Big Living

It's Saturday, and I have no intention of going anywhere, unless it's to get gas, buy a book with a 40% coupon, pick up a CD I want (yes, I am old school - I like to hold the factory product in my hands), and maybe buy some crickets.

I live big.

What felt a few weeks ago like surrender and not caring anymore now feels like harmony, if not peace. I don't get much done. The floors are still not swept, though the dishes are done and new ones accumulating. I have laundry to fold and more loads to process. It gets done, eventually.

I'm cleaning out a couple of dusty and hairy corners in the dining room, trying to make it a room where art will get done OR dinner eaten. It used to be that I could whip up dinner at the table from 3 hours to 30 minutes. Now? It's been at least a month since anyone has sat at that table, much less eaten.

This is another thing I tried to get my shrink to address: my list. I could sit down and write a list of all the things I need to do. That part is easy. It's doing them. I never actually got to show up my list, much less come up with strategies for accomplishing things. I realize now that I was pretty much just wasting my time with him, though I'm sure it was nice to have him "be my friend" for that year. In retrospect, he wasn't exactly listening to me, and he had no agenda for "our work." His main goal seemed to be getting me to take anti-depressants. When I succumbed and tried 3 weeks of Vitamin P, I had such a panic attack at the gym no less, that I didn't go back for 3 months and I quit Vit. P on the spot.

So, though he was handsome and laughed at my jokes, it was a wash. Now where am I? wishing I had someone to talk to in a therapeutic environment? probably. Wishing for a grief group? maybe so. Lately, a nice hearty cup of tea has chased away the anxiety, but a cup of real coffee can trigger it. At least caffeine is a legal and very cheap drug.

A bright spot: I am good at something. I mean really really good. At Luxor. Ha! I lost my one game where I had 8 million points and was pwning everything the game dished out. So I had to start from scratch. Two hours later, and I'm back to 2.5 millions. PWN!

I found some sketches by the lad and decided that I would make a "coloring book" of his work, along with my dad's. Kind of like an album, except it's their drawings, maybe for coloring, maybe with some colors. The photo album thing in iPhoto is perfect for this sort of thing. That feels good. That's a nice kind of productive.

Back to the dining room. The lad is out of the house for a party, and will come home unhungry, but maybe tomorrow we'll eat in there.

Inconsolable

One thing my shrink did help me with (though I still have issues with how he left things with no closure, like stale bread)... my moods do seem to dictate how I'm doing re: grief. When I'm rested and well-fed, exercised and satisfied, I am in a pretty good mood and therefore, I can handle the grief and loss. (or is it the other way around? when I'm coping ok with the grief, my mood is good?)

but a critical mass of sleepy/tired, hungry, angry and lonely, and watch out - everything is hell in a henbasket (ha ha). I'm bordering on that for a couple of reasons.

One, I started a new teaching job and it's demanding a big amount of energy. Sustained energy for prep and for actual teaching. It's a long class so there's no way I can just skate. However, I am learning about pacing, and giving them time to talk. And they are a good group. Not a bunch of entitled snobbish teenagers, which was the "gene pool" I used to teach.

But still, that's a lot of human contact, responsibility and focus, and there is no ramp-up. Come classtime, it is ON, and I'm in charge. Not sure exactly how I feel about that anymore.

Secondly, tomorrow is the anniversary of my brother's death. His ashes are still not completely dealt with, and the family is having trouble coming to a consensus on dates for scattering. It involves a rather elaborate trip somewhere to honor his wishes... while I know he doesn't care wherever he is, which he believed was nowhere... it is a dangling chad that needs to be dealt with.

Thirdly (did I say only two things?), I haven't been sleeping well at all. Like hardly at all. I am aware of the passage of time, I sleep so lightly. I had a dream last night about moving back to my old town and asking for my old job back, and that somehow it would be all wonderful and cheerful with those co-irkers that I really really couldn't stand (which is why I left in the first place!). So, yeah, very very weird dream.

In the end, I'm really at a loss on how to grieve. I need to move on, but there are still so many dangling chads. I wonder if time will heal them, or if I need to actively do something. I'm so busy, and not in a really good way either. And I get no feedback from my dead family members. That's the roughest thing. I want to tell them, "hey, this is what I'm doing to honor you, to remember you. I miss you all." Just a little contact, a little encouragement from them would be nice.

So yeah, that's why I feel inconsolable. There doesn't seem to be any closure to this grief stuff. No consoling, no satisfaction. I understand now why married couples sometimes die close to one another... it's easier to do that, than it is to figure out how to move on. But I'm a young (ish) woman with a half-grown kid, so I'm in the big middle of life. Waiting for death is not an option.