Groundless

October 14th, 2022

I was going to write about fall today.

I had a lot of feelings yesterday and thought of some words I was going to write this morning. I was going to take a stunning photo of an autumn tree.

And then it snowed.

And what I really wanted to talk about came alive.

This is my week of loss.

I’ve written a lot about fall before. How, to me, it always feels like a beginning, even more than spring does. Fall makes me think of change, and I’ve been enamored with the three steps of change as presented in the 1980 book, Transitions:

1. The ending
2. The neutral zone
3. The new beginning

It’s a perfect layout, except it doesn’t cover loss.

Because of course there is an ending. The person dies. And then there is the neutral zone, the transition period, the time in which there is no ground beneath your feet.

You get disconnected.

But there is never a new beginning. Not with the human you miss. So you remain in transition for the rest of your life.

This isn’t a revelation of woe. No, not at all. It actually helps me understand why I feel this way.

I’m not broken or wrapped in a blanket of scratchy self-pity.

I’m groundless.

And while I can take those three steps with nearly every other change that comes my way (and I am right now, big time), I can’t with her.

I have an end, and then the end of the road we used to walk together. I can see over the edge of the sidewalk and there is nothing below, only what has been behind.

Leaving me to figure out a way to float on.