One Happy Island

The deafening silence after everything is done. The feeling of aloneness that sets in even though some people stay in touch, You don’t talk to people, you text with them. You don’t want to hear voices, engage in non-sense. You start to think that your lack of filter will just cause you to tell someone off. Your emotions are a roller coaster ride and it isn’t fun. You cry, yell, laugh, over think, over analyze, drain people and drain yourself. 

It is time to take a breathe. It has only been 4 weeks since Mom passed away, there are moments when it feels as if it just happened. There are moments when it feels like it has already been forever Ince I held her hand, or heard her voice. The stress and sadness are a heavy burden.  And luckily a trip had been planned for over 6 months, and the decision was made to go. There were a few moments when it didn’t feel right to head to an island, to a place where people are vacationing and having fun. It would feel like a celebration. Who was really in the mood to celebrate? 

So Aruba, here we come. A chill island where you can do as much or as little as you want. When super storm sandy hit 5 years ago, Aruba was planned a few days after it hit and since nobody had damage or flooding, we went. Many of the people we spoke with weren’t even sure of the damage of their homes in New Jersey or New York.  They stayed in Aruba until they could get to their homes and enjoyed where they were. 

That’s the plan. Enjoy the weather, food, water, and relax. Let my soul feel what ever it needs to feel. Have a spa treatment, and celebrate friendship. 

Everyone grieves differently, I learned that when my brother passed away. And nobody has a right to judge how anyone grieves, how they act. Some people are great actors, you would think they really are ok, better with the grief. When my brother died, I didn’t grieve. I focused on helping and taking care of anything and everything and didn’t grieve for a year. When I did, I ballooned in weight, and it manifested in my thyroid. 

Not grieving is about not feeling. By not feeling the depths of the sadness, there is little opportunity to begin to heal the wound. For me healing allows you to live freely, in a loving place with the hurt, not in the grip of it. That isn’t where I was for a very long time. I don’t know if feeling mom’s death will accelerate my way to that loving place, I don’t expect it to. This is though, the healthy way to deal, by allowing myself to feel the sadness and work through it. Of course, in doing so, there are times that the behavior is sophomoric,  sobbing a message to a friend, snapping, loud tapping on the phone as the text message becomes a weapon! 

That raw emotion is frightening. It drains everyone around it, including me. So I pray that I relax and breathe for the next week. It is time to re-energize. 

They say you have to feel it to heal it, here goes some healing on One Happy Island…the perfect place to rest.