Tangle Ball

If you do not already know, there are no stages of grief. Grieving is not a linear journey. It is destruction and chaos. It is messy and goes in all directions, spiraling and shattering what once was. It is a tangle ball in the darkness. All we can do is grab a thread and try to find our way to the surface so we can breathe for a while. 

In graduate school, I created a series of maps for my thesis, Imagination in Liminality which explores the rite of passage process as a way through grief, loss, change, and transition. I offer these maps to my clients as a way of orientation and mile markers in the perilous territory that is always unique to each person. I tell my clients that I will walk with them, but I do not know where we are going or what we will encounter. I only promise to walk the path with them. 

The tangle ball is the liminality, the in-between place of loss and lostness. It is where transformation and healing are possible. It is disorienting, dark, confusing, and feels quite lonely. It is the stepping off of the edge of what was because the loss of life, marriage, relationship, home/community has created a chasm in the world. The tangle ball is the goo inside the cocoon that is neither caterpillar nor butterfly. It is being in and of what has not yet reformed. 

As humans, we rely on familiarity. We look for patterns as footholds to make our way through the day. Our routines and rituals carry us: coffee, shower, breakfast, brush teeth, dress, go to work. We do things to order our lives.

Trying to find a pattern at this part of the journey is crazy-making. The pattern is that there is no pattern. The chaos will find its new rhythm and eventually unfold into the new world order. But not yet. I know the risks of abandoning this “opportunity” too soon. Bypassing the grieving is dangerous and only creates more trouble. So for now I sit in this tangle ball grasping at strings. 

And yet, I have ordered my shattered world. Each day, I write. I post what is responsible to share. I drink water. I eat something nourishing. I try to sleep. I talk to him. I pray I will dream of him or hear from him in some way.

It is at this juncture of desperation of being tossed around inside the tangle ball that my clients cross the threshold into my office for the first time. I am at that threshold. The unsurmountable pain of loss that makes days and nights long puts us in a critical place within ourselves. The urgency for relief is a powerful force.

Right now, I rely on those who are part of my Womb of Support, the cushion all around me of love in the form of compassionate texts, close hugs, and quiet visits. It is you all who reach into this darkness to touch me in ways that probably from your end feel inadequate that are actually tremendously supportive. The robe, the Epsom salts, the herbal tea, the kisses to my forehead, your hand in mine. You are the ground I stand on for now. Your outreaches remind me of what I cannot see, hear, or know in this liminal space. When I cannot find a thread to grasp, I have found in the desperation the will to reach out to ask for someone to please come sit by me, hold my hand, and witness my tears and rawness. 

Yesterday, I was underwater just crushed. It was too much. I reached out from the tangle ball, and a friend held my hand. It peeled off the weighted layer that was holding me under the sea of grief. My head finally came above the water line late in the afternoon. I could breathe again.

There will be more days like this. I know. This is not my first rodeo in the land of grief and loss. I have been witness to the grieving of my clients and friends. However, it is quite possibly the most intense and shocking experience to date.