Powder Room Epiphanies

I was in the bathroom.... hold on... everyone does this. It isn't some shrine or weird place of punishment, unless you follow certain people. Anyway, while I was there it suddenly occurred to me that my life has been divided into a strange set of sequences that has been punctuated by some pretty awful things. I'll give you the synopsis cause by now I know you're indecently curious.

First phase began with my birth and went from 1956 until 1974. I was 17. This phase ended in death. My life totally shifted to another level and place. I don't think it ever occurred to me how radical that was until today. I mean, it was terrible but I never really saw it in this light before. I went from being a young girl in her late teens to a wife in her late teens dealing with the death of her parent and learning how to live with a person I'd known only weeks. No girl should have to be without her mother, particularly on the day she marries, or has her first child five years later. The shift was so profound that years later whenever I miss Mama I'm nearly inconsolable. I'm devastated all over again.

The second phase of my life was from my marriage 1974 until 2009 and culminated, again, in death. My husband suffered a violent heart attack and died as I tried to save him. This wasn't just a shift from one phase to another. This was a violent blow that simply slammed me into a whole other reality without any warning or time to prepare. I still suffer from post traumatic stress.

I thought Mama dying in a clinical setting of a hospital when I wasn't there was horrible. She wasn't coming home and I didn't get to say good-by. I'm left with an image of her unable get up, write, or to speak except with her eyes and being fed through a tube. At 17 this is horrible. And yet, I have to say that my second contact with death was worse than any nightmare I've ever experienced. Being wakened from a sound sleep to your husband thrashing and having him breathe his last breath in your face is an image you won't shake quickly, if ever.

So, in my tiny powder room, I realized that I'm well into the third phase of my life and if it follows the pattern, this won't end well. This is not a happy thought but let's be practical. And truthful. Looking at the pattern and knowing what I know, this is the reality of it. The ultimate end to all things is death.

Where does this leave me? Probably right where I was before. Sitting in the bathroom having my eyes opened to things I'd rather not think about. And getting a fairly clear revelation as to why I struggle with depression fairly regularly. If the high points of your life always end in violence, and believe me, my experience of death is not warm and fuzzy, but if they always end in this manner you're going to be dealing with gremlins regularly.

So, I need to stop beating myself up about feeling this way too much. I've been feeling guilty about feeling bad. It isn't like I've had what the average consumer would term a normal life. The stories I could tell, and probably will some day, are not pretty. Living with an alcoholic was not fun. And still, I was a good kid who never did drugs or smoked or drank or partied. I was a good mom, faithful wife, and caring sister. I wasn't perfect but despite the awful things I've seen and the mistakes I made, I've turned out o.k. I need to stop saying, "Get over it."

The key now I think is try to make this next phase, presumably the final one, last as long as possible and hope that it contains more joy than the two previous ones. For now, at least, it doesn't.

What do you do for the third act?

Just One Touch

Hi....

Why I'm still up is simply beyond my comprehension. I'm so tired. You know how tired I get sometimes. For most of the evening I've been reading blogs and other stuff. I sat and watched .... some show on my computer... I think I only watched one but at the moment, I'm not sure. Then I got up to shut the system down, only to check email and posts one more time... cause we all do that.

Anyway, I just clicked on my Timeline and there you were, smiling out at me, those wonderful blue eyes sparkling just for me. I remember that moment clear as a day. I could read your mind just by looking at your face. It was all there. I remembered. And then, in one blinding flash my whole being screamed with one phrase... I just want touch you. You hands, your arms, you face. Just to put my hands on your cheeks and feel your warm skin and to breath in the scent of you. The sound of that silent scream washed over me like a raging torrent and I was blinded by waves of tears and I gasped for breath with muffled sobs. I buried my face in my hands because I could not bear the flood.

I know...melodramatic. I always was, wasn't I. I'm not so much anymore, except about you. I suppose I should be embarrassed, even though you'd say not.

But you still take my breath away. Every time I see you, I simply can't breath. There is this place between breathing in and breathing out where everything seems to catch. Sometimes, I'm afraid I won't be able start breathing again.  I wonder sometimes... no, I wish that you knew it, before... and now... that you do that to me.

I don't know if you ever knew it.

I only know that I just want to touch you for one moment, one more time.

A Small World

There is no guide on how long grief lasts. I've wondered for over four years now if there were markers, like mile posts along the highway, that would tell me when I was getting close to the point where I won't remember, relive, or feel the death of my husband. Unfortunately, no one appears to have erected such markers. The road is long and I've seen nary a one.

