Wednesday
Well. That was a day.
I am feeling a bit melancholy, for the usual reason, but nothing too intense or overwhelming. (It’s astonishing what you can get used to.) Neither is it anything too specific, but I recognize the symptoms well enough by now. I seem short of breath, like I can’t get enough air, and am having mild heart palpitations, which I haven’t had for awhile. I’ve got zero attention span, and am constantly distracted. I’m spending a ton of time surfing the web and reading the widow board instead of working and can’t really find it in myself to worry about that. I am writing this post instead of reviewing the data they pay me to review. I am irritable and spoiling for a fight, and my hair trigger surprises even me. Snappish remarks fly out of my mouth, and as they do, I think, "Why did I say that? That was unnecessary and unprovoked." And the cherry on top is that widow-brain is in full force. I have to admit, I’m a little embarrassed about how many times in the last 3 days I’ve spaced what someone said, forgotten a conversation we just had, or had a complete lack of comprehension of what people are saying to me. I see their lips move, but my brain is totally disengaged from my part in the communication process. My ears are on, but my mind is elsewhere and did not leave a forwarding address, even for me. Evidently, my mind is in the witness protection program. Perhaps that’s a more apt description than I’d intended.
I don’t know if the ides of April triggered this particular bout of low-intensity grief, and the more mental aspects thereof. It’s been awhile since the 15th has been anything more than a milepost that reminds me to adjust my count of the months he’s been gone.
Times like these, I wonder at this other life that my mind and soul seem to be living beyond the grasp of my conscious mind, which can merely stand by and observe as I feel things, physically and emotionally, that arise spontaneously as far as my analytical mind can tell. I recently watched this great video of a talk a neuroscientist gave describing her real-time experiencing of a stroke, and how very disparate in approach, job description, and interaction with the universe at large, the two hemispheres of the brain are. Is that what happens when I slip into this place? Is my right brain experiencing what it is to be me on an intuitive, energetic basis, and my left brain is looking on, wondering what the hell the right side is doing?
I haven’t the foggiest. I shrug and go with it, because I’ve given up figuring everything out, and it will pass soon enough.
It strikes me that today is 20 months. I’d stopped being conscious of the 17th of each month a while ago, but your post today triggered the memory.
Even though my life has moved forward in so many ways and is very different from what it was, I do relate to (and suffer from) some of the things you describe today. Yet, I also get this “feeling” that some of the attributes of the “old” me are coming back. I find it difficult to have the patience one needs to re-constitute oneself, yet that is exactly what I need to be I suppose - patient. Here’s hoping that these after effects are neither permanent nor long-lasting.
Thanks. I just finished 2 sentences in that post I’d left hanging when I wrote it–my brain checked out worse than I thought.
I’m not a patient sort, either–I’m a fixer, but I guess I have to be patient, because nothing else helps the process along.
I get it. It sometimes feels as if I am just tethered here by a string…watching myself take care of the life and the kids, and not doing so very good a job of it most days. This is all just so very not right, you know? Sending hugs…
On my most difficult of days, there’s me in my new situation in one place - and the entire rest of the world in its place, and I wonder: WHY AM I THE ONLY ONE WHOSE LIFE IS PULLED OUT OF WACK (emotions, lifestyle, the new lense thru which I view the world)NOW. WHY DON’T THEY REGISTER THE LOSS OF my LOVE! DON’T THEY KNOW WHAT HAPPENED? THAT A FANTASTIC PERSON HAS LEFT THE PLANET! THAT I’M FLOUNDERING HERE? And I have to admit I resent their lack of interest. But then everyone has their own bubble of troubles. That we’re ALL dancing the best we can. On ’special’ milestone days, the recognitions I crave for MY loss have to stay deep inside me because I do not have the words to express my heart adequately, and noone I know is particularly interested in hearing it. Its THAT heavy, enormous burden that makes me so overcome and low. Journalling helps a great deal since I get to birth my 5-yr. sentiments anew every day - clumsey as they are. Its like my journal, addressing him, IS him. The only physical contact we now have: my pen, journal, and mind. Milestone or ‘regular’ day the reality is always the same: He’s gone!
My heart goes out to all of you,
J