Hunkering Down with Grief

Grief and sadness have been my (private) companions for some time, going back even before my life was forever altered by a car in my neighborhood.   But since I was forced to inhabit this place of extreme helplessness, I have felt myself hovering over my vulnerability and pain, wrapping myself around this so as not to burden others.  Not a wise course of action to be sure, but one that feels familiar.  I am tired of reminding people of my difficulties, my needs, my pain and loneliness.  So, what does this look like?  When I'm not out in the world carrying on normal conversations, performing common everyday tasks, I am at home in my refuge of a house, wrapping myself up in the beauty that is here, the comfort of my two cats, and the escapism of movie watching and working with my beads.  There is an antisocial element here that feels slightly off to me.  Do I not want to see people, and reach out to those I love?  Yes, and then again, maybe not as much as I thought.  It looks like I want to be with my melancholy and not have to justify this to anyone.  But then this sorrow seems to grow like a seductive weed inside me...  feeding on itself... I have the distinct feeling that something in my life has changed forever, and that I have left behind some wide open, spontaneous and carefree terrain for good.  Old age and death are certainly more vivid in my life's view.  There are psychologists who would agree that this self-focus is normal in someone who has suffered a trauma to their mind and body, and I would like to let myself off the hook as easily as that -- but I can't.
A woman to whom I was related long ago died last week, and I have been ruminating all week about this death, and the meaning of this loss to my children who have not really lost anyone very close to them.  A sobering conversation on the phone today with my older child reminded me that I couldn't address her loss, that I had failed her in a way that would normally be objectionable to me.  There were no words to explain this, I found, and I felt very sad indeed.  I had stayed turned inward at a time when I should have pushed myself out of my bubble and reached out to this young woman who lost one of the most meaningful family members in her life.  Why, why?  I wondered at the conclusion of the phone call.  Self-absorption yes, but perhaps there is something else here.  Was there a lurking resentment in me  that my oldest trusted her grandmother and her grandmother's vision sometimes more than she did that of her own parents?  And would that all be called up in the remembering we would do as we spoke about her grandmother?  There were many times when I imagined that my own feisty eccentricity drove her to find comfort elsewhere, and that she trusted her grandmother's stoicism and conservatism more than she did my messy inconsistency.   I know that I often felt unequal to this formidable mother in law, unequal and then contracted in my resentment.  But, over time we happily found ways to engage each other with kindness and respect -- we forged an amicable (perhaps not completely loving) relationship in the midst of the family landscape.  And I could let go of some of the judgment that had been rained down on me.  My eldest daughter has been a firm task master with me the way her grandmother was, and even now I sometimes wonder if I ever will measure up to her ideal.  I have tried and tried, and then again, I have stopped trying, hoping to be accepted and loved for myself, just the way I am... and just the way I am sure that I love her.
Families are so complicated.  We have such needs, dreams, and expectations of the good life together.  We all want the comfort of loving relations:  the kind attention, compassionate words, the presence of those who truly know us ...  And despite our desire for these really reasonable things, we thwart ourselves, moving often in the opposite direction from that which we want.  Moving inward may have its benefits (reflection leading to insight, or privacy in times of great duress just a few that occur to me), but it can also take us away from connection, and the happiness that emerges from this closeness.  I behaved lately much as the turtle or the snail, pulling myself inside my shell in an effort to somehow protect myself.... but protect myself against what, I wonder?  I need to take a page from the Buddha's wisdom, I think, and ask what the intentions and effects of this choice are.  If I wish to continue a life of non-harming, then the path is clear; it is the path that leads outward to others, to compassion and understanding, and love  This shell of mine must be discarded until such a time as it is truly needed.