Living Through Dumpster Fires

Or why I’ve been absent for a while and what is coming next

If you’re new to The Rebel MFA Way, welcome! This is a bit of a cross-genre essay around life, writing, etc.

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Sooo… it’s been a bit quiet around here, huh? Not for lack of trying, though. I’ve probably written and thrown out 20 different drafts of essays. The thing is — sometimes the truest writing you have to do — has to wait until you’re ready. I’m not sure if I’m ready now but it seems the words are coming without as much resistance as they have in the last few months.

If I’m being REALLY honest, this meme sums up what my life has been like lately…

THE GRIEF

It’s crazy to me how you can be toiling away day to day, everything going as you planned or at least in the right direction and then BAM. Something hits you like a truck and you’re unable to do anything but sit on your ass and cry about it.

On July 10th, while my husband and I were getting our dog restitched for the THIRD time since her ACL surgery (#dobermanproblems) my step-grandma went into open heart surgery. What was supposed to be a fairly routine surgery ended badly. A week later, my step-grandma — on complete bypass — passed.

It feels still surreal to me that she went into surgery alive and a week later, she had not woken up and was gone.

Beyond the unexpected loss, there were also a lot of emotions and feelings that came up around being a blended family.

This was the first time my sister and I were confronted with this kind of grief — and it was incredibly difficult to separate where one emotion started and where it ended. Together, we watched parts of our family grieve, while we stepped back and felt like our grief had to be contained. Had to have parameters. We were grandchildren but not blood grandchildren. We were step-siblings, but not quite part of family tree.

This half in, half out feeling has been a part of my sister’s and I’s lives since our father remarried. Anyone from a blended family can attest that the emotions/feelings/actions that crop up in the family is often complex, nuanced and hard for others to understand. There’s past hurts. Regrets. Understanding. Forgiveness.

What I’m trying to say is that I did not expect to have to confront such complex grief head on.

And it really threw me for a loop. I’ve struggled to write. Struggled to make sense of the loss while also experiencing the complex grief that comes from all the global events we’ve ALL been facing.

And this month is the four-year-anniversary of my friend Desiree’s suicide. Every year is hard… but this year has been the hardest since it happened because the husband and child she left behind are not doing well. My friend’s husband was in a motorcycle accident that nearly killed him. His daughter was sent to a different family member to be raised with more stability and security.

Me and my beautiful friend, Desiree. I miss that smile so damn much.

But it’s not lost on me that my friend once told me through a medium that she felt she had to die to make life better for the two of them. And it shatters me that 4 years later, they are not in fact better off. They are separated, broken, and worse off.

I know she couldn’t have known that. I also know there were many other factors that went into her decision to end her own life — this is something I’ve been processing and working through in my own writing and therapy.

But still… the grief around her and her family is ever-present.

And the question through ALL of my experiences these last few months have brought up is:

What do I do with all this complex grief?

Maybe that’s the question we all face when it comes to grief. Maybe there is no answer and all we can ever do is sit in the shit with it and slowly, steadily work through every aspect.

THE WORK

I would be remiss though, to completely blame my grief on my absence. And to pretend like everything has been shit. Because in reality, there have been a lot of beautiful and promising things happening, too.

One of the unexpected gifts of not being able to write, not being able to be as engaged as I normally am with my online spaces has been the needed solitude. I didn’t know it in July, but there was a part of me that needed to step back and assess my priorities. I had to ask:

• What am I doing that’s aligned with who I’m becoming and the work I do in this world?

• What am I doing out of survival and perseveration versus what am I doing that is for my soul?

• What do I REALLY want to do with these incredible gifts I’ve been given and how do I want to better utilize/leverage those gifts to help others?

It was through A LOT of journaling and sitting in solitude that I came to a place of understanding about what I trulywanted to do with my wild and precious life.

And it’s exciting, exhilarating and affirming to know that a lot of what I was doing before this breakdown are still the things that matter to me. This Substack. Writing fiction to heal books. Designing your own Rebel MFA. Helping others find the truest stories of their heart and tell those stories. Building a community where writers come together for support and encouragement rather than solely for the knowledge or classes.

That said, there are a lot of things I realized had to change. There are a lot of things that I have to change if I want to see the growth, recognition and support I crave.

Instead of being scared though, I’m excited. I feel more ready than ever before to take on the challenges that this growth requires of me. And I’m even more excited that I get to do it alongside people who not only understand but resonate.

So this is me telling you that exciting things are on the horizon. This is me telling you that in my experience, complex grief is a bitch of a time but there are STILL reasons to look forward. This is me telling you that I may have believed I was somehow “behind” or “failing” because I couldn’t write for a few months — but that I now believe it isn’t in the fall — it’s in the getting back up that matters.

This is me telling you — I can’t wait to grow and evolve with you, my readers, as a witness. We are more alike than we are different, and that’s the beautiful thing about connection and authenticity…

We all belong.