes days. It’s a grief that seems buried so far inside of me that I can’t always access it. Thus it tends to just sneak up on me and there I am…stuck in this deep well of sadness and anger and shock and disbelief.

Zooey is not dead (at least I don’t think she is…but I just realized that at this point, I would have no way of knowing). However, my grief feels alarmingly similar to that which has been paired with death. It’s such a similar process.

Unfortunately, this loss comes from choice. Zooey CHOSE to walk away. She chose to terminate treatment with us. She chose to do so without transition or even an attempt to soften the blow. I think that’s the hardest part. I know she cared about me. I know she was invested. I know I mattered to her. Yet in the end, that wasn’t enough for her to step out of her own comfort zone one final time to ensure I received the absolute best possible ending to our treatment.

Then again, maybe she did. Maybe ending things like that WAS the best she could do. Maybe she was already pushed so far out of her comfort zone that she had nothing left to give? Maybe she felt she’d sacrificed enough for my care? Maybe she was burned out and was literally incapable of giving me anything more?

I don’t know. I’ll probably never know. But these are the questions that keep us up at night. The powerful emotions that this brings up for us are excruciating and triggering and horribly reminiscent of the very dynamics that led us to seek therapy to begin with.

I wish Zooey had been better. I wish she had been stronger. I wish she had done this differently. I wish she had given me more in those final days. I wish I was worth giving more to.

But mostly, I just wish this grief would subside. It feels like drowning.