Sometimes learning takes a different turn (link corrected)

Somehow that I no explanation for, in the last weeks I stumbled into reading the blog of a woman named Angie Smith. Her husband Todd is a singer in the Christian band Selah. (My finding her may have to do with this, as I'm starting to listen to music again, but it has to be music from my past. Unfamiliar music is jarring and I don't handle it. But Selah was around and I liked their songs back before music hurt me, so I listen and am happy). This spring they gave birth to their 5th child, a daughter who died shortly after birth. Her blog details going through her pregnancy knowing the outcome would be painful, and the grief, which was further increased by the loss of her infant nephew to SIDS only weeks later.

Her writings are so clear and real and speak to me. My therapist has already defined part of what I'm dealing with outside of my work issues as grieving. I'm trying to deal with parts of my past and losses of things from my illness. And truthfully, grief is new to me. I deal with a type of grief with patient deaths, but there's a distance. I should have grieved when my grandma died, but I didn't know how and I shoved it deep inside and probably that's what will bubble up next.

One of her entries made me think a lot. I thought I would try this also. I didn't actually have anything to break, so I purchased a cheap and ugly flowerpot on clearance. I also decided throwing it down would be risky for me what with picking up shards and tremors, so I smashed the thing with a hammer. The smashing probably felt too good because I have too many tiny pieces.

But I worked for 90 minutes or so, and I learned a lot. I knew this was risky business what with already having tremoring hands. I was correct. I learned that broken pieces don't necessarily mend easily. I have burned fingers and at least one cut. I have put together and taken apart many times and I still don't have a flat base. What is coming together is going to be extremely slow, and extremely ugly. I already have "extra" pieces and holes I can't fill. I've learned to not glue hastily, and that sometimes a piece may look like it will fit in one place, but it really fits elsewhere. But this thing CAN be rebuilt. It's going to be changed, but it will exist again. Not as well as Angie's maybe (again, hammer not good idea), but it will.

You may or may not be interested in the Christian rationale for this, but I suggest trying it if you need to think your way through something. I'm already surprising myself.

More on this as it happens.