Low moods, indecision, lack of forward momentum—everything seems to have me down-in-the-mouth this month. As my father pointed out once, there’s always more than one cause for any emotion.
June carries a lot of baggage: anniversary, birthday, annual vacation planning, a recent memorial service for someone we both knew, a departing minister and on and on.
I’ve concluded (with others) that the second year of loss is harder. In the first year, we’re advised to not make any sudden moves. But with the second year, nothing is telling me to take it easy and everything pushes me towards taking charge of who I am and where I’m headed.
Thank goodness for friends! Jane visited me for another discussion over tea and helped bring my struggles into context.
I’m in transition.
Transitions are neither easy nor comfortable.
I’m doing the best that I can.
As one who has trouble accessing my emotions, I love fiction. It’s so much easier to feel for—or even create—a fictional character, allowing me to indulge in vicarious feelings. And especially to cry.
Some recent media that have brought tears are:
The Trouble With Heroes (2025) a verse novel by Kate Messner. (The author is the source of a chart mentioned in a recent blog, and I decided to sample her work). This book is so beautifully constructed with interlinking themes that cohere into a brilliant picture of heroism and its costs. It takes climbing 46 Adirondack peaks for 12-year-old Finn to come to terms with his father’s life. As Finn says in a sonnet:
“The nightmares never leave. They never fade.
And heroes aren’t allowed to be afraid.”
West Side Story. I know the music so well, but did I ever watch it? I have no memory of doing so. A DVD found in the local Goodwill Story brought tears. Maybe I should reread Romeo and Juliet after all these years.
And finally The Human Comedy by William Saroyan was almost the victim of a recent book purge, but I set it aside to reread. A copy sat on my parents’ shelves when I was a kid, and I’m sure I reread it when I paid a dollar for my own copy (receipt still in the book) but even so, I’d forgotten just how much gentle philosophy and human kindness are imbedded in this wartime tale of a 14-year-old telegram deliverer. It’s a keeper.
Lost and Found
One of life’s lessons I keep relearning is that when I’m confused or down, the answer is to pick up pen or pencil and start writing. This will always be my answer—so why don’t I remember? Over and over, I lose sight of the doing, preferring to indulge in gloom and doom.
Or maybe the answer is to indulge in something that allows tears to flow—and then start writing!
Try it yourself if you feel the need.
Kate Harrington 