I don’t know if apathy is a stage of grief but it has filled me to the brim today. I haven’t wanted to do anything at all. I’ve sat on the couch most of the day passively watching whatever has been on the television. My brain has felt like it’s been on standby mode just running on low gear. I have nothing I have to do. Nowhere, I have to be. And most importantly, no one to take care of. This feeling of emptiness is just consuming my body and soul. I know I should go out and be with people and get out of the house and not close myself off but I just don’t have any energy whatsoever to do those things. There is so much advice out there on how to deal with grief and how important it is to let the process evolve naturally. But I don’t want this apathy to become a lifestyle. If I’m honest with myself I have been finding myself reverting back to apathy more and more. I don’t want to feel the grief. I don’t want to feel the pain of losing my mom. And when I’m just in low gear, I don’t feel anything and my brain won’t allow myself to go anywhere near that pain that still simmers below the surface. I’ve tapped into that pain a few times and it is unbearable. Uncontrolled sobbing and a heaviness in my chest that makes it nearly impossible to draw in full breaths. Can you blame me for wanting to hide from it? I feel like a frayed wire and if I get to close to it I get a painful shock that makes my heart and soul jump. Do they make electrical tape for the soul? Just wrap it around the exposed bits and get on with my life and hope it’s strong enough to hold back the electrical aspects of grief. It might sound stupid but I wish grief came in a vending machine and I could put my money in and get a little bit when I wanted to deal with it. But that’s not how it is. It has been coming at times I’ve expected and at the oddest times as well. I suppose this will continue for the foreseeable future. I just have to learn how to take its hand and walk with it instead of running away from it. Maybe then the healing will begin in earnest.