I am standing up and saying for all to see, yes, I have a twitter account. I am contributing to the glut of information we are already exposed to and the short sound byte’s of information that come through in an almost constant stream to the world. People tweet about everything from important news events of the day to what color their child’s poo was that morning. Sorry, I know that was nasty. But it just shows you the craziness of our information age. At least Facebook, though just as trivial, does have the ability to see a fuller picture of something. Twitter is somehow an abbreviation of the already abbreviated way we communicate. I find it difficult to sit through an actual 2 hour movie without messing with my IPAD or flipping to another channel during the commercials. Was I always this way, or has the constant stream of information, tweets, texts, posts and blogs made me somehow ADHD? To completely honest, I find it difficult to sit through a 1 hour tv show without doing the same.
I tried to think of all this in relation to my grieving process. Grieving is a long, messy, drawn out process that takes years to totally work through. Even at that you sometimes never truly get through it. I know people, friends and family, that have grief come back on them decades after a loss. So how does this fit in our twitter culture? In many respects, it doesn’t. People expect you to be over things quickly. They expect that friend with the sunny personality or the quick wit to be there all the time for you and not be depressed or sick with grief. What people don’t realize is that grieving isn’t a one-size-fits all situation. Some people will move past things relatively quickly, while it takes far longer for others.
I am dealing with some of that right now. I am on edge a great deal of the time and find myself physically and mentally exhausted more often than I ever remember. I put it off to job stress, financial woes and a million other things that it could be. But, to be perfectly honest, I think it stems back to grief.
Do I function day to day? Yes. Am I weeping in the corner every night? No. But grief is a subtle thing. You put your trust and faith in God, and wade through the deep waters. There are days you feel like your legs are mired in quicksand and you can’t move another inch. You push and push until there is nothing left and then you push some more. You mechanically move from task to task, appointment to appointment and make it through your day.
To Christians out there who think that people who grieve this nakedly are not relying on God enough for their strength, I have something to tell you. This IS with me relying on God for all my strength. I would be a frightening person otherwise.