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16. Looking Back

Updated: May 1, 2020


A trail of the tangible.

Written Thursday February 6, 2020 / Day 178 / Morning


The only absolute in this grief journey was the moment that took me here.


As much as I struggle to figure out anything - there is a foggy, nebulousness and emptiness in even the less awful days.


In this season of goodbye that seemed to have a very definite beginning - January 24th - I began to glance over my shoulder back to where I have been and arrived at an interesting observation.


I can see how things have been unfolding - only when I look backward.

I wander through my days taking care of the obligations that require attention. I often just cannot operate for a period of time so I stop, check the weather on TV, assess what I cannot obviously assess at all or just go into a deeper state of neutral - if that is even possible.


But in looking back - I do see definite significant events that have occurred.

The shadowy world of grief - where all you can sometimes see is the shadow but not what is casting it - leaves a calling card or two of something that actually translates into my tangible world.


I look back and see my trip to Buffalo in October - part of me thinks I was crazy - another part of me was driven and another part (this may be why there is so much confusion because I have too many parts right now) - that other part not caring at all about any of it.


That trip was necessary for me. Emotionally off the charts and upon my return contentious and painful to an unmeasurable degree.


But after that point - the heavy weight of despair that I had been facing was lifted. It just went away. And it has never returned.

That was something.


Something real.


Then the constant thought in the background of my mind that everything must become new in my life led to the exercise of searching for a group to embrace. Finding a candidate - the 8 week journey to that first day was also definite - January 12th. The fifth month anniversary of my life ending.


God making it clear to me (Volume 3 - Essay#19 “Newness”) that this date was to mark a new beginning for me. One I still reject and resist but one that was started.


Then on January 24th when I wrote the first of two letters - in the morning the one from Joann to me (Volume 6 - Essay #7 “Dear Stephen") and the second that evening from me to her (Volume 6 - Essay #8 “Dear Joann") - those essays unleashed emotions on a level that stunned me in their intensity.

Even today I still cannot completely read either of the letters without breaking down emotionally. That is an exercise I am continuing - once I can just read them out loud - that will seem to signify something important.


During this period - the prayer I had been praying for three months that these artifacts that are throughout our home, these things of our life together will no longer will make me sad and empty.

Then a disarming moment came when I reached for one of her things and in that moment - that item was no longer toxic for me to touch. It was another stunning change - I could touch one of Joann’s things and not have a reaction. All of those “things” that had been affecting me - no longer had any effect.


Amazing.


The question then looms - what is now ahead?


I still have abject emptiness and despair - but at a seemingly reduced level.


I have no interest - nor opinion about anything nor do I really care. I reject being managed (which I am not in any way right now - but distasteful of the very idea).


I am the president of neutrality right now. The czar of ambivalence. The Potentate of “whatever”.


Those things - I know - will change at some point. Of that I am sure.


After completing my 4th week of attending with my new group I scratch my head as I am prone to do every day. Wondering - where am I now? To which I answer - right here. Alone, on my own and taking each day as it comes until I see what is next.


The only thing I realize now - is that I may not really know when that is - until I look back to see where I have been.

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