Bored by Grief

 Yesterday was the 33rd anniversary of my father's death. Every year I do the math, and then do the math again, because it does not seem possible that he's been gone so long. For several years now I've been a wife and mother for more years than I was his daughter. 

And yet, of course, I have always, and will always be, his daughter. His identity as my father, and my identity as his daughter, didn't stop just because he died. A relationship may not be possible but there is always the fact of identity. 

(You see where I'm going as regards adoption, right?)

So what does a daughter of a dead father do when Father's Day falls on the 33rd anniversary of his death? Spend it being quite annoyed, actually. All last week as yesterday loomed I became more and more irritated. 

Each year differs slightly but generally I move through a host of moods. Some years I truly forget it and am surprised when I realize it has passed by. Other years I spend days deeply anxious about my husband or one of my children dying. Every time they're out of my sight I worry and imagine impossibly terrible scenarios. At other times I'm irritated by everyone and I just want to be alone. Sometimes I really go back into a stage of deep grief and even cry over his loss as if it had happened a few months, instead of decades, ago.

This year there was something new: I came to realize I was bored by my own grief. Couldn't escape the grief--but also so annoyed and irritated at having to go back to that place of grief. Wished I didn't know the date. Wished I could just forget that my life took a tragic turn at 13. Wished for a distraction big enough to let me avoid even thinking about grief or loss at all. 

It was as if I'd watched a horror movie so many times it no longer scared me but I was still trapped in the experience of watching it anyway. 

Awhile ago a friend who is a therapist said something along the lines of my adoptive daughters never really getting "over" being adopted but hopefully, to some extent, learning to live with the trauma. Learning to manage; developing strategies for coping. 

Will their adoption trauma one day feel like my old grief? Something they are forced to revisit at certain points in the year but also something they're rather bored with and not too strongly affected by? I guess this is the best I can hope for them?