Forty Daze

I’ve decided to take a forty day sabbatical.

Why forty? Because it seems biblical, in some sense. Because the number four represents retreat, introversion, rest, solitude.

Because January 1st to February 10th seems like a nice rounded period of time.

Because the 10th falls just after what would have been my sibling’s 50th birthday, and I am grieving that.

Because I have so much fatigue and weariness that just a month would not be enough.

It’s a working sabbatical – I am still taking appointments upon request and helping out with different elements of business and life that must have attendance. Sometimes I do wish for a non-working sabbatical, an actual month or two of rest and retreat. I could be a mountain-cave dweller for twelve years, if you want the honest truth.

However.

This span of several weeks will help me settle down, re-align myself into my priorities, and help me integrate the death of my sibling B. I’m still waking up to a new reality each day – B is dead. I’ll never see them again.

How many times will I need to repeat the process of recalling that fact?

Death and grief have caused me to stumble and slow down, over the past two months. Where was I going? What was I focussed on?

I’ve been walking through a fog. The past, present and future all warped and murky, and full of thick stillness as well as fluctuating, shadowy movement. Family and self and friends and partnership, all of it rolling over me, swirling in this new reality of life on Earth . . . without B.

Read more of Lone Peep’s writing at Sledgehammer of Love.