Days before the pandemic hit, I closed on a new condo that I’d had the fun of designing from day one. This would be the first time I’d lived alone and at 50 I was thrilled to have my own space. The size was perfect for me, I loved that everything was new and spotless and I couldn’t wait to start marking it home.
Literally, 2 weeks after signing on the dotted line, the world shut down. Items like furniture and blinds I’d previously been admiring and considering, were suddenly hard to get. Things were on back order. The long time family owned furniture chain where we’d purchased all of our furniture over the last 20 years was suddenly out of business.
“No sweat” I thought, “I’ll decorate later.” I only need a bed to sleep in and a desk to work at. The rest I will figure out in a few weeks when this COVID thing blows over. We all know what happened next. It didn’t blow over. I am only now, 18+ months later starting to decorate, and make the condo the home I want it to be.
I didn’t know it at the time, but this delay was actually a blessing in disguise. Until I left my 9am-5pm gig, I worked daily on the main floor of the condo, near the front window. I’d rearranged the direction that the desk faced a couple times, but it really only made sense to have it in this one space by the window.
Fast forward to September 2021, as the days started to cool off and the chill returned to my desk and the area around it, I thought, hmmmm. I don’t want to freeze again all Winter. The ground is cold because I don’t have a basement. And no direct sunlight hits that front window where I sit. It’s too dark, and too cold.
Then, an idea came! Maybe I could design an office in one of the upstairs bedrooms? Then I could get heat from the first floor rising, and the morning light would stream through the windows to add life and warmth also. Done! I now work on the second floor, in a space I designed, decorated and LOVE being in. I am so grateful that I didn’t try to make those decisions when I first moved in 18+ months ago
When someone dies, people say “Don’t make any major decisions for at least a year.” The idea is that things aren’t clear and we want to avoid making things harder than they already are, if possible. Making knee jerk decisions before the dust settles can lead to more suffering, chaos and pain.
But what does that mean, exactly? What does “let the dust settle” even look like and how do we know once it has? There is no stock answer. There is no exact time frame to when we will be in our right minds again (that is, if we ever were, or if we even have the capacity to use our minds effectively again.)
So the “one year rule” for decision making after grief, is like all parts of grief. It is subject to interpretation, idiosyncratic expression, and is just plain optional. But the spirit behind it is real. There can be an inability to see things clearly when up is down and down is up and our child has died. We have foggy grief brains. We forget where we are and have no idea where we are going. We can probably agree that there is solid evidence to support the notion that the fewer major changes we make, the more stable we can remain during that period of transition.
But my interpretation of this “one year rule” has less to do with time frames, and more to do with finding the light. Returning to the condo discussion, if I’d moved into that space and built an “office” on the first floor, I would have done so without ever realizing there was no light, no warmth, no “home” feeling to that space. I could have invested time, money and other resources making a perfectly functional office, in a space that could never be illuminated. Since I had a built in delay (aka 1 year+) thanks to COVID, I didn’t do that. I waited. I listened and looked until BAM! I knew exactly what to do next. I knew where the light would come in and made my plans from there.
When we are in grief, we can’t see any light let alone think about the light of the future. Sure, you can answer your aching heart with a major move to a new city, get a divorce, quit your job and change anything you can get your hands on. But I promise (and this truly sucks) that no matter what major or minor changes we throw at our vacant hearts, they never (and only never) bring the person back. But these big decisions can actually make things worse.
As with any major life change, but especially one that results from a death, there is usually enough going on without turning more “static” things upside down. Try to put some time between the change, and any major decisions you are pondering. It’s not magic, but it may give your heart a chance to find the light, and let it lead you to the next best thing for you.