I notice that for the last seven years I’ve been ensuring that the paper money in my wallet is sorted in order of value, and always turned the right way up, and green side up.
I know what’s going on here. It started when I left a role that meant so very much to me, the pastorate of a church I had served for over a decade. It was the right and necessary decision to move on, yet the grief was real, sharp and complex. Unconsciously the money sorting started, and it was one of several little things I did that was a small act of celebrating the control that I was able to exert over a world that was otherwise colored in uncontrollable grief.
I’ve subsequently learned that this a normal and even healthy part of ‘grief work’. Grief is such a turmoil of a world turned upside down, that grieving people hold onto or create acts and reliability and control.
The years have gone by and the growing has changed and become integrated as a part of my story, and yet the habit has persisted. I noticed myself doing it and intentionally decided to store my folding-money randomly. I was so bothered by it that I went back. I guess the grief is worked through but the habits remain. It’s all good.