Goals

I've been thinking a lot about goals lately. I am going through the loss of the closest person in the world to me. I have bad days, but I also have very driven days, which is not at all something I expected from grieving. Today is a bit of both. I went full steam until my plans started to unravel, and now I'm not sure what my mind and body are telling me to do. I'll second guess for a few more minutes, and then commit to something.

I woke up this morning to my public radio station's annual fundraising drive. They did it last week, too, and I pledged, thinking of the annual support my mother gave our local station when I was a kid (and into my adulthood). Today, the station announced that if they met their goal, the rest of the day would be fundraiser-free. This kind of acknowledgement of the necessary evil of fundraising drives - that they know we hate them and that we would all rather listen to uninterrupted radio - is, I think, a fresh and (hopefully) useful approach for the radio station. I haven't listened to find out if it worked. They may let us know tomorrow.

The things I expect of myself every day are superhuman, I'll admit. I rarely complete all items on my too-long to do lists. I try to cram too many things into short windows of time. I say yes to all invitations and then feel incredibly guilty if I have to cancel something. In my time of grief, i still expect these things, although I'm learning to shift my expectations, and, really, to give myself a break. The things I expect of others during this time - the many different manifestations of sympathy and empathy - are sometimes too stringent, I'm realizing. People simply don't know what to say and do. My loss is too great. It reaches too far. This morning I resolved to pay less attention to their confusion, and just feel their love.