On grieving and taking space
My rates of blogging and tweeting have diminished over the past year and a bit. In fact, this post has been sitting in my draft folder for a couple months, waiting for the right time or the right words to describe the effects on my life. Â Â
Simply put: I lost a dear friend. Â And from there, I lost the motivation to write.Â
⌠ I lost the momentum to analyze the everyday things we do as people and talk about it. Space and time was now taken up by the many signals for grief - responses that were framed by not only the loss of the person, but also the associations that came with their treating cancer.  [Insert a whole bunch of swear words here] because thatâs where my verbal behaviour goes when I say the word, cancer (#$%@!). There were these overwhelming feelings of empathy for a friend now forced to be a widow.  There was sadness that our friend wouldnât get more time being a dad. I felt angry - almost on behalf of my friend - because it just. wasnât. fair.  For a while driving, like I had done so many times to the hospital and back elicited grief, requiring a few extra minutes being with that feeling then preparing myself for what I needed to do when I arrived.  Music held stronger meaning, then disappointment when I couldnât share the latest find, âCheck this outâ.  With each signal, I became mindful and started to practice acceptance - not of my friend being gone but of the feelings I have because of it.Â
⌠ In the months before and after, disseminating the work of behaviour analysis didnât seem as fulfilling as disseminating my presence, the pictures, the memoriesâŚlaughs, tears and hugs. It was now more rewarding to just be with the people important to us and take in what was happening.    Â
⌠ Writing blog posts about our simple behaviours and why we do the things we do wasnât so simple when working from a deficit.  The response effort was greater and yet sources of reinforcement were lacking, existing elsewhere perhaps. Response effort was instead put into planning trips and yearly events because these sources of reinforcement were still so important for us to access. Even there, we couldnât help but recognize that someone was missing and therefore, it was not quite the same. Signal more loss and grief.
⌠And then connection with other sources of reinforcement started to happen: we adopted a rescue dog; I started playing trombone again and joined a band; I became involved in my provincial professional association advocating for more behaviour analysis in our public education; another friend and I took up rock climbing, participating in our first endurance climb for a cancer charity.  None of these experiences replace the ones I will miss but they did bring happiness and mastery to my life. Got to do something that matters. Â
[image description: three-photo collage of: 1) husband and wife kneeling with their black and white pointer on leash in a field; 2) side view of writer playing trombone in concert; 3) writer and friend side hugging with their climbing harnesses on in front of a climbing wall. Â Photo credit for 2nd photo: Irene Marie Dorey Photography]
I am baking, reading, gardening and maybe now, I am ready to be writing and being âsocialâ again on social media. Â I do miss the connections and discussions. I hope you as readers come back and find my thoughts and analysis interesting again.