Coping

In the middle of the night on Friday, a beloved family member passed away. He was 44 and had so much spirit and amazing sense of humor. I’m 30, and this is the first time in my life that I’ve lost someone close to me. I’ve been trying to navigate everything I’m thinking and feeling, and it’s been pretty awful.

Consequently, I ate and drank my way through the weekend with no regard to any of the progress that I’ve made over the past couple few weeks. Not only did it not help me feel any better, it made me feel worse, and I can see and feel the set-back it created for me.

In moments like that, when you’re desperate to feel better and make the pain stop, common sense seems to take a back seat. And this morning, a couple of days later – a lousy, terrible weekend later – the only thing I have to say for myself is that I’ve maintained my workout momentum. Eight days straight, sticking to my program. And while I ate and drank my way through my pain, I still managed to do my food prep for the week and I’m in a good place to get back on track.

At the end of the day, I can’t bring my cousin back, and I try to take comfort in knowing that he’s out of pain now.

My mom has told me my whole life that if a baby being born could think, it would think it was dying. It’s little world as it knows it is changing in a drastic, traumatic way. It’s interesting to then take that thought and associate it to what it’s like when we die. Like maybe we’re being born into the next stage of our journey. But while that thought brings me a sliver of comfort, I hate that he’s gone and that he was taken too soon. So while it feels selfish to try to instead focus on myself in this moment, it might be the only thing I can do to keep my shit together.