Hi friends,
I’m closing the shop for a few days. I’ll reopen it in time for Sticker Day which will be this Tues, Nov 9 at 8AM Pacific.
As many of you know, I’ve been grieving. My tendency when terrible things happen is to become anxious, and then to work as much as I can - switching into that old, familiar survival mode, trying to make money, seek stability, safety. But that is surviving, not grieving, which is what I need to be doing right now.
I went to the viewing for my friend on Tuesday. It was one of the saddest times of my life, yet also filled with love. His mom said us, “we have to do really really good grief work. We have to go deep and feel it all so that can we move through. He would want us to be well.” Every time I think about this (or almost anything else), I cry. I’m noticing how much my capacity for grief, and feelings in general, has grown since the last really hard thing happened in my life. I want to grieve differently than I have before. I don’t want to compress it into a heavy, dense rock to carry everywhere. I want to breathe.
A few people have gently suggested I close the shop for a while and I’ve kept being like, ‘oh I would, but I can’t.’ But then I’m sitting here crying while I respond to emails, crying while I make prints and thinking, “what am I doing?” So I’m taking a break for a little bit. Trying to do it differently this time.
It reminds me of this piece I made a while back.
If you have any stories or song recommendations for grief, send them my way. I appreciate you all so much.
Love,
Brit
I made a playlist and put it on Spotify after someone died https://open.spotify.com/user/shinofdestruct/playlist/4aMWAReLUVZVYGFa26UsjN?si=jZGvckj8Q0aCQot2MyloDQ (no relation, I was just a fan who relied probably too heavily on her calm insights) and there might be a few songs there you could lean against too, though I don’t know which specific ones to single out.
I'm so glad you were able to take a break.
I love the little diagram of the familiar cycles of the past. My go-to has often been to avoid it, but I'd like to do things differently.
Thank you for sharing your experience.