Grief pervades everything. It can strike at any moment, taking your breath and eliciting tears at the most mundane things.
Sadness is a deep part of grief. The anger peaks and flares, roars like a lion then sleeps. Sadness however is there through everything. There’s times when I feel like I’m playing at life, that the happiness is just a shell and inside all is sadness and missing him and I will never be the same again.
I will never be the same again. My Dad died. There’s nothing to change that and every day I live with that realisation. An all pervasive sadness that fills my every moment. It is right though, right to be sad. To miss someone so inherent and essential to my life. To miss the soft giant of a hero, who would do anything for anyone and with a smile on his face too.
To miss the man who always put our needs first, even on his death bed. He’s left a gap in my life that will never ever be filled by anything but sadness and grief. I will miss him, terribly miss him. On high days and holidays and when I’m stood washing the pots. I will miss him so vibrantly, so sorely and that will never fade. I wouldn’t want it too.
The flip side though is full of love and joy and gladness. I had him, he filled my life with so much good, so much fun, so much joy. And he taught me the value of kindness and laughter. He taught me to value others and not to take anything too seriously.
There is so much good and joy in my life because of him. And that balances out the sadness of no longer having him. The memories bring me comfort. The knowledge that I am in part, him, carrying on in his stead is also a comfort.
So I sit with my sadness, wrapped in its blanketing darkness. Looking for the bright lights of joy and life.
And I go on. I tell jokes, I am kind. I put others first and every time I do I am continuing what my father started.
But to go back where I started, grief pervades everything including my sex life and my kink life. I just wasn’t interested in either, when the tragedy first struck. Yet, because of my work, I was around kink all the time.
I was there, going through the motions. I was smiling, I was trying hard not to fall apart. It was comforting to be in the places I love, surrounded by my friends. The kink community may be where I work but it is also where I play.
But there were disconnects.
My sadness blanketed everything, even my masochistic urge but it was still there. And turning down play was tough. But I was scared of what would be released. And I just couldn’t risk it. In the first few months I was either feeling everything all at once or nothing at all. And I was equally as worried that a beating would leave me un-moved.
It took time. Everything does. And it is a cliché but it is only time that changes the grief, that makes it more manageable. In time the sadness loosens it’s tightly wound threads and light pierces it once more.
And so the masochist in me stretched out in search of pain needed. Starting small, a little here, a little there. Still cautionary, still unsure of what might flood out from me. There was no epiphany. There was no dramatic moment or hard decision. I just found the flow of my submission and followed it to the pain I needed. I wanted.
There was, and still is, a part of me that wants to cling onto the sadness, to roll in it and hide away from the world inside it. Wrapped up in what I had and what I lost. I don’t want to forget it. I don’t want to. But there is a distinct difference between not forgetting and wallowing.
One is necessary, the other is a defence mechanism that has its place but eventually it is a form of self harm. It is damaging to stay wrapped up in the hurts of the past when there is the joy of today and tomorrow to find and embrace.
Once the decision was made, I embraced the pain. There is such a freedom that I find in it. My mind stills as I flow through the rhythm of hit after hit. It is all I can feel, all I can think. I am present in that moment and the joy that sparks through my reddening flesh floods me through to my soul.
And real smiles spread across my face.
In the bliss moments after a beating. Laying, breathing deep, feeling the throb of my flesh heated and tightening, contentedly absorbing the throbs and tingles of the after burn.
When I’m on the bus, the vibration running through my bruises, when my husband pokes and prods at my marks to the random moments when I remember and the joy just burst through and I can’t help but smile.
I honestly don’t think I would be feeling such moments of pure joy without the kink in my life. I am sure I’d still be tightly wrapped up in the sadness, twisting and curling myself further inside. But as it is, the sadness sits gently across my shoulders. Always there, but I can forget about it sometimes, when the sheer joy of pain and pleasure combines and sears it away.
I am sad, but not always so.
I grieve, but it doesn’t define my existence.
I hurt but find freedom in pain.
There is hope.
Grief is so often talked about as a staged step-cycle, but in reality, those “stages” sometimes feel like multiple teams of runaway stagecoaches, careening and colliding haphazardly, all at once and out of nowhere.
A confusing cocophony of emotion – or lack thereof (numbness is both friend and nemesis) – somehow always underlaid with the deafening silence of sadness.
It’s a process. Painful but necessary.
One I’m glad you are finding a way through.
I’m so very sorry for your loss.
xoxo
Thank you <3
Victoria, dear — we live in a society where it’s considered poor form to be unhappy. We’re supposed to be up all the time, to not reveal our sorrows. But the heart needs to grieve, just as we need to breathe.
You’re in my daily prayers. Wishing you the peace of healing.
Thank you for your prayers and kind thoughts, Lisabet <3
My sincere condolences on the loss of your father, Victoria.
Your post made me cry as you voiced some of the things I am feeling, the sadness, the mixture with laughter and life going on, the not wanting to let go. I hope (and know I will) to get to the point where the sadness doesn’t envelop me the way it still does. I know I need a bit of help with this, that I might need to go talk to someone, but there is this thing in me that doesn’t want to do it either. I guess it just takes time, that it is some kind of process one has to go through. I don’t know…
Rebel xox
It most certainly is a process. I wish you well on your journey. <3
Grief is a funny thing. It affects us all differently.
That is very true.
Grief is consuming I have found and for me it never really goes away you just get used to it being there. I lost my best friend 7 years ago and I still get upset if I let myself think about it too much. Hugs to you
Mollyx