Skip to main content

Day 8 - Social Mathematics

I went back to work full time 4 months after Jack passed away. I needed and wanted to get out of the house. I wanted a place that “needed” me and they treated me like family immediately. I met tons of new people in the first weeks/months. With every interaction, I’d do the social math of “do they know about Jack?” That felt like my identity (it probably always will) and so it felt like all these people didn’t really know me -  I had no stories to tell about my 5 month old and no new photos for my desk and no physical living human being to bring in and show off so Jack was a part of me that they didn’t know. A few people went to high school with Ike and probably knew about it from Facebook. But generally most people didn’t know. Sometimes a person would ask “do you have kids” or sometimes it would come up in other random ways. But no matter how it came up, explaining you “had” a kid usually captures everyone’s attention whether they were involved in the conversation or not. And it usually makes the person who asked “do you have kids?” wince a little. 

Often I do social math in various situations. Like is it worth speaking up when someone is talking about UVA and say something that shows I’ve had experience there and then I’d have to explain why and the entire thing becomes about me - I’d do the math and decide it’s not worth it. Or at a new doctor, do I explain or does the dermatologist for example not really need to know? Or someone is talking about pumping, do I chime in or listen and observe. If they don’t know about Jack, is that moment a time I want to bring up Jack & commander the convo?

Bringing up the story of your child dying is a heavy thing. It isn’t a flippant comment you add to a convo - it opens a huge conversation and sometimes I don’t have the emotional energy for it. 

I have to be careful how I answer questions too. I’ve accidentally said “ I had a baby last summer” and before I can get out anymore of my sentences, the other person responds with “congratulations!” And then you feel like a jerk for having to say “but…” and explain the rest. It’s wretched. And then I catch myself managing the other persons emotions (which I’m not responsible to do) as they try to reel back in their words.

That’s exhausting. Grief is exhausting. Social math of when and where and who you share with is exhausting. Give yourself grace if you’ve experienced deep hurt and you just can’t _____ some days (you fill in the blank). A wise person once told me, in grief the only thing that isn’t optional is breathing and I’ve held onto that for a while now. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 32 - How grief changed me

 I obviously missed quite a few days - I took about 2 weeks off - turns out blogging about heavy stuff is draining and I probably bit off more than I could chew by aiming to do 35 posts.  I have been reflecting on how grief has changed me over the last two years.  In many ways, I am not the same person I was when 2021 began. Grief has changed my thought life, my friendships, my work.  First - My world got tiny. I often felt myself looking inward (at my usually crappy situation) and feeling a lot of pity, sadness, anger and occasional shame. In those seasons, it’s so hard for me to be an engaged friend. Essentially grief has made me selfish. When you are going through so much stuff, you don’t have capacity to extend yourself to be there for your people. There’s nothing wrong with that - that’s the reality of grief: other people are checking on you for a long time - for good reason. But that’s hard for me- I wasn’t built to be needy, to mope or even be able to answer “...
Post a Comment
Read more

Settling

Last Monday, Jan 21, we left Kampala around 9am and headed west to Bundibugyo. At this point, all we had seen of Uganda was Kampala (lots and lots of cars and bodas) and a short ride of forest/open areas between Kampala and Entebbe (which we drove on the new bypass road and that felt like we were on an American Highway for a hot second!). So getting out of such a densely populated area sort of felt like leaving Harrisonburg on the Friday after JMU finished for thankgiving break - awful traffic getting on 81 and then finally you get to a point on the highway where there are very few cars around and you can breathe again! The view was breath taking - rolling hills of banana trees or eucalyptus or cassava. Of course the occasional matatu (taxi van with 20+ passengers and way too much luggage on top) or boda would pass by....or we would pass a herd of cattle. But overall, it was an open road. We got to Bundi on Monday evening, greeted by the Carrigan kids (another family on the mission...
1 comment
Read more

Arrival

We arrived on Saturday evening, the 12th. All but one bag made it to Entebbe (five out of six is pretty good) and the last bag arrived a few days later via boda boda (motorcycle). It was dark when we flew in so we did not get to see much of anything (besides the loud clubs and street vendors) until we woke up on Sunday morning and the view was beautiful! Actually we were up at 4am (jet lag) but when the sun came up it was quite peaceful. It was a cool morning, we ate breakfast at our guest house and sat on the porch and watched birds - so peaceful!  We have spent this week in Kampala and two nights in Entebbe, getting adjusted to the time difference, visiting places we will come back to during our resupply trips, and having time to do some culture and Serge orientation before we get to Bundibugyo.  Guest House #1 - Adonai House  Guest House #2 - Guinea Fowl   Dinner at Faze 3 overlooking Lake Victoria - where we celebrated Malac...
1 comment
Read more