I desperately need order in my life. I carry around a notebook called “Carol’s Time Management” that contains articles about just that, as if I can learn it by osmosis, and continue to careen through life. And now I’ve come to see that my busyness, my frantic trying to keep up, also serves to help me avoid working through grief. It’s a layer of insulation, and not always a healthy one. “It’s good to be busy,” well-intentioned friends tell me. No, it’s not. Not to this extent. I don’t intend to be any kind of  ‘holic, but as with other addictions, sometimes the thing takes on a life of its own. After all, no one starts drinking with the thought, “You know, I think I’ll become an alcoholic.” So I need to turn from my chaos and overwork, look it square in the face, and then find the quiet place, God helping me.

A fellow blogger and friend (Hi, Lisa) writes about her dream journalling. I’ve done that, too. I keep a quote journal as well, and just now I was looking back through mine for a quote from Anne Lamott on grief, and instead I opened to this one, from W.H. Auden.  Seems fitting.

“We would rather be ruined than changed; We would rather die in our dread than climb the cross of the moment and let our illusions die.”

Part of what I have to grieve is the death of illusions. But, dear Lord, I fear the lack of change more than the ruin, so let’s have at the truth.