This is just a very strange time for me emotionally. I feel pretty good, meaning that I am not walking around in any kind of a funk, laughter comes easily and without guilt and I am satisfied and happy in my world. But over the last week I am easily moved to tears, have moments here and there of irritability and a deep seated inner laziness for anything other than taking care of my home and those I love. Leave me at home and let me clean and cook. I am not interested in making money and I don't care about the Olympics, the election or the war. Let me burrow in and cocoon within what is truly important to me. Let me exist in this safe haven. Let me just love them.
I know it is driven by the coming first day of school. I am experienced enough now to know the day itself will be anti-climactic most likely and all these days leading up to it are more powerful than the arrival of the anticipated benchmark.
For the first time, during my meeting with Heroes For Children the other day, I had a desire in me to actually break down in raging tears, to shriek and weep, to churn into a fetal ball on my knees on the floor. Its amusing how logical I can be at times with urges like that. There is no doubt the woman I was talking to just would have gone ahead and done it if her spirit told her to. She talked about how she would still, four years after the death of her child, break down so hard that eventually her husband would dial her best friend in helplessness or call her mother., and I listened in horrified wonder, trying to imagine what it would look and feel like to just give in every time that emotion hit, to demonstrate it with the same ferociousness outwardly as it churned me up inwardly. But that's just not me. All I could think of was how unfair...her husband had the same loss she did. And people need us to keep getting on with it. I guess I just cannot imagine the effort it would take to pick myself up again after such a display and get on with life, not even once, let alone so regularly that there was a phone list of people to come to the rescue. Honestly I think to me it would be harder than just grimly, determinedly going forward. But for a brief moment I imagined it was like me, and for a brief moment the idea was frightening and yet appealing. Its how I feel inside sometimes. But I can't call that kind of display out at will, though I know there are probably people in my life who would witness it for my sake if it was what I needed to do. But I just would not feel right. It would feel both selfish and useless to me. He'd still be gone when it was all over. Its not like I would feel better or lessen my sorrow through it. I'd just be drained and exhausted on top of my sorrow and the other things I am doing to be a good person and to be dignified in loss while living in a way that is a testament to his memory would be harder to carry out. So in a sense, I was somewhat repeled by her self-amused report of this behavior, not in terms of disliking her or thinking she is wrong, but in the strength of my feeling of wrongness regarding myself. I can't do that. And even if I could, I can't imagine being four years out and STILL doing it. It would be unfair to everyone here supporting me and helping me onward, to deliberately and regularly give in to despair.
So it is Saturday morning and I am the only one up, which is just how I like it. I am making bacon and the coffee is brewed and the house smells like the farm house of my youth and that makes me feel warm, snug, content, secure. Loving them with food and the rich, bitter tang of coffee, a morning tradition that spans chasms of time to generations long gone. I love the idea that they will awaken, smell this and maybe build that pathway of memory that will bring these times back to them with almost unconscious comfort and sense of well-being, of being loved, that it may bring up good and comforting associations for Joe as well. This is what is important. This is what fulfills me.
I know it is driven by the coming first day of school. I am experienced enough now to know the day itself will be anti-climactic most likely and all these days leading up to it are more powerful than the arrival of the anticipated benchmark.
For the first time, during my meeting with Heroes For Children the other day, I had a desire in me to actually break down in raging tears, to shriek and weep, to churn into a fetal ball on my knees on the floor. Its amusing how logical I can be at times with urges like that. There is no doubt the woman I was talking to just would have gone ahead and done it if her spirit told her to. She talked about how she would still, four years after the death of her child, break down so hard that eventually her husband would dial her best friend in helplessness or call her mother., and I listened in horrified wonder, trying to imagine what it would look and feel like to just give in every time that emotion hit, to demonstrate it with the same ferociousness outwardly as it churned me up inwardly. But that's just not me. All I could think of was how unfair...her husband had the same loss she did. And people need us to keep getting on with it. I guess I just cannot imagine the effort it would take to pick myself up again after such a display and get on with life, not even once, let alone so regularly that there was a phone list of people to come to the rescue. Honestly I think to me it would be harder than just grimly, determinedly going forward. But for a brief moment I imagined it was like me, and for a brief moment the idea was frightening and yet appealing. Its how I feel inside sometimes. But I can't call that kind of display out at will, though I know there are probably people in my life who would witness it for my sake if it was what I needed to do. But I just would not feel right. It would feel both selfish and useless to me. He'd still be gone when it was all over. Its not like I would feel better or lessen my sorrow through it. I'd just be drained and exhausted on top of my sorrow and the other things I am doing to be a good person and to be dignified in loss while living in a way that is a testament to his memory would be harder to carry out. So in a sense, I was somewhat repeled by her self-amused report of this behavior, not in terms of disliking her or thinking she is wrong, but in the strength of my feeling of wrongness regarding myself. I can't do that. And even if I could, I can't imagine being four years out and STILL doing it. It would be unfair to everyone here supporting me and helping me onward, to deliberately and regularly give in to despair.
So it is Saturday morning and I am the only one up, which is just how I like it. I am making bacon and the coffee is brewed and the house smells like the farm house of my youth and that makes me feel warm, snug, content, secure. Loving them with food and the rich, bitter tang of coffee, a morning tradition that spans chasms of time to generations long gone. I love the idea that they will awaken, smell this and maybe build that pathway of memory that will bring these times back to them with almost unconscious comfort and sense of well-being, of being loved, that it may bring up good and comforting associations for Joe as well. This is what is important. This is what fulfills me.
Comments