The Grief Window

I am not a grief expert. I never read any of those grief books my friends gave me. I know I should have. I did pick them up and smell them, if that counts. I didn't seek out a psychiatrist or a mental health professional to guide me through my grief. Yet again, I probably should have. I did not even attempt to call or even smell one of those. So, I am unsure of what the grief window is in which a person has carte blanche to ugly cry whenever they want to, lay in bed in the dark for days and cry more when they want to, or scream belligerently at loved ones and be understood in their anger whenever they want to. Because of this ignorance, I do not know if I have missed my grief window to do such things or not, as I have not found the time to do them over the past year and it may be high time to do so. Or maybe not.

Truth be told, I do not like to cry, not in front of people or by myself, really. Maybe I come by that honest. I can count on one hand the amount of times I saw my parents cry. Now, I mean a real cry, not like a misty-eyed Forrest Gump "You died on a Saturday morning and I had you placed under our tree" you-are-heartless-if-you-don't-tear-up-kinda-cry. But a real gusher. I can only assume they didn't like to heart wail because they didn't want to lose control. I know that is why I don't like to. I also think it makes people feel uncomfortable. I  much prefer making people laugh if I'm going to make them uncomfortable anyway. But once Mom got sick, and while Daddy was going downhill, I wouldn't let myself hold tight to them. I deeply regret that. I knew that if I hugged them as tight as they were hugging me, I would lose control and I would start crying and I would not be able to stop. Maybe that is the fear, the fear of what will come of the grief wave.

So...sometimes, I cry in the car. Just enough not to push myself into the ugly cry or make it so anyone knows I've been crying. I never let myself full out wail over Daddy. And so far, I have quiet-tear cried a lot in front of my children and husband this past year, but not past that threshold. Never to the point of no return. I sometimes tear up while I'm reading to the kids (and Charlotte and Sadie call me on it) but then I stop. I don't go lie down on the bed and stay there for a few days. And this is not to say I am not utterly gut-punchingly sad every single day without my parents. I am. I just don't want to let Grief win. We were just never a sad people. We like the funnies. 

I guess I just wonder at what point you just can't do the carte blanche grief anymore. Have there been some studies? Is it in one of my books? I think I may be able to do more than just sniff them now. I mean, at some point, if it sneaks up on me and Grief just Book Thief's me off into that abyss, can I go crawl into the bed and stay a few days?