Day 061 – Avoiding the topic

Welcome to Day 61!

Yesterday I wrote about how Prince’s death (in 2016) was affecting me and my mood.  The unexpected grief was triggered somehow.  Then I looked for the easy answer, the cats and the separation from pre cat in a similar way to people who were used to freedom before children and then the sudden arrival of a child changes their lives.  My guess is that some forms of postnatal depression might revolves that change – obviously, I’m guessing. Not having had access to these emotions first hand. 

Anyhow,  one trigger year is the year 2016, another trigger is the end of February-March.  Other triggers were that it was my father’s birthday (26 Feb), and my husband’s birthday (25 Feb).  Then, of course was the adoption of our cats (14 Feb).  The easiest thing to focus on was the cats because then I could then avoid the other elements contributing to the grief.  

Amongst those things was that five years ago, my father passed away, I got a second husband and adopted the cats.   While my father passed away in June, we got married in September, and Prince died in April, why did the grief trigger in February?  

Birthdays. Birthdays mostly of all those elements close to me.  While I could possibly have handled all those elements separately without a swell of emotion, the final trigger was the all guitar legend tribute to George Harrison.  Blown away by just how fantastic the tribute was in itself then being punctuated by Prince’s guitar outro and realising that he’ll not be able to do that for anyone else, was the figurative last straw to break the camel’s back. 

 Prince and Madonna were a huge part of my teenage and early adult years; they were just always two figures I admired and were always there for me.  There were plenty of others and I’m sure I will feel their departure from this physical reality quite keenly.    

At my father’s funeral, I hadn’t quite managed to handle any grief.  My classic avoidance technique is to focus on what’s the next thing coming up.  Always trying to look forward. It’s a case of “what’s done is done” at his funeral, not knowing how to deal with the mixture of grief, sadness, gratitude to those that organised the funeral for our family.  When looking at his casket, it felt a little unreal and distant.  

My father was a troubled man, his relationship with me always provided me with a range of opportunities for all sorts of growth.  The sad part is, that I’m not sure whether anyone did the same for him in his later years. He probably didn’t even see it that way anyway.  

When it came to celebrities,  I didn’t understand when a friend of mine became emotionally distraught when he’d heard of Kurt Cobain (Nirvana), Michael Hutchence (INXS) and other band members deaths. I never really got how he could so keenly feel the loss of someone he’d never met.  

Mind you I hadn’t realised how much I would miss a friend’s small dog four months after it passed when we finally managed to catch up.  But today, I understood my friend’s celebrity grief.  You see, he visited aged care facilities as a volunteer and while he handled the visits with apparent ease, he keenly felt their loss.  The celebrity deaths were activating his triggers too, as well as genuine grief for the star.

Wow!  Prince, eh…(?) Another aspect is that Prince was there helping me get through many years of battling my father, young adult life, first husband divorce, changing jobs and all the celebrations in between.   Prince was linked to so many areas and aspects of my life.  No wonder my emotions were all over the place, when it finally registered that he was gone.  The cumulative triggers also brought up some emotions around my father’s passing too.  At the very least, it made me realise that he is still providing me with opportunities for growth.  

Don’t think that I hadn’t noticed that my husband and my father’s birthdays were only a day apart.  The way I view that is that the universe guided us together so I would remember to accept people for who they are and not use previous experiences as a way of avoiding people with the same birthday 😄.

Just quickly, tonight we had a storm and we lost power.  It was a great opportunity to bring out the tealights and have some beautiful ambient light and to be without TV.  Let’s face it we still had power on our phones so we didn’t have to socialise too much … kidding!  There’s something nice about being safe from a storm.  Although a couple of houses down the street would have a different story as we suspect that a big tree branch fell onto their roof.

Anyway, let’s see what the cards have to say!