Thematic Seasons

I have a theory that our lives pass in seasons, and those seasons typically have themes.  Before my current season of loss, graduate school was a season of improvement.  I improved my mind, my discipline, my writing, and my skills as an empathetic and reflective listener.  There were other, less prevalent themes of friendship, love, and advocacy, but the umbrella was always improvement.  Other seasons of my life have overflowed with themes such as love, motherhood, lust, and dysfunction.  There were seasons that seemed to have no theme, although I now question if the theme was not simply stagnation.

This theory melds well with something my social worker and I explored during a therapy session not long ago.  I was weeping for the loss of a season that was filled contentment, with smaller threads of love, happiness, and stability.  I asked why;  WHY does life, when we are so happy, rain down horror and sadness on our heads?  WHY are we punished for being so happy?  Specifically, what did I do to deserve such punishment?  My social worker challenged me to think of life as sadness and horror and of happiness as the reward.  Instead of being punished, I was being rewarded.  The happiness was fleeting because rewards are fleeting, while sadness tends to be prevalent because it is the matter of which life is made.

At the time, that answer gave me little solace.  I rebelled against the ideas that life is composed of sadness, that happiness is fleeting, and that we are rewarded with happiness.  I thought, shouldn't happiness be the default?  However, maybe my social worker is correct.  Seasons of happiness are our rewards, but seasons of loss and sadness are more frequent, or at the very least, feel more frequent.

I am currently in a season of loss and sadness, but it is not only Chad that I have lost.  During this season, there have been losses of friends, identities, mental stability, dreams, seasons that were better, and healthier ways of coping.   I am grieving so many things at one time, I am unable to tease apart the knot of yarn. 

Today, I told my social worker that I do not know how much longer I can survive this season.  I am so raw, and the pain is so overwhelming.  Every loss, no matter the size, now compounds the loss of Chad and magnifies the pain.  Next Thursday, I will experience another loss, and I will have to wall in the pain and find a way to numb it while I work through it.  I do not see an end to this season or the forthcoming reward, but that is the way the theory works:  the season we are in is the only season we can see.  We may be able to remember past seasons, but we are unable to predict future ones.