Sylvanna Devlin

I read somewhere that grief is love with nowhere to go. I’ve thought about that a lot lately. Is that the true crux. You love someone and they’re just not there anymore either because they walked out of your life they walked out of life permanently?

It’s an issue I struggle with. People aren’t really ever gone in my heart so how do I cope with this feeling of emptiness when I want to pick up the phone and can’t? Hold on to those I have? What about something more simple to describe?

The loss of a pet?

Some of us can’t really ever wrap around lost life. Small is almost easier to understand. There are a few standard feelings. Anger at God, guilt over those times you weren’t perfect, sorrow that you miss the warmth and cuddling of the person or pet your heart is breaking for.

There are other forms. Moving strikes me as a form of grief. Particularly not if you didn’t pick the time or place to pick up sticks. We move as kids and sometimes out of necessity and grieve where we were. And it can make us fail to appreciate where we are.

Whether you’ve lost a loved one, a loved pet, or a loved home the empty cold misery of grief clings on if you can’t involve yourself in a new home. And it may prevent you from being with someone else and you may not want to be.

I always have a cat but this time losing Tabitha could make me lose my life. She’s saved mine enough times. I can’t be without her till she’s about nineteen and had a good run. I”m hoping that in fifteen years my life is significantly different enough to survive.

I’ve almost called her Kaeli or Cybelle. And I’ve noted she sometimes sounds like Ian. And she can be as surly as Sebastian. She’s the uber cat. I can’t face life alone frankly. And that’s my pet. That’s my shortcut reason for sticking around because she loves me and may understand but would be super pissed.

Do I miss my ex spouse? With the way he treated me no. But I miss the life we had together. I miss the extended family. I miss a regular sex life. As it was before marriage. And I miss my woods when I lived in Redwood City. I miss getting up in the morning and making him sandwiches. But I don’t miss eating the not quite ripe pear core he would have tossed out the window if I didn’t say I wanted it. But I held on as long as possible. Tried everything I could. No regrets could be allowed because I already regretted too much about my life. So no. I don’t miss him. I miss there being someone. Which is different.

The grief from divorce was overtaken by grief of my entire identity. I became swarmed by loss and confusion until I gave up. We are relationship oriented creatures and conflicting stories of who someone is, how they know me, and what happened to them about drove me insane on top of gaslighting via missing, or changed objects, harassment to move and familiar filters with a different explanation every five minutes. No one really understands how that can lead to suicide. But it does.

Gaslighting kills.

My grief there is not that I couldn’t hold on, I lasted longer than should humanly be possible and I did end up just giving up. But it took years and several attempts on my life – I.E. lots of times gaslighters tried to drive me to the hospital and the way I was going was if I was going to die. No one listened what they were doing was fatal and they weren’t going to till it was. The fact I came back to life might have been inconvenient. At least for me.

Depression is the next umbrella for that level of destruction. And it was sure to take several years to solidify who I am now.

I’m more than Melissa Devlin I’m Sylvanna Devlin.

I would argue grief is not just love with no where to go but the need to rewrite part of your identity. I am the woman with the real, original, temperamental Tabitha. I’m the woman who can make a hospital emergency room shake. But I’m also the lovable ball of cuddles currently not getting enough of them! I’m still a writer by some miracle. But hacked and wrapped in cotton wool – as I may have needed – I have opinions from strangers to contend with and no ability to determine what or why.

It’s all very strange.

How do I reform this time? How does anyone when they miss their life with that loved one in it. Or they miss loving someone who tuned out to be toxic. Do I really just have the same advice? Distract yourself, redecorate, plunge your grief into work? I suppose so. Because the only thing to heal any wound is time and sometimes there will always be a scar feint though it is.

Though this section is in part exploring and sitting with your inner shadows to gain control over them, these ones you need another present for if you are going to do that. Otherwise become a moving target for your pain until there’s less of it.