decompress...
this has been a really difficult week. things are happening around here and don't seem to stop. my friend here is dying from an AIDS-related disease that involves memory loss. i sat with him earlier in the week and it was difficult. i am coming to realize that i am uncomfortable around people who are dying/nearing the end of terminal illness. it makes me question whether i am fit for ministry or not. a close friend of mine also recently lost a close family member due to suicide. being with her in her grief is bringing up old feelings for me that i seem to have tried to contain in the past. that shit doesn't work. it will just come up at times when i see folks going through similar issues. so, i'm still grieving my own losses as well. being in a grieving community is something i pray on and am aware of in my work place. somehow, i feel i can run from it or avoid it. if i don't engage people in a conversation, it won't affect me. i'm only prolonging and repressing the process. on top of all this, i am dog-sitting and living in someone else's house until around 8:00pm tomorrow. it has left me feeling way off-center. i am uprooted from my home and hadn't seen stevie for a week until tomorrow. this sense of responsibility for a creature's well-being is exhausting. not to mention having to get up at 4:00am to let their cat out and feed him. it almost makes work feel like my time off. how do i sit with grief when it is an elephant in the room? when will i learn to engage people during their hardest times? i have not journaled nor prayed, as my journal and alter are at home. i am in deep need of some spiritual centering. and my instincts still tell me to run, to go on vacation, to go out to the club and get drunk, to stop by the canabis club on the way home. anything to stop feeling this way. i know that what i have to do is sit with these feelings. to deconstruct them and understand what my emotional reactions mean. thank goodness there is only a half hour left of this work day. then it's on to cleaning the house and having a meeting about anti-racist fund raising..