Grief

On Monday I got up and did my morning stuff and then went back to bed. I felt really, really tired and just couldn't get it together. When I lay down I really expected to go right back to sleep but I just lay there feeling exhausted. I never did feel any better although I lay down all day. I finally fell asleep pretty early in the evening. When I woke up yesterday morning I didn't feel particularly rested although I had been resting for 24 hours.

Yesterday was a busy day - I had one appointment after another and made it to all of them. I was surprised when I went home in the afternoon that I wasn't particularly tired. All at once I was aware that Monday was Ron's 25th AA birthday. Our AA birthdays were really big days for us. Both of us loved the program, loved recovery and were absolutely joyous about celebrating. So some part of me was sad and it was expressed in physical tiredness. I've experienced this before - on the anniversary of my son's death I have been tired like that and unable to rest but didn't realize what day it was. I eventually learned to be aware and to spend the day remembering my son and celebrating his life instead of lying in bed.

Evidently I've passed into another phase of grief where my conscious mind isn't going to alert me to what day it is, but my body is going to grieve without my awareness. Interesting. I've never read about this in any books about grief but I'll bet I'm not the only one. I'll mark Ron's AA birthday on my calendar so I can celebrate it with awareness.

I'm so grateful for the awareness I have. Otherwise I would think I was crazy or something awful. It's not awful - it just is.