Are You Processing?

Girl, I do not know.

What I wouldn’t give for one of those giant fundraising thermometers that’s being slowly colored in with red marker. “Only 40% more processing to go! Finish strong!”

They say the grief process happens in stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. That makes it sound like grief is a train that runs on the uptown 4 track. Now arriving at Bargaining, next stop Acceptance. Stand clear of the closing doors, please. (Bing, Bong.) You can watch the stages light up on a little map. You can see where you’ve been, where you’re going, and recognize your progress through the passage of time and the proportional movement on a journey with a starting point and and ending point. That… would be awesome.

But in my experience, it’s a preposition problem. I don’t feel like I’m moving “through” grief. I’m moving “among” grief, because grief feels like a herd of cats who have all had the opposite reaction to those airplane sedatives.

Navigating the stages of grief feels like you’ve been tossed in with all those stages of grief in a washing machine. Or locked into a filing cabinet that someone has just kicked down a very long, rocky hill. Buckle up, queen, you’re in denial, now acceptance, whoops, now you’re upside down and angry but just for a second HA HA you’re back at denial again, oh dang I didn’t know you could just hop straight to depression like that!

And! It’s not those stages of grief identify themselves! It’s not like “Well, sure, the stages aren’t in order, and I’m going to experience each of them over and over again, but at least when I wake up one morning and feel depressed, I will say, ‘Aha! Today I am experiencing depression,’ and depressed I shall be.”

No! That’s not how grief is. It’s more like, “I woke up this morning and felt… something. Or possibly nothing? I might have a cold. Or an anxiety disorder. Wait… do I have allergies? Or my period. I feel… badweird. Empty? And also… very full? Of… nothing?”

AND! It’s not like you’re only going to have ONE STAGE AT A TIME EITHER! What is this feeling? Is this acceptance or denial? Both. But those two words are opposites. Yes. That doesn’t make sense. Correct. This is all very weird and your human suit is broken.

Am I angry or bargaining? Bitch, you are ANGRILY BARGAINING like Walter Sobchek in the Big Lebowski.

All this to say, I need to speak to a manager right away. I’m supposed to process but I’m a hot mess. I have no idea what I’m doing.

I remember talking to a patient once who had just come back from doing mushrooms in the desert with their adult child. The patient had a revelation (as one does on mushrooms in the desert) about wanting to let go of all the bullshit and only be with people they love, and only do things that brought them joy for the rest of their life. So they came home, bought an ebike… and 7-9 minutes later, I arrived in my ambulance.

“I feel like such an idiot,” the patient said. “Here I was thinking I could start living my life, and the first thing I do, I end up flat on my ass going to the ER.”

Well, yeah. I thought. Sometimes that’s what happens. You tried a new thing and it ended in a spectacular crash. You had a plan for how the experience was going to go, but that experience went sideways, off the curb, over the handlebars, and into a fence.

But you wouldn’t have crashed into a fence if you’d been on a conference call with people you hate talking about something stupid. You wouldn’t have crashed into a fence if you’d been wrapped up in the bullshit you were trying to shed. You were doing it, babe! You were living your life! Then, you know, you crashed.

“I’m going to live my life” can’t mean “I’m going to rid my life of pain or discomfort.” It has to mean, “I’m going to accept that living my full life means sometimes I’ll eat shit and go to the hospital.” Here, flat on your back on a stretcher in an ambulance, wearing a cervical collar and a turban of Kerlix gauze, you are so alive, dude. It’s chaotic and messy and the plans are FUBAR. But you’re doing it. And you’re handling it.

I’m sorry, did you think “handling it” was going to look like Olivia Pope in head-to-toe creaseless Armani, sitting on a white sofa with a bowl of cabernet while Stevie Wonder plays in the background?

NAH. This is what “handling it” looks like: A wreck. A mess. A ride to the doc. More questions than answers, and the promise of injuries that haven’t announced themselves yet. And you’re present. And aware. And pissed and sad and limping. Here. Now.

It was easy to say that to the patient on the stretcher. Much harder to believe when I’m talking to myself:

Am I processing? I think I’m just a mess. Yeah, babe, you are. The mess is the process.

I ended up flat on my ass. Yep. You ended up flat on your ass. Because first, before you fell down, you stood up. That’s what living life looks like sometimes.

The plan is FUBAR. The plan was never to avoid pain. Avoiding pain means avoiding life. The plan was to be present. Aware. Pissed, sad, limping. Here. Now.

What about the injuries that haven’t announced themselves yet? We’ve got time. You’ve got help. You’ll handle it.

Now please enjoy this photo of someone else who is about to start handling it in 3… 2…