Grief is a thing

So grief is a thing.

I am not sure why I am particularly surprised that the loss of my brother has hit me quite so strongly. But, in addition to that, the last couple of months have been changeling in other ways. It turns out, when you take a couple months off from work, even when you have wonderful colleagues who pick up some of the slack, there’s there still two months of work waiting for you when you return.

But the semester’s over now, and judging by the Bay Area’s usual June gloom, summer’s here. So I am looking forward to changing gears, taking some time to myself, and doing a speaking tour of Hawai’i. And then rest. Lots and lots of rest.

My therapist also suggests I start paying attention to my moods, keeping track of them. So I guess I’ll be doing that as well, looking for triggers and patterns. Because quite apart from the grief, there’s quite a lot going on in my head. Has been for a while, and it’s high time I got on top of that (hashtag normalize-metal-heath-even-though-it’s-no-longer-mental-health-awareness-month).

So, dear reader, think of this brief post as a fulfillment of that promise I made many months ago to write more regularly and an explanation of my absence. Grief is thing, a real thing that’s hard and unexpected and weird but that I’m doing my best to navigate. And I’ll do my best to write more, here, too. It’ll be a fun summer, and I’m sure I’ll have plenty to share.

More soon.