Most of the time I feel like I am doing okay. I am out in the world and living. But the thrilling part of the grief process for me is that at any moment and for any reason I can fall into a pit of despair. I usually know when it is coming on and feel as though I am “slipping”. I can catch myself, refocus on what I need to do and continue on. It may take a day or maybe two, but I can catch myself before I find myself curled up in my closet or sitting in the shower crying.
But there are timeswhen I can’t help but fall. It isn’t an all of a sudden a fall, but rather an endless slow motion fall into nothingness. It begins with…well actually it usually begins with nothing. Nothing really has to happen. A thought, or a word or an interaction with another can do it. The spiral begins. My head doesn’t know how to shut down. I can’t turn it off. Trust me I wish I could if even for a short period of time. I think and think and think. My brain has to analyze everything from every angle. I question my thoughts, my feelings, my decisions. I’m sure it is the result of feeling so out of control and unsure of what I am doing. I want to know that I am not crazy. I want to know that I am okay…that I will be okay. So I try to be sure that I am not just fooling myself on how I am doing. In doing this, my brain goes round and round. I think until it has driven me farther into the pit. At that point the feeling of just wanting to disappear into it comes over me. Sometimes I don’t want to keep getting up and moving forward. Sometimes I want to be left alone and wither away. I know it is okay for me to sit in my feelings of pain and loss for a moment, but this is different. This is a more permanent residency of pain.
It is kind of like the desire I have to want to be in the world of the living again. I truly want that for myself. BUT…I really don’t. I want to find my place in the world again, but I don’t want people in my business. I want to share in relationships with people, but I don’t want them to input their opinions or to even to try to understand. Selfish right? I am truly blessed to have people who care about me and my boys and want the best for us. They want to be a part of our lives and they just want us to be happy. I know that. But I am grieving. Grief rears its ugly head again…and so I want to isolate and go it alone. It’s easier that way sometimes. The most I can do is focus on what I need to do at that time. Trying to deal with other people’s dramas or opinions doesn’t fit into my world at this time. I want nothing to do with it. So what I do is retract from the world of the living. I step out into it for a bit, and then quickly right back into my bubble. I am happy there. I feel safe there. Perhaps that is where I need to stay for a little longer. I hope people will still be there when I am ready to return.
So this endless pit of despair sucks me in again and I fall and fall downward in a spiral hoping to be saved from this pain. I then remember there is no one there to save me…I have to save myself. And so that is what I do. I will keep getting up and I will keep trying to climb out of the pit and I will eventually step back out into the world. I wish I knew a quicker route than the one I am on.
for the moment and finding my path correlate? How can you live in the moment and still seek a path and follow a plan? Since I can’t think this one through, please bear with me as I try to write my way through. Sometimes this works better for me.
to describe to someone who hasn’t walked this path in life, but for those of you who are on this similar path, I think you know exactly what I am speaking of. Most of the time it is a simple haze I am walking around in. My peripheral vision is blurred and I can simply focus on what is in front of me. I can take care of the one thing I am focused on at a time and then move forward to the next. This leads to forgetfulness. Not the usual forgetfulness you think of as you age or when you have too much on your plate. It’s a repetitive, annoying, drive yourself crazy forgetfulness. If it’s in your head, it’s there for just a moment and then it’s gone…sometimes for good. I recently remembered that I forgot the birthdays of two family members months ago. I know when their birthdays are; I am sure I thought I need to send them a gift, but then it was gone. It didn’t resurface until almost 5 months later. This is small in the world of fog. I never…and I mean never know where my keys or my phone are. I can’t get out of my house. Without my trusted babysitter, I am not sure I would have made it to work all year. She would check me off with all my belongings. Some days I would return home two or three times to pick up things I forgot. I can’t remember the countless times I arrived at work without my computer. And paying bills is a constant struggle for me. I tend to either completely forget to pay a bill or like what I’ve been doing lately, paying the same bill two or three times. These are just a couple of examples of how crazy I have felt in the past year or so.
art to heart with Pat, that’s where I go. Last year I would go every day. I couldn’t handle not being with him. We had never spent more than three days apart from one another until he had gotten sick and I wasn’t going to let that happen. As time went by I started going less and less. I could feel him with me everywhere I went and so I don’t need to go to that place in order to be with him.
mething is going to trigger one of them. This year, my boys showed me that they are just like their father…true warriors. They are strong, and proud and want to live. Yes they are sad. Yes they miss their daddy desperately. But this isn’t the end of their happiness. They are living forward as well.
life. I am growing into that new life. I am forging new paths and discovering new things and laying out a plan of what I want out of life now.
yesterday was my birthday. My last first since Pat died. It wasn’t so bad. I laughed…a lot. It was a good day. I was able to see it as it was, my birthday. Not the same as my birthday use to be with Pat, but I have to say it was a happy birthday. What I realized on this day is that it was the last first. I have survived 365 days of firsts without my husband. I lived 52 weeks without him. A year ago, I didn’t think I was going to make it 1 week. I didn’t want to. I couldn’t imagine breathing without him, let alone laughing as I did yesterday. They say time heals all things…I don’t agree with that, but it helps. Now, today is a different story for me. Today is the beginning of my second year without him and to most people, the day he died. I know different. I was there. He died at 11:53 pm April 5. But today is the day everyone knew he was gone; that his beautiful soul had left this earth. Today is harder for me than yesterday.
Widow with Wings 