My grandmother’s funeral was on Friday morning [here’s a periodic reminder that I write these a week ahead of them getting posted]. It was at half past eleven in the morning at a church I’d never heard of before, despite driving past it many times as a child. My extended family, in a series of decisions inscrutible and unknowable to an estranged member like myself, scheduled every part of the process of saying goodbye, wake to funeral to post-funeral lunch, all in one day. A long twelvish hours for everyone involved, from time they had to rise to prepare until they all arrived home or at least had finished going their separate ways for the day. I rose at six, following a night of poor sleep–my waking hours filled with anxieties about what being spotted at the funeral could mean and my sleeping hours filled with frenetic, fragmented nightmares about what going unseen at the funeral could mean–and shuffled my way through my morning routine. I left fifteen minutes late, pushed to almost half an hour by the time I finished getting gas and enough caffeine to keep my tired mind awake for the drive, but arrived five minutes early by only taking a single bathroom break during the two and a half hour drive, and that only when I’d gotten within quick driving range of my destination. Also speeding. Lots of pushing the speed limit during the empty mid-morning hours of my inter-state travel.

The funeral itself was the same mildly offensive (to my sensibilities, anyway) Catholic service I’ve attended before, so far as I could tell from my spot lurking in the narthex as I peered through the glass-paneled doors and listened to the audio piped in through a single speaker above where I stood. I was spotted twice, once by my father who politely waved in acknowledgement (which was things going about as well as I could have hoped) and once by a cousin who didn’t seem to recognize me (which is fair, since I was wearing a mask and I haven’t been around much in over a decade). One other cousin knows I was there, though she only found out after the fact when she joined us estranged kids for our own post-funeral lunch at my favorite local pizza chain (it’s usually empty during the day and I NEEDED Chicago Deep Dish pizza). So far, nothing has come my way as a result of being there or not being seen there, but it’s impossible to know since I’m disconnected from all of them and the other members of the estranged kids crew are some level of disconnected from the family at large as well. Also, they know better than to bring family gossip to me. I don’t want to about anyone who doesn’t have the conviction of purpose to contact me themselves.

The lunch with the three of them (and a friend of my sister who was there as emotional support friend for said sister) was nice, even if it lasted three hours and I ran out of the energy required to be particularly engaging after the first hour and a half despite getting a good meal in me and having enough soda and caffeine to feel mildly nauseaus. When I finally headed home, leftover pizza and a couple drinks to keep me company, it was about half past four and the drive back took a full three hours instead of two and a half. Partly because I was taking my time and partly because I needed to stop for a break about halfway there. I was exhausted and though I’d hit the point of grim determination that meant I was not at a risk of falling asleep on the road, I was unwilling to push myself through three hours in the car without a stop to stretch my legs. When I finally got home, showered, ate dinner, and was properly settled after my trip, it was nine o’clock at night and I had nothing to do but idly play video games until I felt tired enough to go to sleep. It was midnight when I realized I was unable to feel any more tired than I already was and trudged my way through my bedtime routine rather than keep waiting to feel more tired.

The rest of the weekend passed in much the same way, despite my desire to be socially engaged and have fun with my friends on Saturday. Those attempts, though fun, resulted in my feeling sick with a migraine (a combination of stress/tension and overstimulation) that hung on the horizon of my conscious mind for the entire rest of the weekend. Even accidentally trying to sleep it off in a way that messed pretty heavily with my sleep schedule didn’t do anything to fix it. What eventually fixed it was spending about thirty-six hours either sleeping or quietly doing things by myself with as little stimulation as possible without leaving my tired mind too much space to wander, and even now I can feel the tension lurking in my neck and shoulders, ready to surge back in with a vengeance if I provide it the opportunity. Which doesn’t bode well since today is going to be one of those days where I have my headphones on all day just to block out some of the noise in the lab at work (this is me returning hours later to add that I am glad I brought my acetaminophen and ibuprofen to work so I could nip it in the bud with my own personal headache killing cocktail).

I spent my walk today trying to sort through all my feelings about this exhaustion, the grief I feel, the pervasive sadness woven through my entire being, and the choice I made to push myself as hard as I did on Friday, but instead spent it thinking through a relationship with someone I know primarily online. So I’ve got no grandiose or prosaic thoughts about loss, grief, or the limits I’m willing to casually push myself beyond merely because I’m worried what people with think of me if I don’t and instead feel pretty settled about what I want out of that relationship with the online friend. What I also have is the realization that I don’t need grand thoughts about everything from the past two weeks. My grandmother died and sure, I’m sad about that, but I already did most of my mourning when I separated from my family. I pushed myself too hard and wound up exhausting myself to the point of feeling sick [for what turned out to be a week], but I recognize now that I made a mistake and should probably examine the ways my relationship with my entire biological family is still influencing me despite my separation. Sure, I’m feeling super sad today, but I’m also incredibly exhausted and it’s perfectly natural be both that and sad after the past week I’ve had.

None of these things need to be grand and I don’t think any of them are. They’re about as mundane as things can get, under the circumstances, and I probably [definitely] just need more rest. It’s not like I got much proper rest this weekend, since I was so focused on trying not to let my headache and sound/light sensitivity blossom into a full migraine. This week might be rough, too, even with almost nothing going on, but I have the space to take it slow. It’s not like I’ve got anything going on that can’t be rescheduled or done later, aside from taking a friend from Madison to Fond Du Lac a week after my grandmother’s funeral and my long day of driving. To be fair, my friend asked for a ride a few weeks ago and has been out of the country since before I knew my grandmother would be passing last week, so this isn’t on them. It’s just an unfortunate confluence of events. Which, you know, kind of describes my year. Maybe I’ll eventually get my quiet month so I can properly rest, but it’s super not going to be September…