I missed Jerry today.  So, I stopped and bought flowers and took them to the cemetery. I've avoided it for months, felt guilty every time I pass the gates, which is fairly often since they are on a road I travel several times a week. No matter how many times I pass the sadness of it never fades. Oh, I don't fall apart as I once did but honestly, in some ways, this is much worse. I can't explain it. There is a sense of betrayal in it. Imagined, I'm sure, but nonetheless felt. 

As I put the flowers beside his tombstone, I couldn't breath and I couldn't look at the name graven in the white marble. I apologized for being so long in coming and tried to explain  but it is no use. While I know he'd understand, I feel no better. The bands around my chest only tighten and I have to go back to my car where I sit and sob and try to breath and explain why. 

When I see someone walking in my direction, I know it is time to go. No one wants to share this.

And I came home. I don't feel better. I do what I always do. I push it away and try to think about something else. It's a small world, grief. There is nothing else.

The State of Happiness

Today is Jerry's birthday. He would have been 63. He could have officially retired. He had so looked forward to it. But at 59 he died. I kept breathing.

Since 2009 I've been through a series of physical, emotional, and mental upheavals that defy description but if you truly want to torture yourself, it's all here in the blog. I lived in a nightmare hell the first year and can't remember huge amounts of time from that year. The second year, I woke up and realized it wasn't a a nightmare at all, it was just hell. The third year I though I was going to be able to crawl out and maybe, just maybe I'd be able to live among other living beings only to fall back into the pit. I am approaching the 4th anniversary and I've begun to question if life after death is even possible. Not my death. His. Is it even possible to push back the darkness and be, if not happy, content?

I've sought to involve myself with people and things and stay busy but honestly, I live in a vacuum where the only time I see or hear from most people in a 50 mile radius is when someone else has a need. Never when I have one. I try to be obliging but the results is I end up running short of energy, time, money, and reciprocation of such. Nearly 4 years later, I still am sitting in my house, alone, in silence and listening to echos. I have no more outside contact that I did the day the last person left after the funeral and the last calls came in. It shocked me to my core then. I don't shock so easily now.

These days, I don't actually think it is possible to be happy.  The people I know personally are miserable. The problem, as near as I can figure, is our concept of happiness is distorted. People seem to think happiness is doing something we enjoy, all the time. Happiness is being in a crowded room with lots of people we like and who like us and having fun, all the time.  Happiness is having the money to buy all we want, all the time.  Happiness is having security, jobs, friends, things. Happiness is stuff. All the time.

You think, when you don't have things, that getting them will fix it. You'll be happy for sure then. I'll get a new house, go to a new school, a new church, move to a new town, meet new people, get a new job. Right. It won't work.

I've got stuff. I'm not happy.

Let me tell you what unhappiness is and maybe that will explain it better. Living without the person who knew everything about me, right down to my birthmark is the most difficult thing I've ever been forced to do. I once said it felt as if I'd had my arm cut off. I was wrong. It is more like having a leg removed at the hip. And they don't sell a prosthetic for it. Someone said "Think about the good times." I don't dare. I can't reclaim them. I can't relive them. And I can't make new ones. I shatter in a billion tiny pieces and have to pick them up. They are made of obsidian glass and flay me.

In all the 35 years of marriage, I distinctly remember being terribly unhappy on many occasions, times when he displeased me and when I displeased him. Of course, we got past them but there were some times that neither of us really got over. We were human after all. We weren't happy all the time and as he grew sicker, we both grew less so. For years, I was so stubborn and demanding. He seldom said no to me and I was cared for and cherished. Right up to the night he dropped dead.

But you know something, right now, this very minute, I would do everything he asked me if he'd just come home and complain about something. I'd be happy! I'd be ecstatic if he stepped into the room and griped about something trivial. If he left the towel wadded on the seat of the toilet, his shorts in the floor, his shoes in the middle of the living room. I would be overjoyed. If he left dirty dishes on the counter.... I'd wash them with a smile. He had a hard time keeping a job the last few years and I didn't know why. He was sick. But today, if he was unemployed and broke and simply wanted to complain about it, I would so listen and put my arms around him and say, "I'm here. We're in this together. It looks bad but we have one another."

The truth is that there is no feeling like being loved, cared for, and made to feel you are the Queen of the Universe or the King. Realistically, it isn't always like that. But knowing it is always there, why, you can live in a hovel and never notice. I've lived in a few! There is nothing that can take the place of looking across the room when you're worried and having someone smile at you. Or lying in the dark staring at the ceiling and having someone squeeze your hand. They don't have to speak. You just know that they just sent you a message. I'm here. We're in this together. It looks bad but we have one another.

Nothing else in the world feels like that.

Jerry, I'd be happy to see you're face smile across the room.