Lost Time

Here is a funny story. Well, not so funny too. I was going through old mail and came across a brochure for a weekend singles religious retreat. I kept thinking about it and decided to attend and became very excited about the opportunity. The group was for singles over 35 and although I thought I might be one of the older ones attending I was really looking forward to thoughtful Biblical study in front of a roaring fire and taking part of the free time activities offered including sledding and ice hockey. I was especially excited about the sledding part.

I went on line to register and saw that the registration was closed. But checking my calendar saw that I was still within the time period for registration. I figured that maybe the event was filled and decided to call the church after work to see if there was still a way I could attend.

When I got to work I realized that instead of it being the 19th of January, which for whatever reason was the date I thought it was, it was actually the 26th! The retreat registration was closed because the retreat had already occurred - last weekend! Where was/is my head? Part of me was questioning the dates with my mind thinking that it actually was later in the month. But somehow with all that was happening mid-month I lost a week.

I bring this up to shed light on the fact that those dealing with loss do suffer from strange mental relapses. Our minds are on overload trying to cope with grief AND manage the daily events of living which just don't stop. Yet the world expects us to continue functioning on all gears when some of the gears are shut down.

I can laugh at this strange occurrence but I do feel sad that I lost an opportunity to attend an event that would have been I am sure a good experience. It makes me realize that I'm ready to venture more out into the world and to start living much more actively than I have been. Or maybe its not that I am ready, it is just with the boys being older and more independent that I have the opportunity to start venturing out more. There will be other retreats and I will continue to meet more people.

I attended the knit club last night and am amazed at how much good it is doing me and how much I look forward to it all week long. I am knitting more and have met some interesting women. Last night one of the women asked me why I hadn't been more active on internet dating sites and I told her that when I've been on them, very few men have responded with interest to me. She was surprised and said she had a hard time believing that because I am "absolutely adorable!" I don't think anyone has ever described my looks like that - it must be my new cute haircut and glasses. The other week one of the women remarked that I look like a younger woman's sister who is very cute. I asked this young and pregnant woman how old she is guessing she was 31, which indeed she was. My comment back was how much of a compliment that was since I am 20 years this woman's senior at 51! And to be told that we could be sisters.

Those compliments on my appearance are so appreciated and needed. I don't get much feedback on how I really look and it was a huge boost to my ego. Makes me walk with an extra spring in my step and smile at the world more. I definitely see how much I have been missing not having social time out with the girls or a strong social network in which to interact with. We all need to hear compliments, to be told our knitted cowl neck warmer looks great, to hear we made someone's day... Better late than never. I have to cut myself some slack and to realize that with all that has gone on in my life it wasn't that possible to enter out socially until now. The time is now right and I am ready too. Both have to be in sync.

Wanting To Be A Hibernating Bear

I am having a rough time - continuing to doubt my decision about moving. The boys' pain and grief is tearing me up inside. We've already suffered so much. Why do have to continue to endure change and challenge? It is hard to focus on the good that will come of this because it is in the future and the boys are so miserable right now. I cannot bear to see them suffer.

I am experiencing all those miserable symptoms of early grief - sobbing, not wanting to get up out of bed, hopelessness, tiredness, depression, not eating, feeling sick to my stomach, inactivity, loss of interest, helplessness and I'll be honest in admitting even wanting to die.

It is very cold here and the weather is not helping. I want to become a bear and just hibernate in a cave until the Spring thaw. But of course I need to somehow pull this all together and be there for the boys even though they are not speaking to me.

My sons want me to at least try and make a go of it back home on my own so they can finish at their old high school. But what they don't and can't understand is that I am tapped out of the strength and energy to do that. Although they told me I should muster it up because that is my job as a mother.

This pain is worse than what I felt when my husband died and then when I got divorced. I was helpless in preventing the death and had no control of changing my second husband's mind. But making the decision to move is within my power and to a degree I am responsible for the agony of my sons. Even though I made the decision trying to rationalize the overall eventual good for the family as a whole.

