Choosing Not To Swim (Today)

Grief and the blackest ocean

It’s been 367 days since my Dad died. It’s hard to believe I survived this long. But that is what we do, I’m told. I spent the one-year marker with my younger brother, hiking and engaging in a little shameless self-care at a spa. My brother said something to me about the subject of grief that I’ve been thinking about since then.

We were sharing the well-known feelings of confusion/frustration at not feeling bad all the time, and he told me about something actress Aubrey Plaza said on Amy Poehler’s podcast recently. The Parks & Recreation alums broached the subject of Plaza’s husband, who took his own life last year.

Plaza described what she was feeling as like the new Apple+ movie, The Gorge, where humans live on two separate cliffsides, and a deep, dark gorge lies between them. It’s full of monsters. Like the elephant bonenyard in The Lion King, you don’t go there, and what’s inside often tries to get out and invade your territory.

But more precisely, Plaza talks about grief like a great black ocean.

You are in your beach house, and you can see it outside your beach house window, churning and drowning all that it touches.

You’re safe inside, sipping coffee and warm. You see it and think, “Maybe today I’ll go for a swim.” So you go out to the water's edge, consider it, and then dip your toe in. It’s far too cold. So you go back inside. Not today.

I really like this way of capturing the experience of grief. You always see it there in the window, and some days you’re content to stay inside, others to test the waters, and every so often you fully dive beneath the waves.

Whatever you’re doing today with your grief, it’s okay. Just know that there is a tomorrow.

We aren’t made to live in deep water, but it is best we know how to swim.

Thanks for your patience in hearing from Geeky Stoics this month. We’re hard at work on our book, FOCUS DETERMINES REALITY, and it’s eating right into our usual writing time here. We’ll be over the finish line soon.