Good Grief.

One of my Charlie Brown master works, age eight. We've all been there, pal.

Is there such a thing? Outside of Charlie Brown I mean, and it also being a song by Bastille?

I know I just posted, but I also saw that this post would make an even 50 that I've written. Good enough excuse to write so I could hit a milestone I suppose, and it keeps me from grading projects for another hour, give or take. I'll try not to mail this one in.

So I recently rediscovered an old 9x12 envelope that had been shoved into a bookcase, (kindly labeled by myself '66-'71), which had some of my old drawings that somehow evaded our great basement Moses flood of several years ago. I had forgotten how obsessed I was at trying to copy cartoon panels when I was young- it was a good way to learn to draw/copy from others and got me very familiar with all the Peanut characters, especially Charlie Brown, and all his foibles and failures. And of course, his unrelenting "grief".

An earlier work, age six I think.

There are days when I just don't know what to write or say, and other days I have diarrhea of the mouth (and pen). I think my mother or grandmother used to use that expression. It's quite a lovely, descriptive thing, to say to a child, don't you think? In other friend's families, growing up, I heard "shut up" quite often. If said with a smile, it was funny. But most often it wasn't, it was just mean and nasty, and the quickest way to tell your child to get lost. And to shut the f*ck up. And the queue to exit. Quickly.

Grief I believe is born at the same time as happiness; twins if you will. We learn quickly at a young age what makes us happy or sad. A lollipop from the store = happiness. A dropped lollipop in the dirt = yucky. Definitely sad. But grief, I dunno. As defined, "Grief is a multifaceted response to loss, particularly to the loss of someone or something that has died, to which a bond or affection was formed." Now depending on how old you were when the alleged lollipop fell in the dirt, you might feel grief because you had indeed formed a special, albeit temporary bond, with said lollipop. And technically, you did suffer a loss of something.

So maybe we do experience grief at a very early age. Which brings me back to diarrhea, or it's counter-point, constipation. I believe my mother, or grandmother, also use to say, if you were struggling to find words, "What are you, constipated?" What was with all the verbal fecal references and scatological reprimands? I can't tell you. But at my house they were mostly said tongue in cheek, and yes, there's pun in there, as gross as it it. Cheeky.

We're all afraid at some point, Snoopy.

But of course, we do learn about grief when we're young. Hopefully for some, it's much later on in life. Usually it's because someone dies; a pet maybe, or possibly a relative or a close family friend. We may not totally understand our grief, just that it feels sad and bad and makes everyone around us seem to feel the same way. We know there's something missing, and grief isn't just about emotional pain, it can have real physical repercussions. Sleeping is still a bit of an adventure for me; some nights are fine, others entail vivid dreams that wake me, and other nights I just wake up, can't get back to sleep, and think about the 18 month train wreck I was just involved in. Mostly, I just want Abby back next to me and the way things were.

My therapist says it will eventually pass. I don't want to take any sleeping pills; drugs aren't my thing, well at least not when it comes to sleeping. Don't want to rely on weed, or anything else. I do have a sound app I use to block out noise, and I do some visualization that helps me focus when I get into that "Oh crap, now it's 4am and I still haven't fallen back to sleep" mode. It's something I learned to do when I was thirteen, after my father died. I went through a phase where I thought if I fell asleep, I wouldn't wake up in the morning, and would die in bed, wearing some G*d awful animal print pajamas. I literally was scared to death to fall asleep for awhile (no wonder there are so many horror movies that are based around our sleep/dreams). But I'd visualize something really pleasant, like scoring a goal with my dad when we were playing hockey together, the two of us passing back and forth, heading up ice, until I knocked it in. That one one scenario got me through a lot of tough nights. I still can't believe I didn't get bored replaying it over in my mind, and I still remember it like it was yesterday. Guess that will happen when you rerun something a thousand times.

These days (nights?), I have a couple of new movie shorts that I run through my brain. I won't bore you with the details, but lets just say they do work, if I can focus, since I have a lot more distractions; physical, such as my animal farm of 3 dogs and 2 cats, and mental, such as Abby, but also all the "normal" adult shit that we all worry about. It's a lot more to block out than it was at thirteen. The one advantage I have now though, is age. And wisdom. And the ability to tell myself that I will get through this, get over hill and dale to wherever my next path takes me. Right now that path feels, and looks more like, one of those crazy hot stone rivulets you see. These people I guess are on some vision quest, trying to traverse those coals, and you know damn well they're yelling "Ouch ouch motherf*cker" under their breathe. And I suppose I'm doing and saying the same thing, so if you happen to hear me muttering, just know I'm mostly not losing my mind. I'm just finding my way. Snoopy and Charlie Brown had each other, and always got through, well, whatever. And I have all of you. Too bad that 5¢ window Lucy used to run isn't still open- I bet she'd have a line around the block.