My Krumholtz life
I have not been able to totally parse my recent funk, and I don’t know if I ever will. I know I was down about work, about people, about my life. I think on the latter, some of that was growing pains, and the restlessness that tends to precede needed change. My life and my heart have been feeling small and cramped of late.
I realized that everything I’ve been doing, I’ve been doing since before A died. The only new things I’ve done in the last two years are inlay, which I failed at, and putting myself back together since he died, which is still a work in progress. There’s been no positive growth, from my perspective. Grief has forced growth of a sort, of course, but in the manner of a tree that is stunted and bent in the opposite direction of the wind that constantly assaults it. I’m talking about the growth of a sunflower, reaching for and following the light. My only inspiration for two years has been to pull myself out of the pit of grief and find my way back into life, which is necessary and valid, but it doesn’t make me sing and be glad I’m alive. Work certainly didn’t inspire me, and my hobbies, while nice and comforting, lacked the novelty, the spark that might light a passionate fire in my heart.
It’s possible that, having gotten past the bulk of the heavy lifting of grief work, status quo was no longer satisfactory. I think I’m tired of myself. Those who are fighting for their lives and/or sanity don’t have time to worry about sunflowers and spark, but it seems I’ve healed enough to be bored.
I have spoken before of my general disdain for my job, and more and more I have not found in it a quality reason for getting up in the morning. Neither was I finding it in anything else. When you’re not finding good reasons to get out of bed each day, the road to depression is a short one, and I know I was well on my way. I am pleased to report that I’ve been feeling better for 4 days and counting.
It’s a nice change to be counting days of feeling better rather than days of loss, now that I think about it.
After talking with E about my need for some novelty, some positive growth for me as a person, I decided that I would sign up for the 4-day introduction to Anusara yoga intensive through the studio my teacher works out of, something I’ve been considering and sitting on, but taking no action about. I think that after a few more weeks working with her, and doing the workshop, I’ll probably be ready to join the beginner group classes. I’ve really enjoyed my yoga lessons, which I’ve been doing for a little over a month. When I’m doing yoga, I don’t have room in my brain to think about anything but the 19 things my body is supposed to be doing simultaneously; I really like that mental vacation.
I also decided to sign up for a Photoshop training to give me a jump on a new hobby I’ve been wanting to start. I don’t know if that’s going to happen after all, as they’re not answering my e-mailed question, but nonetheless, I made a decision and an effort. Those things would give me something new to look forward to, to be excited about.
As for work, after I talked with E about my issues, we discussed my options, including quitting my job and being a stay-at-home-mom to 3 dogs and 6 guitars. It’s potentially doable, but there’s a lot to be said for financial stability, and I dare say the problem isn’t the job, it’s me. It’s not like I’m going to find some magical workplace where every last person there is intelligent, funny, sane, and does their job competently and professionally. I could go somewhere else and find the same psychos, morons, and bad management decisions that fill my workdays now, and do it for less money. What’s the point, then? I’d just feel worse. I need to find my Zen place, and be content wherever I am; I need to not walk into the office each day filled with hate for the fact that I’m there. I’ve been reading the Bhagavad Gita, and in the first chapter there’s a bit about doing the work of this life while being detached from the results. I’m trying to cultivate that attitude; I think it can only help.
I also decided that I needed to stop being such a grump at work—not for them, but for me. When I started there, I was the self-appointed “morale fairy,” a smile on my face, kind words on my lips, and slowly, over 7 years, that company has beaten all that out of me. The nearly silent ogre you’ll find in my cubicle from 9-5:30 every day is not the woman who started that job. I used to have an open heart at work, (and everywhere else) and I was happier. My heart slammed shut in regards to work even before A died, and every day since, I put another heavy rock in front of the door.
I realized that I needed to be more human, and see the humans in front of me, instead of seeing only my own contempt and bitterness that has built up and keeps building. It’s killing me. It really is. Thursday and Friday, I made it a point to say “good morning” to those I ran across, to smile, to actually converse with my coworkers instead of ignore them. And you know, it worked. I wasn’t miserable at work in the first time in I don’t know how long.
When I was redoing my bathroom earlier this summer, I had to replace a shut-off valve. Although all the parts I bought were the right size, they wouldn’t fit over the old copper tubing because it had oxidized. The layer of black that had formed made it so nothing fit, nothing went as it was supposed to. I had to sand the pipe down to shiny copper again. And I realized that’s what I needed to do to myself. I want to be fresh, shiny copper once more.
I think I’m realizing that being a “survivor,” (in the obituarial sense of the word), and just surviving, isn’t going to sustain me for however long a run I have remaining. I think I’m realizing that I’m wanting better views that those which this plateau I’ve managed to struggle to the top of can afford me. And I think there’s a little new grief to be had in that realization. I have been moving forward, and healing. I know I have, but now I wonder if I am just breaking even, rather than having moved forward empirically from the me that existed two years ago. I feel like maybe I have to leave more of the sad me behind and take giant steps away from the life I haven’t had for two years, but cherish nonetheless. That scares me more than a little, and yet I don’t see any way around it. It’s like you’re hanging from the monkey bars on the playground, your hands gripped on two bars. You cannot go forward until you let go of the bar behind you and reach for the one in front of you. I know that hanging there until my arms ache is not going to change the fact that A is dead, and that he is no longer behind me, anyway; he has gone ahead and will be there when I reach the other end of this life. But still…it’s an adjustment, and no change is painless.