Held Tilt

 Yesterday I had a work meeting, well two actually.  More on that in a minute.

This is my first real peopling experience since Dad died and I didn't think about it at all beforehand.

As I'm driving to the college, where I've been to and been past thousands of times, I felt it start. The mthr effing grief.  I drove past where my grandfather's house used to be and is now a strip mall of offices.  I made a left instead of a right to go to the facility, as I've been doing the past two years.  I'm looking at the mountain that I looked at every single day of my life until age nineteen.  I attended this college for a short time when I was eighteen.

So, I'm having big feelings before I even get out of my car.  I met an advocate from work as I walked toward the building so that distracted me from the big feelings for a minute.

We went into the conference room and I sat next to my job partner and next to a colleague whom I've recently gotten to know a little better because of *all of this*  Job partner knows to just act normal, we're wired very similarly.  Colleague is chill as well.

Male Colleague enters the room and sees me, and looks visibly surprised at my presence.  He does the head-tilt, soft "How are you doing?" and to my surprise, I got teary.  Brushed it off with "Doing okay, just getting through it"  He continues with sympathy/empathy and I have to focus on breathing.  Don't get me wrong, it's appreciated and he was wholly appropriate and kind.

Then others enter and it breaks the moment.  Colleague who is chill quietly says "I kept the seat next to me open so you could sit here.  That way you're blocked from people and safe, if you want."  It was so thoughtful and appreciated and something that I didn't even consider when I rsvp'd to this meeting.

Next up is the Director and she simply said it was nice to see me and hoped I was doing well.  Caring yet objective.

We get through the meeting and lunch is provided.  The Mental Health Consultant is there as well and sure enough was in line next to me while we're getting lunch.  Head-tilt #2 "How are you doing?"  I said that I was "Doing okay, just getting through it.  Hey, I like your haircut and YES, that is a deflection."

Because I'm not crying in this stupid meeting.  Again, heart was in the right place and doing her actual job by checking in.  But she doesn't know me well and sigh.

So, we are getting lunch and chatting when it's announced that the Advocate meeting was after lunch.  Normally I attend those so I look at my job partner like "What?"  She said "You don't need to attend, you can bail.  We weren't going to ask you this time."  Omg, stop being nice, it's killing me.

I stayed through the relevant part of the meeting and after I finished my update, I mentioned "Oh, by the way, even though I've had a lot of time off due to illness and death, I will be out for the next week on vacation."  Positive comments all around and someone mentioned "You never take time off..."  I replied that "It feels weird taking vacation when I work from HOME" which garnered a round of "That's silly! Take vacation!" etc.  Which then also was ended with job partner stating "You've been through A LOT this year, take your time, dammit."

Kindness mixed with sass, it was appreciated.

So, that was super fun and unexpected.  That's the way of grief, it likes to surprise you like that.

For reference: Sympathetic Head Tilt link