I Had to Heal Myself First

In July, 2008 before hanging up on me, Husband #2 managed to bark out at that he had "refiled" the divorce he had originally filed six months prior. At that moment it was like being sucker punched in the gut when I was already on the ground writhing in pain. It was feeling more unbearable pain on top of all the existing pain. It was agonizing. I physically ached all over. At other points it felt as though someone had wrenched my heart out from my body. Needless to say, I was well aware that I had to get a job but could not imagine myself working in my field as a counselor. I lost about 20-25 pounds in a month or two, wasn't eating and could cry at the drop of a hat. The emotions surging inside me included anger, shame, rage, resentment, fury (and more fury), depression, betrayal, fear, intimidation, insignificance, powerlessness and abandonment/rejection. What is interesting is that the numbness some of us feel in the early grief period that shelters and shields us from the intense pain of a loved one dying gets bypassed when someone is dumped, rejected and/or abandoned. It seems as though the added feelings of anger/devastation keep those suffering from abandonment in this place of unremitting pain. This is all related to the neurotransmitters working inside our brains. But I guess the anger outwits the numbing effect our bodies are trying to give us as a gift.

Despite all those feelings, I had reached a point in my emotional growth where I refused to run after a man whose way of dealing with conflict included completely shutting out his spouse in order to protect his own fragile ego. I concentrated on forgiveness and understanding. I focused on love. I did my best to transcend the hurting of my soul. I also made the very deliberate and conscious decision of letting what was going to be, be. I was willing to see where the road would take me and not try and interfere by begging and pleading to change the situation to my will.

In those early months it was hard to concentrate and look toward the future. At one point, I was seeing my grief therapist a couple times a week - I don't think I could have functioned without those appointments. They were what held me together. I was living in a sort of twilight zone. With no communication from my husband I did not know what was going on and it was hard to plan and figure out what to do. I still hoped for a reconciliation - if we could just talk I'd be able to make it all better. But I refused to try and contact him. His habit of hanging up on me had done its damage and my pride came out. I wanted and needed a man who would have the decency and respect to talk to me. I was hoping he would reach out to me. I was also waiting to see him and talk in mediation.

By the time I was in a more stable place emotionally, the Recession had hit full force and I experienced extreme difficulty finding work. Face it. I was for all practical purposes a stay-at-home soccer mom who had not worked in her field for five years because she was caring for a dying spouse, child diagnosed with a serious medical condition and then her aged and ill parents. I felt incompetent, old, out-of date, and lost in the new world of finding jobs online. It did not help that the divorce wrecked havoc with my already fragile ego. I felt like a miserable failure too. How could I be a good counselor to others when I could barely handle my own life successfully?

Those feelings of failure and abandonment have been the most difficult to get through the past year and a half. That is also the piece that I have found to differ in the grieving process from being a widow compared to that of a divorcee. Having lived through both, my divorce was far more of a challenge for me to overcome than the death of my husband. Of course, it would seem as though a death is more significant. But those added feelings of being rejected have just fed and led to more feelings of being unworthy, tainted, a bad person, and so on.

Every loss we experience reactivates older losses, some of which occurred in our childhood and are not even remembered. Some of us have suffered more losses than others throughout our lives and therefore our grief process is more complicated. There is no time limit for working through grief. People get impatient when they consider someone's grief prolonged. It is a profoundly different experience for everyone. There are actual physical changes that go on in one's body during bereavement. I just read a fascinating explanation of how the chemicals react in one's body causing a person to either overeat or not eat. At times, both reactions are going on and fighting as to which will win out! Isn't that almost unbelievable? To feel famished but not want to eat at the same time? I take that back - nothing seems unbelievable in bereavement, right?

I just have such profound respect for everyone navigating this bereavement road. I am thinking about in particular all of us who have had to face the critics telling us to snap out of it and get on with our lives. It takes such courage to face those who don't know, realize they are wrong and then keep going with what has to be done, what is right for us. I felt such outrage at the divorce mediator who told me because I was such an "old hand" at grief I should be able to move past my sorrow over my divorce quickly, after all I'd had so much practice at it. This unknowing comment ate at me until I ended up calling my divorce attorney to complain and explain how her colleague's comment had impacted me. She agreed to talk to him about the matter when they next met. In the area of bereavement, practice does not make perfect. I have just found that added grief is a great burden and ends up hurting more. Or maybe it is that you are dealing with a lot of grief so that is what makes it feel like the pain is more.

I took the job at the big box store pretty convinced that I could not work in my field, at least for the time being. I wanted a job totally outside my caring/helping profession. As a counselor we are skilled at listening to our clients and then offering compassion, as well as suggestions and insights for healing/growth. It has always amazed me that Husband #2 could hurt me to my inner core by refusing to talk with me. As a counselor, communication is what is most vital to us. To have it ripped out of your system is unthinkable. As long as I have been able to communicate, I have been able to have a hold on my life and its outcome. Even when my first husband was in a coma, I was still able to speak the feelings from my heart. But Husband #2 took that away from me.

