Grieving? “Make Room for the Comfies”

Written by Yve Harrold and originally posted on mysoulride.com.

For fifteen years, I traveled several times a month for work. I loved it and missed it when it ended. There are skills you develop when you are living that life.  Efficient and effective packing was one of them.

Many years ago, my colleague Jennifer and I were at the same training event as we often were, and at this point we already knew each other well. We had wrapped up a long day of work, finished a nice dinner out, and headed back to our hotel. She said, let’s go put on our “comfies” and meet outside for a glass of wine. We had a favorite spot in the hotel courtyard under the orange trees. When we regrouped, I was in regular, but casual, pants and a shirt. She was wearing sweatpants, sweatshirt, and slippers. She looked at me and said, where are your comfies?! I said, this is all I have!

By that point in my life, after so much travel for work and for pleasure, I felt the less I had to carry, the better. I never checked a bag, even when traveling for a week. My philosophy was this- when you pack for a trip, you don’t pack choices. Traveling is not like home. I stuck with all the tried and true combinations. I didn’t bring my favorite jacket or sweater if it was too bulky. I didn’t bring my favorite pants if they couldn’t do double duty. I didn’t bring the fashionable, uncomfortable shoes. I brought the black shoes that went with everything. I simply didn’t dress the way I typically would at home. I dressed as the travel me with amended expectations and limited options. Comfies were a luxury.

My packing skills had even gained approval from Tim. Packing his suitcase became part of my role in our relationship.  He fully relinquished it to me even if I wasn’t traveling with him. I enjoyed picking out his clothes and fitting it all just right in his bag, leaving room for shopping which he always did while traveling. In retrospect it’s surprising that Tim was okay with this. He was very particular about how he dressed.  And there I was limiting his choices. His only regular request was extra socks.

The last time I packed a bag for Tim was for a trip he took solo to Tampa and Denver. And for all sorts of reasons unimportant to this story, it was never unpacked until I did it a few months after he died. And this is where I segue to grief.

When you’ve lost someone close to you and you are grieving, your needs change quickly. You are forced to reassess the picture of your world as well as your place in it. You are going to have to unpack and repack many times for a journey to a place that you never really knew existed or at the very least, a place you never wanted to visit.

When Tim died, my world changed immediately. But I had not. In all ways, as best I could tell, I was still the same me. And damn, this expert packer had no idea what to carry on the journey. I knew it was going to be heavy. Because everything that I had planned or thought was likely, certainly no longer was. At least not in the same way.

If you are going to have a great time on a journey, of any kind, the first thing you have to embrace is that it’s not like home. That is usually part of the beauty and fun of it all. Grief certainly didn’t feel like home. But I can’t say I saw any beauty in that in the early stages. It is a process to figure out what is really needed to make that grief journey a good one. A healthy one. A manageable one. A survivable one. Some days it will feel like you have no choices. And on other days, you will be overwhelmed by the many options before you. And I will admit that if I were to pack that bag for someone who is grieving, I would definitely make room for the comfies.

Learn more about Yve Harrold at mysoulride.com:

“I am a grief educator, a business professional, a yoga teacher, a writer, a nature lover, and a young widow. Phew! And also, I am a soul having a human experience! I am not always wide awake. I have been caught up in working hard, collecting things, navigating relationships, and drowning in the human condition. In 2019 I was shaken by a life event that has given me a precious opportunity to see and accept my truth – where I am, is exactly where I am supposed to be.”