Mourning Brain NOT Morning Brain… Morning brain is inventive, intuitive, full of images from last night’s dreams and, possibly, in desperate need of coffee. MOURNING brain is confused.
Even after my dad died, I didn’t quite understand the concept of MOURNING, but now that my mom has been gone for months I’ve come to realize that mourning is a powerful experience, capable of overshadowing everything else.
I am not functioning at my best. My dreams are filled with odd references to the past and my waking hours are filled with lists of things that must get done ASAP and all of them seem to be dragging and/or dependent on someone else’s timetable. It’s a great deal like playing a game that combines shooting pool with Gin Rummy, played at the table of Alice’s Tea Party with the dormouse filling in as the ref.
Is there an impact on my writing? You bet there is! Will it end? Eventually… In the meantime, I write in fits and starts, focus on short stories and ponder the impact of mortality with every word.
I know—in my heart—that things will turn around, if slowly. I know I will regain my much-needed confidence and get back to WRITING in all capital letters.
I also suspect that the experience of mourning and the weight of the mourning brain will have an impact on my future fiction. I can only hope that it will render me capable of a more nuanced, and sophisticated level of storytelling. Mourning Brain and all…
New York City rooftops.
Someone smarter than I said you never get over it, but you do get through it. And you will get through it.
YES… that seems to be the sage advice.
I also like Andy Warhol’s famous saying about time. “They always say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.”
I think time gives you the perspective and space to make changes. And yes… you have to make those changes yourself!
Mourning strips away the comfortable bubble in which most of us live, forcing us to reassess everything, including ourselves. Especially ourselves. But you are a natural born storyteller, and that will remain. It’s who you are.
-hugs-
I think I’m changing. No, I take that back— I KNOW that I’m changing. This is one of those fundamental experiences that most of us have at one time or another and it triggers a series of thoughts, of detours, of insights.
Writing right now it just plain hard. And yet, when I was asked to submit a short story to an anthology, I pulled out an old story from four years ago and reworked it. Um… It must be coming back!
Thank you for the reassurance!