Grief is a mother fucker.
My fortieth birthday is looming over me, its arms open wide, and I? I’m going from a fast walk into a jog, then a sprint into its embrace quite happily.
I’ve been warned repeatedly that forty is a bitch. That forty sucks. That your body starts losing its firm curves and gray hair starts to appear and new hair starts to appear in places on your body where it did not exist before. You start losing your vision and hearing, body parts start creaking and aching, and you can’t stay up as late any longer.
But despite how god awful everyone has informed me that forty is going to be, I’m ready for it. After thirty-nine years on this planet and getting my ass kicked repeatedly, I’m looking forward to forty with giddiness.
I’ve never been one to cry over what’s been lost in my past. The lines around my eyes and mouth are signs of a lot of laughter. I don’t miss my twenties, and I won’t miss my thirties, mainly because they were hard to live through. I spent too much time in hospitals, too many days at funerals, too much money on therapy. Forty to me is an oasis of hope and joy and new beginnings. I’ve dreamt of forty with the same romanticism I used to hold towards dreaming of Christopher Gonzales kissing me in the eighth grade.
The last two years of my life have brought about new changes, choices, and losses, the most painful of which was my father’s death in 2014. It’s been a two year long battle with grief and hurt and a loss I thought I was prepared for, but had no idea how awful it would be. I’ve spent the last two years at a loss of creativity: where as I’ve written, it has been as a writer, not as an author. Losing my father killed my own creative spirit.
Grief is a motherfucker. Where as I used to crank out poetry without even needing inspiration, I was no longer able to find any words within me.
Mother fucker though it may be, grief eventually eases up, and for the most part, is replaced with a sweet nostalgia of times when those we loved were with us. Occasionally you get hit hard with a repeat of strength when grief first struck you. But you learn to let the waves of it wash over you, and you come out stronger on the other side.
It’s been a long road to finding my creative footing again. And it’s been a hard road. But anything worth having in this world is worth the hard work associated with it.
But for what it’s worth, I’m grateful for the experiences I’ve had on my road towards creativity again. I’m grateful for the learning of who I am and what I want and need in my life. And for this new person I’ve become, because she is amazing, strong, compassionate, and more open to living than she’s been in the thirty~nine years she’s been in this world.
Much love, Dear Reader. Thank you for your continued support.
Amber Jerome~Norrgard
Life as Amber knows it 