As I was driving home from a very wearying shift at the big box store last night the thought came out of my head that "I deserve to be loved." Today along that same theme, I have been thinking that I do not want to suffer anymore from all that transpired with Husband #2. I think all of this focus on Husband #2 has come from the emotions swirling around due to our move with Sam (GF). My youngest is being critical of me for not looking harder for a job. He wants me to try and tough it out here. All the feelings of self-loathing and beating myself down (which began in childhood) come flaring out. I try to ease the criticism by remembering those months of weight loss, fear, physical pain and utter torment. Yeah, right I say to myself. I was in good shape for job hunting. I was a complete mess. It is one thing to drag yourself to a job you've already had, quite another to have to look for a new one when you're suffering in the depths of grief. And then to have to hold the hands of your clients when you're in such bad shape yourself.

For what it is worth here is another idea. The way grief impacts us also has to do with our constitutional and emotional makeups. Some of us are better equipped to deal with adversity. Some of us can get through hardship on our own more easily, versus those of us who need a steadying presence to lean on. It is all so mixed up and confusing! Not to mention the constant ups and downs of going forward a bit and then backward a lot!

The death of my husband and the divorce that came so soon afterward cannot be erased from my life much as I'd sometimes like for that to be. It is a hard burden to carry those losses around with me everyday. But somehow, someway I am moving to a place where I want to stop hurting so much. That will be up to me to keep working toward. It can be a struggle on some days. For the first time, I am actively contemplating to work back in my counseling field again. And that appeared an impossibility a few years ago. And let me lay to rest the myth that a new relationship or marriage can erase the demons of grief/loss from within us. It doesn't work like that. Even if I soon remarry, the losses of two husband's cannot just magically cease to exist. I just hope that from now on into the future, the pain of these losses will lessen because more attention will be devoted to the present and future. I am the person I am today because of these losses but no longer want my future to be so defined by them.

Tired Inside and Out

I am so tired - exhausted is probably the more apt word. This condensed CNA training has taken its toll - I'm not as young and energetic as I once was. I'm slowing down and it is harder for me to bounce back. Grief takes it out on us physically. After class today my oldest and I worked at the storage shed. I am hoping to finish the consolidatation of two sheds into one tomorrow - FINALLY. I felt a lot of sadness while working. I need to grieve the loss of my home and living there for 19 years. I haven't really done that yet and I'm not sure how you go about grieving a house. There is the actual physical exhaustion of moving boxes, sorting and stacking. But another part of the exhaustion is the pain that comes from having had to move my belongings into storage sheds - all that has been lost. Yes, material losses but a home that represented what my life was for so long.

Am I becoming an old hand at this grief thing? I am so much more aware of the process this time around. Really seeing and knowing that the current pain is resulting in my tiredness, listlessness and wanting to just go to bed, pull up the covers and sleep.

Grief brings on tiredness inside and out. Physical and emotional depletion. Crying leading to external exhaustion. The effort of keeping it together so that internally there seems nothing left to keep me standing. That loop that keeps running over and over in my head of memories and what ifs and regrets. The more it plays, the wearier I am. I work, study, move boxes and am tired. I think and I am tired. I grieve and the tiredness consumes my being - inside and out.

Celebrities and Comfort Food

People magazine is one of the subscriptions I had to cancel due to cost and lack of time (they'd pile up so quickly because it is a weekly). But once in a while if I see an issue that is worth the $3.99 price I will get it (and they are only a $1.00 at the used book store). Today in the grocery I didn't even flip through the 4/20 issue. It immediately went into my cart when I saw the beautiful photo of Kelly and John Travolta and the headline "Living with Grief." In this issue also, is a smaller mention of Liam Neeson. I hope these brave and lovely people know at some level how much they will help educate the general public about grief and loss because they are celebrities. And how they will give hope and strength to others also facing such losses because we can identify with a familiar face.

The stores are so crowed today. People had filled carts with ham, beautiful flowers, eggs, and pastry goodies (cakes in the shape of lambs or bunnies, cookie flowers). The people looked somewhat distracted and busy. I truly hope that those who see the People magazine or choose to add it to their cart will be struck by the realization of what is truly important as they gather with loved ones tomorrow.

