top of page
Search

4. Nowhere to Be


We all need to be somewhere.

Written Monday, December 16, 2019 / Day 126 / Middle of the Night


Of all the themes that continue to play in the background in the state of grief is not being connected to anything. There is a detachment that is constant. I know in my situation most of that is due to the fact I was totally connected to my dear sweetie - in everything. No I mean in everything.


With that connection lost - there is nothing emotionally or physically to anchor me to the present.


The past - in varying degrees - is still quite toxic. In reviewing the materials I am going through to identify relevant items I ran into our wedding cards received from our friends. Yes we still had them after 46 years. That’s just the way we were and I still am.


I took a look at two of the cards and that was all it took. I had to put them back and find the box of Puffs.


Now that is not as constant an occurrence as it used to be - so on some bigger scale perhaps there is progress. But the fact that it still happens is disarming and mildly depressing. Those moments drag up the past. The past is appealing of course since those were our times. But the snapping back to the present is where the whiplash occurs and the temporary damage is done.


Our routines - whether exciting or tedious do define us. The cycles of our lives give us a direction - even if within that cycle there are unpleasantries and issues. At least there is something.


Here - there are just endless empty places where something used to be - but is no longer there.


Obligations - at least to me - become mini-doses of a stable and predictable reality. There is a mission. A reason - an objective. That provides order and focus - most often to the exclusion of the harsh reality that is usually my world.


The obligation ends. And then we’re back. To what exactly? Well, to nothing. It is like a dream state where you are dealing with a situation that cannot be dealt with so you go around and around - never quite getting to the end of the matter.


Which brings us to this moment.


At least there is an essay to write.


Other than that there are certainly things. Things to do. Things to take care of. But they are just mini-obligation. They do not add up to a life.


There’s the issue. Right now life is circling the field. Due to the storms the tower can not clear us for landing. So we circle until there is an opening to land.


Except in this twilight zone - there is no clearing. No landing is possible.


So we circle. And circle. And circle.


No wonder occasionally this conflict just erupts in tears. Tears are the emotional safety valve.


At least it is something. But it does not resolve the main issue - nor can it. There is only temporary relief.


For me my prayer is continually that God will turn my grief - all that energy that is everything God isn’t - and make it the foundation for strength and power based on the love I have for my dear sweetheart.


I am far enough down the road where I do see tempering in certain areas. Less intensity since the end of October. I can scrape up enough evidence to help me see that the worst times seem to be in the past.


But there are degrees of worst. There is still quite a supply of it right now.


What can change this?


I keep hearing - and we all have heard it - time will tell. And to some degree that is true. We are built with the capacity to heal. And there is some of that going on.


But for the present - the problem of having no emotional place to go is a major problem. It’s like having no other restaurant available than the one that makes you sick. And you are compelled to continually eat there. You know for sure what is going to happen - yet you must go.

So these essays and the family history project are at least two areas of a small focus. They don’t qualify as a life as yet - but they are something positive in a world of extreme negativity. So that is something.


I am considering doing something unprecedented - at least for me - in the next few weeks. I have had this idea from the very beginning that everything going forward must be new. Not knowing completely what that meant I have done what I can to try things that are new.


The reality is that there are just too many things - most of my life really - that I can no longer do. At all. For any reason. Those things without the part that completed me are just not doable nor will they ever be without her.


My prayers are for that newness - in whatever form that will take. So to take a step I am looking into church congregations to visit in an attempt to begin. As the analyst - there are many criteria involved, a lot of emotion attached and all the elements that can tie me into a mental knot if I let them.


I have a step. I have a plan to implement it. In the weeks ahead I will be preparing for that moment. Everything will not change in an instant - I know that. But a small change in direction can have a dramatic effect in most situations.


Just the idea of thinking this way is an entirely new approach. So in that way this could be the delineation between the past and the future. That future that I have so resisted and been sickened by. Perhaps because it symbolically leaves my sweetie behind. But it has to because she is all right. And I am not.


So in the department of new things - there appears to be something heading my way.


It will not be dramatic in one way - everything will still flow as it dysfunctionally flows for the present. But the change - the approach - the idea of stepping out into something foreign - something with no past - this thing might actually be the thing.


We will see.


It will lead somewhere.


It will lead to the future.


And as it unfolds it will perhaps fill in that void that I must live with each day.


It will lead to someplace.


Someplace to be.

Comments

bottom of page