I’ve been restless all day.

Yesterday, hit with a wave of grief, I went under for a spell only to resurface today wondering about this new landscape I find myself. Somewhere inside, there is a piece of me still curled up in the fetal position — waiting.

For what, I don’t know.
Probably relief from the incessant knocking of a heart ripped apart.

There is a memory that keeps popping up in my head. I’m in high school, and attending a private Christian school located in a church. I frequent those halls more than I do my own home, and this week is no different. In fact, It’s a week I’m there even more than normal because there is a voice coach who is visiting the praise and worship director. He’s giving lessons, and because I am part of the worship team at school and church, I am there and listening to his instruction. It is here I learn to sing from my gut, blowing out the air and feeling the notes in my stomach rather than my throat. I’ve been singing for at least five years now, and in a few summers I will be traveling with my high school worship band across state lines and meeting people who will change my life.

But first, this memory.

I’m in our living room, pressed up against the wall. My mom is sitting on the couch, glasses on and a Diet Coke in hand. Her eyes reveal her exhaustion, and I know she’s about 30 minutes from calling it a night and walking upstairs to sleep. My dad though is lit from within, his eyes sparkling.

“Sing it again, honey.”

I glance at him, finding my breath. I open my mouth and let the words fall out, finding my rhythm. It’s a worship song I’ll be singing for the church in a few weeks.

Shout to the Lord, all the earth, let us sing.

He leans forward and touches my stomach with his hand; I watch his hand and tighten in advance of feeling contact. I drop the notes, feeling them expand in my chest, centering in my lower gut. My breath rushes out and he raises an eyebrow.

“Good. That was good.”

I smile, basking in the praise.

I think of this moment tonight as I give into the restlessness and grab our dog’s leash. I need to walk. Whether I’m chasing something or running from something I don’t know — but I am hoping that putting one foot in front of the other under the fading colors of a night sky will crystallize something for me.

No one tells you about the way grief comes in and washes away everything you knew, reorienting your place in the cosmos. Prior to yesterday, I laughed off related topics. Nodding and shrugging my shoulders. My therapist would being to tip-toe around the issue and I’d sniff and quietly bring up another situation.

Sure, I would say. Who doesn’t have that trauma?

I never once mentioned that in order to talk about it, we’d have to accomplish the impossible because ask me anything about it and my words completely disappear, my mind and body stuck in a trauma response of freezing for protection. But then memories come crashing through my mental sky and I feel myself readying for the flinch — knowing the devastation this will bring. Maybe if I close my eyes and turn my head it won’t hurt as bad? But it still greets me, first thing in the morning, and I collapse in our closet and shove a towel in my face to quiet the sobs.

I feel them in my gut, blowing out the air and gasping for the words to describe what it feels like to have a grenade explode in your chest. Instead, I find myself picking up the shrapnels across my memory, each one a piece to a larger puzzle I’m not sure I want to complete.