The sad day.

Well here it is again. May 22nd. The sad day, as I’ve referred to it this year. I knew I wanted to write today. Partly because writing helps me feel things and partly because I worry the year I don’t post on this day is the year I leave Ethan behind. One of those is a healthy thought.

I had every intention of writing this with my morning coffee. Unfortunately, an urgent matter came up. The grout in the shower needed scrubbing. How could I sit here and write while the state of the shower hung in the balance? Plus, there’s no right way to grieve, so why can’t my way of grieving be cleaning the shower with a toothbrush?

The first couple hours were therapeutic. It felt so nice to accomplish something. Accomplishment faded to perfectionism. I scrubbed the same spot over and over, growing in frustration at the grout. Anger at an inanimate object + the need for the shower to be spotless sparked a few (appropriately sarcastic) questions in my mind:

“Is it possible that I am not, in fact, angry with the grout? That maybe I am misdirecting some feeling?”

So I forced myself to stop cleaning to sit down and write, and here we are.

I have concluded it is, in fact, possible I am not angry with the grout nor do I need a spotlessly clean shower. I will even grant that cleaning the shower with a toothbrush is not an urgent matter.

Here’s the thing. Problem solving is my jam. Making an issue disappear gives me comfort and a sense of control. Ya wanna guess what’s easier between fixing a dirty shower and fixing a dead brother? Or how it feels when the easy thing can’t really be fixed perfectly?

Helpless feels like the most accurate feeling. I can’t do anything about the fact he’s gone or the feelings that come along with it. I can’t solve my anger, sadness, anxiety, etc. If I’m honest with my self, I know that feelings are not problems to solved in the first place.

That’s a frustrating truth. Instead of fixing my feelings I have to listen to them. Let myself feel them. It’s stupid.

Okay…. I know it’s not stupid, but let me have it.

Now’s the point in the blog where I tie in the connection to God and how it’s okay because I’m loved and your loved and everything will be okay, so let’s just pretend I did that. I’m feeling cynical and tired and want to go take a nap, so that’s what I’m going to do. Because I’m not in control, I can’t fix this.

But really, I am going to go do that because if I force myself to actually name hope this is what I know:

I am known and loved in this moment by the creator of the universe and there is nothing I can do to change that. God is not surprised by or upset by my feelings, whatever they are. In fact, he welcomes them. He is a God who mourns with me. I don’t need to feel a certain way or do anything special to earn that love (or to prove that I love Ethan, for that matter).

And now I nap.

p.s. If you have any tricks to cleaning a shower, leave ‘em in the comments