“Dipped In It” is a BARNES & NOBLE Top 10 Bestselling, award winning memoir about love and loss and everything in between.
Have you ever been going along in life, thinking everything is unfolding exactly as it should, and then … you fall deep, deep into a well of grief, sadness, and uncertainty?
In January of 2017, my father died suddenly. And I was tossed into the deepest, darkest well I’d ever seen or envisioned—without warning or ceremony.There I was, in the dark. And something inside of me said, quietly, “The only way out is to write.”
I started with a gratitude journal. I needed to remind myself of all of the people in my life for whom I ought to be grateful. I write “ought to” because at the time I believed that I wasn’t a grateful person. Not anymore. Grateful people don’t feel the way I felt—angry, anxious, depressed, confused, disillusioned, desperate (to name a few of grief ’s cohorts).
Looking back, I realize that what I was actually trying to do with this gratitude journal was avoid my grief. Ah, a loophole! If I can just be grateful, I won’t have to grieve anymore—because one cannot do both, obviously.
I didn’t know that gratitude and grief are not mutually exclusive. But I learned. I learned I couldn’t skip over the emotions that made me uncomfortable. And in the end, I didn’t want to. There is a complicated brew of emotions swirling inside each of us.
It’s what makes us feel alive.
And so, with trembling hands upon my keyboard, I offered myself this saving grace—permission to indulge them all, the whole wild cup of tea.
And now, here you are, able to hold it in your hands, the liquid grace of grief, joy, gratitude, fear, sadness, anger, and most of all, love. The juice of life that filled my well high enough that I could reach for the top and finally climb out, back into the tremulous sunshine of daily living.
Dip your cup, dear reader. It may taste familiar…
Purchase this award winning book online or at your local book store. If you are interested in obtaining a signed copy or in sending one with a personalized note to a friend or loved one who has lost someone, I would love to help. Please reach out to me personally at bethany@dippedinit.com
Are you an independent book store? This book is available through the Ingram catalog. ISBN 9780999399149
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