Battles and Fronts
I had lunch on Thursday with my former boss, who was let go during the big wave of layoffs about three years ago. We've kept in touch on a regular basis since then (she is by far the best boss I've had in 20+ years here) and meet for lunch at the local kosher deli about once a month. After last week's meeting, I received an email from her which began:
Elie,Apparently, I am becoming rather talented at putting on a good front! Certainly, I don't feel a lot better than I did the last time we met; in fact, the past week or so has been unusually stressful, with a bunch of new problems to deal with on top of the unrelenting feelings of background - and often foreground - grief. As I noticed once before, my ability to cope with everyday challenges and ongoing life issues has been significantly weakened since the loss, and I often feel like I'm fighting a dozen losing battles at once. Yet nearly everybody - except for the inner circle who occasionally see me with my guard down - comes away thinking I'm doing so well. It's nothing but the extension, ad infinitum, of my auguished composure during Aaron's last days.
Was great to see you today. You looked and sounded so much better than the last time I saw you. What ever you are doing to keep the pain at bay, keep doing it!
But I push away questions of how well this approach is truly working, or even whether it's in my own best interests. It's the only way I know how to survive right now. So I continue to "keep the pain at bay", because, as Carly Simon put it, "I haven't got time for the pain".
And when I truly feel the need to share at least some of its rawness, I blog about it - like I'm doing right now. As always, thanks for listening. I think I'm ready to go back to work on the next part of Aaron's story now...
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