Today I am grateful:

1. For the new day that dawned (although I am still pretty down as evidenced by all the comfort food I bought at the grocery - noodles, mini donuts, sweet rolls, banana bread mix, lemon poppy seed muffin mix, pudding and jello mixes . I have visions of eating noddles with butter for dinner and eating a heated sweet roll oozing with butter accompanied by a cup of hot tea).
2. For the power of choice. I have the power to choose to eat a sweet roll with butter or take a walk in the park. The fact that I am choosing the less healthy of the two does not negate the fact that at least I have a choice.
3. For being shown new ideas on how I can get through this. I was reading a little when I first woke up from the book "Tough Transitions - Navigating Your Way Through Difficult Times," by Elizabeth Harper Neeld and was struck by a woman's comment highlighted in the book. She said, "During difficult times, we all do different things to help us heal. I found that in my own life, during my darkest, worst days, my therapy was to bake." Thank you Ellen Rose for showing me there are an infiite possibilities for me to grab on to - maybe I'd find baking far more nurturing than eating sweet rolls with butter.
4. For having a friend willing to change plans and come up with an alternative in lieu of our celebrtating Easter with my family because I do not feel up to being with my relatives right now.
5. To have this same friend say, "That's okay" (he'd still stick by me) when I told him I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to get out of this current funk and what if I am in it the rest of my life?

I can't erase my phone messages

I need to clear some messages from my cell phone because there is no room for people to leave new ones. The problem is that I have great difficulty deleting messages once they are left. This started right after my husband died. I was so struck by the fact that I'd never hear his voice again that I became paranoid about deleting messages, especially from loved ones. To solve the problem I eventually started taping my messages and then deleting them. I'd have a tape for close friends and family and another for acquaintances. That seemed to work for quite some time with the land line phone. I never tried to tape any messages from my cell. I just keep them until I have to delete them and when I do so it is very hard for me - if I never had to delete a message again I'd be happy.

What am I actually thinking here? I know deep down that my saving phone messages won't spare my loved ones from death but somehow part of me must believe that. It is like some misguided insurance policy I have bought into. Even though I know this is silly I still can't seem to stop. Just knowing I have the voices of my loved ones with me provides some kind of comfort.

I think that my distorted thought process just shows how greatly and deeply a death can affect us. My husband's death had a profound impact on me to the extent that I treasure phone messages because it is the voice of someone I love. How could I erase that? Especially because I know that some people aren't with us to ever listen to again.

Sleeping with all the lights on and other oddities

When my husband died, beginning that very first night, I started sleeping with all or most of the lights on in the house. This went on for months. Before his death, even though he had spent very long stretches in the hospital, I had felt safe because he was still alive. Once he died, I realized how vulnerable and truly alone I really was. I became afraid. Frightened of every small sound inside and out. Frightened of ghosts, intruders, animals (no doubt with rabies), storms and the dark. I was pretty much fine during the day, but when night and darkness descended I almost became another person.

During this time (those first months after he died) I would fall asleep with my clothes on having not brushed my teeth or washed my face. I would sleep fitfully and wake up in the middle of the night and then being unable to go back to sleep, I'd read for a few hours.

Now as I get through the first months of my divorce, I am repeating some of the same patterns. By 8:00 p.m. I am exhausted and lie down just for a moment to wake up to find that it is 1:00 a.m. and I am still fully clothed. I am sleeping fitfully and restlessly. Not good, solid sleep at all. I feel all those same fears returning but this time when I wake up I go downstairs and turn all the lights off. I think back to what the divorce mediator told me - that having already survived the death of a husband at a young age, any future hardship should be easier to get over. I know he meant well and was trying to be encouraging but I do not agree with his reasoning because grief is grief no matter how many times you have to feel it. But I understand that I do have some experience with what it takes to survive hurt and pain.

Maybe a little wiser, that's all. The anguish of being rejected so cruelly is especially painful. I think after my husband died that I thought I would receive some kind of future immunity from further pain or suffering. It would bypass me in the future because it had already reared its ugly head. Well, that theory has certainly been a total bust as evidenced by living through an exceptionally difficult five-year period.

So, many of those awful feelings we all so much want to avoid have returned as I face this new loss. The same symptoms, the same pain, the same weird sleeping habits. Only this time I am turning off the lights in the house because I know he isn't coming back. When I think of those first months following my husband's death five years ago, I am struck by the realization that perhaps my leaving the lights on had less to do with my fears but more from my mistaken hope that if only I left them on, he would find his way back home to me and the boys.

Today I am grateful:

1. For all that my husband's death has taught me (I could just have a post on that).
2. That I realize what is truly important in life - love, relationships, family, personal growth, integrity, honesty, kindness, compassion - certainly not fame and fortune (although of course we need money to survive).
3. That I didn't waste my personal "wake-up call" which came when my husband died. I have tried to live my life as a better person since his death and will continue to strive even more so in the wake of my divorce.