Denial

Denial is an ever-present friend, not a foe, not a wrong or backwards way of approaching the world but a natural companion to all lived experience, embedded right there in the current shape of a life: all the “yeses” we have said to invite and form our present work, residence, style, and a hundred other elements defining our existence, the result of an explicit or implicit denial, to more than a million other possibilities presenting and continuing to present themselves to the tantalizations of the imagination. Denial, from the Proto-Indo-European root ne, meaning “no” or “not,” is a simple, exquisite expression at the heart of being human, a way of drawing a line in the sand, a vital boundary, affirming this by declaring not that, embracing a need or desire only through our stark or perhaps reluctant rejection of something else, another person or path we might have chosen. While we may fawn over affirmations, their potential lies hidden in an equally important ability to turn away as much as toward, to be against as much as for, to absent as much as acquire, and, eventually, when we are ready, and even when we are not, to one day let go and no longer latch on. Denial defines us, essentially, part of a basic binary, a tacit ubiquitous zero to the more obvious one constituting the journey behind, before, and most crucially within us. Beyond the binary denial and affirmation actually enjoy a rather messy, mixed relationship for most of us, the affirmation of one mode tainted or tinted by nostalgia for what might have been but was denied, and denial itself often aglow as an inverted form of affirmation. The denial of denial, as when acceptance is forced rather than genuine, or when denial is removed as an option by an outside party, erased through a crippling accident, some physical or mental disease, or through the death of a loved one, can be felt as a great evil, a lopsidedness imposed, preventing us from creating the beautiful life we once imagined with another who is suddenly gone. To deny our true feelings, and the raw honesty of our often contradictory thoughts, including the need to deny the harsh realities of life and loss at times, is a certain path to misery. Denial is a normal and even healthy part of grief, sometimes appearing not only in the early stages of bereavement as we find ourselves in a state of disillusionment and disbelief, but also later on, as an indication of healing, denial now manifesting as a new commitment: not to forget, not to lose sight of gifts bestowed on us by our beloved, and not to imagine for a moment that life will ever be the same, which is the cost of love, requited and unrequited.