You Can’t Outrun Grief
How do I write about surrendering to grief if I keep on running so I don’t have to sit with it?
For seven weeks now, I have been running everywhere. At first it was easy, all I had to do was run and jump through the loops of co-organising my mother’s funeral, travelling to France to join my family, figuring out where to spread the ashes, letting people know about the details… there was always something to do, somewhere to be. It was easy to keep moving.
In the first week of this surreal event in my life, I started walking. A lot. I walked to the supermarket, to the gym, to any appointment I had, and if I didn’t stop myself, I would have walked all the way to Spain. But my body was stiff and aching, each morning I woke up feeling like I just got hit by a truck. So I started stretching more and practicing yoga to loosen up my prematurely ageing joints. By doing all this, I was trying to control how my emotions were going to be let loose.
After the craziness of the funeral and the spreading of the ashes was over, I got back to Brussels, and I kept walking. Then I thought it wasn’t enough, so I started strength training. But it still wasn’t enough, and I started running. I told myself I was training for a long hike I’m planning to do in September, or maybe next spring. But the truth was, I had very big feelings to process and I was bullying my body into movement in an attempt to deal with them.
I haven’t stopped walking, stretching and running since my mom died. It’s still hard to believe I am writing these words. Is this my reality? Is this my life? My mom is dead. Sounds weird.
I am tired of running away from that sentence. My osteopath warned me, she said I was pushing my body too hard. Then my body made me stop, like it has done many times before. Yesterday I hurt myself while I was dancing in an attempt to show myself that I am still alive and I can still enjoy the simple things that used to bring me joy. Today I am stuck in bed, exhausted. I am lying here with sleepy eyes, aching joints and a shallow breath.
My mom is dead. I don’t know how to surrender to this new reality. I can keep running, hoping one day it’ll just be ok and I will be able to sit with that fact. Or I can stop moving now and let it rip me apart and ripple through my body so I can start healing.
The thought of sitting with that truth is terrifying. I am terrified I’ll never come back from it. I am terrified I am going to get lost in sadness, pain, and anger. I am terrified I’ll never stop running.
In all six months of my surrender experiment, I haven’t really figured out how to surrender to the small stuff yet, how do I surrender to something this big today?
It’s making me doubt whether I know what surrender means at this point. When I started my experiment, I thought surrender was about letting go of the wheel, and letting life steer the boat for a minute. I don’t think I realised then that it meant I was going to have to grow up and come to terms with life and reality.
Today I think surrender is about accepting what is and learning to make peace with it. Surrender is about finding out who I am when my whole foundation has been shaken. Surrender is about allowing myself to learn something from this.
I don’t have all the answers. But one small step I can take today is to stop running and choose to sit with my grief, surrender to it, even if it’s just for a minute. So that’s what I’m going to do today, sit with it for a minute.
