Playing the Long Game in Grief

In the years after my late husband’s sudden death, I found that grief doesn’t follow reason or resolve itself in a neat, expected pattern. There’s no story line to follow, no map. If you follow one person’s suggestion, it may lead you to some peace and understanding or it may lead to more questions and doubts. 

I remember asking my therapist for a plan when I was brave enough to start working on my grief. I asked her to give me some milestones and I’d get it done. Let me create a to-do list and keep checking boxes until everything was right with the world again. Then I’d finally be on the other side of all this.

She handled this absurd demand well. I didn’t. I can still see her to trying hide her amusement at my approach to healing. Now six years after his death, I finally understand what she was trying to tell me. I would have to learn to play the long game in grief. 

I started to understand that there was more to living this new life without him than just adjusting to the obvious absence. The concrete, short term tasks I needed to address kept me busy and away from the creeping fear that rose in the back of my throat when I allowed a moment of rest.

I realized that I couldn’t tackle all this my old way, plowing through towards the goal. What was the goal? It kept shifting under my feet. What tools did I really have? None of my old tricks could touch the troubles that were growing inside me. I was a hot mess and in over my head.

Somewhere in the middle of it, I stopped fighting. I just couldn’t keep up that idiotic pace, driven by my stubbornness and fear of the unknown. I didn’t give up, I just gave in to the waves. I let them hold me and take me wherever they thought I needed to go. I couldn’t see the horizon or a reference point, and I stopped searching for either of them. 

It was exactly what I needed to do. 

I have tried to make myself over many times on this road. I still don’t know what I need to be or how I need to truly live to just feel right with myself. I work on being present, but can’t change my desire to find a path. Before Gage died, my path was clear and straight. I knew where I was going and where I came from. I was naive.

Playing the long game in grief for me means listening to my gut when I’m unsure. Constantly calibrating myself to what really matters. Taking time to see what’s changing and why. 

Usually the term, playing the long game, means accepting all the twists and turns in getting to a goal and not giving up until it’s done. It’s tricky when grieving because the “goal” is illusive and not concrete. But my instincts know where I want to be. How I want feel.

I just keep trying to follow that deeper wisdom, knowing it’s all going to take a while. And I accept that I don’t know what the end point truly is. That’s just life. Grief has complicated that concept for me, but also set me free from my old misconceptions. Sometimes it just feels good to float and see where it will all take me.