Self-consciousness
I was paying bills this morning, trying to get paperwork organized in the secretary desk that holds it all. There were deposit slips and paperwork from the hospital and retirement stuff to be filed. As I sat there writing checks, I was aware of how emotionally neutral the task was today, and what a blessing that was.
Thanksgiving 2006 was a totally different picture. I was still a wreck. It’d been only 4 months since A had passed, and I had informally abdicated my role as keeper of the family finances. The bills were disorganized, unpaid, overdue, and stacked with other mail to the point that I couldn’t get the desk shut properly. I really had no idea what was in the pile. I knew I needed to take care of it, knew I didn’t want to pay late fees, knew, just like breathing, this was something I needed to keep doing whether I wanted to or not. And still, I walked past the desk thinking “Later.”
Now it’s “Later,” and I felt satisfaction getting the bills paid, other things organized, and walking envelopes out to the mailbox. No dread. No avoidance. No cloud hanging over me, other than my recuperation which of course is going more slowly than I would wish.
It’s funny to me that for so long, every single thing I did was tainted by grief, and even the most mundane things were remarkable because of it. And now, every single thing I do is remarkable because the grief is absent from it, and it gives me pause as I consider (happily) the change. I wonder at what point every single thing I do will be entirely unremarkable. I must say, I’m rather looking forward to that.