how did i get here?

my husband, my beautiful Dragon, died suddenly at 12:03 AM on 9 February 2009. there was a cold, lovely full moon and 3 feet of snow on the ground. i "slept" for the following 10 months and "woke" to the physical and emotional pain and torments of deep grief. i "woke" to find i had moved the day of his funeral and that i am lost. i am looking for me while i figure out the abstract, unanswerable questions that follow behind any death. my art has evolved. his death changed that as well because i am forever changed and will forever bear the mark of losing the only man i can ever love.
there is alive and there is dead and there is a place in between. i am here wholly in my heart for my children, but i feel empty inside at this time. i miss him. i have not gotten very far in my grief journey. i make no apologies for this.
this is my place, my blog, where i write to tell the universe that i am still here.

Sunday, November 4, 2012

far too tired ~ part 2 ~ the search for peace

i am struggling.  worries and fears overwhelm me at this time.  i've got things going on at work.  things going on in my personal life.  too much and i am so very tired.

sleep, when it comes, does nothing for me.

personal life:  i've written the VA about my new position, the raise, and i've heard nothing.  i called late last summer and was told that since i wrote the letter, they will process and send me a letter letting me know of any adjustments.  i've still heard nothing and suffer severe anxiety each month, waiting to see if they send me my stipend.  it's going to end.  i know it.  but living in limbo is crushing me.  i struggle and do nothing ~ I DO NOTHING extra.  no movies.  no clothes.  nothing that is not absolutely crucial to my existence.  and i miss fun.

personal life:  i wouldn't mind a friend but the alternative to that is being afraid to find a friend.  haven't had any luck down here with friends.  i'm too poor.  i'm now too busy.  i'm too exhausted to be any good to anyone.  

personal life:  i'm lonely.  i miss him.  i haven't taken off my wedding rings.  i see men coming into the store and i feel nothing.  they are not attractive.  they are not interesting.  nothing stirs inside me.  i miss HIM.  i love him.  i trusted him.  he knew everything about me.  he was too much of everything my heart desired.  he was, flawed as he was, he was too perfect.

personal life:  still working on that quilt.  so much work.  i need to get up the courage to ask her for more money laying out the amount of work she has added to this.  i call this quilt Sisyphus.  i thought i was close and it came rolling back down over the top of me.  so much more work  

work:  i've got a girl who is a part time manager who has become arrogant and a finger-pointer when anything goes wrong.  and it's all her.  at the core of every drama, it's her.  when i speak to her she instantly becomes overly agitated and loud.  she paints herself as a victim and i hate that.  we're going to have a BIG meeting with my boss and my boss's boss, and my other two managers.  it's going to be a meeting of whose going to throw everyone under the bus as far and as fast as she can.  in other words, i think i might have my first drink of alcohol since my diabetes diagnosis immediately after this meeting.

work:  long drive.  longer hours.  young people who have no work ethic.  it's disheartening.

and i am not ungrateful for my job.  i love it.  but this are thorns on roses.  puppies nip.  to make those beautiful flowers grow it must rain.  life is good but people can suck.  love is great and then they die.

i search for peace.  i take too heart too much what people say to me.  i'm not complaining.  i'm relating here what i would curl up beside my beloved husband and say.  i have no other recourse.  it's a way to talk it out and see it.  i read back over what i've written and i can say, "okay, it's out there.  someone knows.  he knows.  i'll find my way.  i'll find guidance, support, my path."

death is an artist.  i wrote this on someone's blog or on Facebook somewhere.  but i think of death now as an artist.  it is a sculptor changing our minds, our way of thinking, molding us into different people than we were before that horrible moment when we turned about and went home alone.

death is a whittler.  it shaves off and out of our lives the people who have closed minds.  it whittles away the people who refuse to understand, or who refuse to stay beside us even while they admit they don't know what we're feeling.  not being able to feel what we are feeling is fine.  admit that and stay with me.  listen to me.  hold my hand.

bring me a cup of hot tea and be silent with me because, as long winded as i can be,

sometimes it still hurts to much to talk.  or worse, i don't know how to put in into words.

would that i had a place where i could go, a shrine or altar that i had created that was simple and profoundly sacred.  i could go there and sit and just be.  not think.  or think.  pray.  sigh.  not read so much as remember poems, psalms, words of wisdom drawn from the myriad of places i've gotten them from.  but i have a place i go to.  that room up there is in my head.  when i close my eyes for even a moment, if i need this place, it's there for me.  i pretend it's all mine in my fantasy house.  i go downstairs and look out the windows at the ocean.  then i turn and light the candles and i contemplate peace.  i try to empty my mind of all the anguish and just focus on the good.  him.  my children.  my dogs.  what i am thankful for.  i try to re-center myself to face all the drama and the worries of THIS world.  

one foot here in this world but my eyes on the later.  i read a book i won't speak to here. it has changed me.  changed my opinion of a few things.  me mostly.  i'll write about it some other time, after my thoughts about it are more cohesive.  

for now, the search for peace continues.  

i wish it for all of you.

2 comments:

Judy said...

I feel like a part of me has been amputated and yet the phantom pain lingers on. A future of nothingness. Dark thoughts come with the longer dark hours of night. Does it ever get any better? I don't think it possibly can. Peace--where is it?

Debbie said...

Your analogies of death as an artist and a whittler are so powerful. I hope moments of peace find there way to you soon. I'm searching for it as well. Jobs, children, life go on yet that hole where he used to be is my constant companion. I don't see how that will ever change so I'm trying to make peace living with it. Haven't figured out how to do it yet... I'll be thinking of you and your Dragon tomorrow as we commemorate Remembrance Day in Canada.

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