I was dreaming. I’ve been doing that a lot these days. Crazy wigged out dreams. I’m reading Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam Trilogy, more than half way through book two, and so there’s been some element from these books showing up in dreamland. I woke up with a jolt at four AM the other morning pretty certain that some escapee from Painball was pounding on our front door. Though, not all of the dreams are what I would assume an LSD trip would be like. They are what one might call ‘normal’ or even ‘mundane’ dreams. These are the ones that I wake up from and have a vague idea of something I saw or heard, but mostly it is all too vague to really remember. This particular dream I was having sort of fit into that vague, unmemorable dream category. I remember that I was reading a blog entry written by a woman who had recently lost her husband. This woman was no one I know or currently read. I don’t remember anything much about her really other than she was writing about grief. I remember nodding my head in agreement as I read her entry. She had made an analogy about grief being like a rope and how each thread was some aspect of grief.

I remember thinking as I read her writing that it was very well written. I thought her analogy made sense. Except now that I think harder about it, her analogy was much more complex than the one I just shared. I have a sudden image of gold rings threaded through rope for some reason. The most important thing I remember from this dream though, is reading her post and thinking “I don’t want to write about this stuff any more.” This was my very last thought before I woke up and it stayed with me. I don’t want to write about grief any more. I don’t want to be known as Cindy Maddera, the Grief Blogger. Even though I know all about that rope and each and every little strand that makes up that rope, I don’t want to dig into the details of explaining it to you. But not writing about grief poses some difficulties. For one thing, grief never goes away. I mean, just the other day as I was looking over the yoga class I had planned to teach that evening, my mind drifted to that time I couldn’t even look at my yoga mat without hearing my mother’s voice as she attempted to tell me that something had happened to J. It’s been almost fourteen years since that day and yet the horror of it all still bubbles up at the most random times. Another difficulty in not writing about my grief is that for a while now, I have let this part of my writing define who I am as a person. I’ve unofficially given my self the title of Grief Blogger. “Write what you know".” Isn’t that the advice some famous writer gave to potential writers once? Well…I know grief. But I’m not the authority on the subject. We all know something about grief. You don’t need me to teach you or explain it or add to it. Grief is a part of who I am. A part. I am made up of many many parts. I am more than my grief.

I am more than this.

I know now that I was the woman doing the writing in that dream. I was reading my own blog and thinking “enough.” Move forward. Show the world you are more than this. That is what I want to do. I recognize the healing power of writing down all of those thoughts surrounding my sadness. But you don’t leave a band-aid on forever.