Your Silent Sudden Grief Alarm Clock

It's real, you know. The grief alarm clock. It doesn't go off with bells or dings or buzzes or the scream of  wake me up before you gogo. It's a silent alarm that makes itself known in tears. Or tantrums. Or a pervasive numbness. Or a fog that envelops everything. We wonder what's happening. Are we getting sick? Is it PMS? Menopause? Why, when we'd been feeling better, are we suddenly right back in that place we never wanted to be again?

Get out your calendar and you'll know why. Your anniversary is coming. Or your D-Day. Or the day you first noticed that strange number that appeared, repeatedly, on his phone bill. Maybe a change in the weather is nudging your subconscious. Yes, it felt like spring was coming on the day I found out. Or maybe his birthday reminds you, on some level you're barely cognizant of, that she was there, lurking in the background even if you didn't yet know it.

Whatever the anniversary, whether an official one or just a date seared into your brain that you may have thought was forgotten, your grief alarm clock is worth paying attention to.

Like all of our feelings, grief has something to teach us. Do your best to push back against the despair that comes with feeling as though we haven't healed, we aren't healing, because here we are crying again, or lost again, or numb again. You aren't backtracking, my old therapist used to tell me, you're recycling. Old feelings are coming back around so you can consider them again, in different light, with different resources. These feelings are coming up again because you have experienced loss. Loss of a dream. Loss of the marriage you thought you had. Loss of the belief that your marriage was different. That he was different. 

It changes us. At first, I was convinced that I was only changed for the worse. I was angry. So angry. And I felt hollow. As if my heart had been cut out, leaving me alive but unable to feel. 

Now, with the long view, I can see that, yes, betrayal changed me. But it wasn't all or even mostly bad. There are things that I learned that I'm grateful to know. It has made me less judgemental. It has expanded my ability to empathize. It has shifted my black/white world view – that people are good or bad – so that I can recognize so many shades of grey. 

I continue to have a grief alarm clock although the one associated with my husband's infidelity seems to have gone, finally, silent. Now, when the tears come or the numbness appears, it's almost always related to the death of my mom. And so when that grief alarm clock reminds me of  her loss, I invite it in. The grief reminds me of how much she filled my life, of how much she continues to fill it, even in her absence.

If your grief alarm clock shows up the form of tears or tantrums or numbness or any other form, invite it in. Give it the change to impart whatever lessons it may hold and then, trust, that it will find the door and show itself out.