Altered States

"Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!"
~ George Taylor (Charlton Heston), Planet of the Apes

Talking apes on horseback. That's what some days are. Weird, surreal, and sometimes Charlton Heston shows up in a loincloth.

This week's been as ugly as the weekend was pleasant. Insomnia. Migraines. Grief percolating to the top again. Disturbing images of Charlton Heston in a loincloth.

One disquieting thought, worse than the Heston thing, has just begun to haunt me.  As time goes on, I change from "Johnie and Linda" to Widower John, Marital Zombie. As grief plods on, changing me in subtle and not so subtle ways, I ask myself: If Linda were to return to me today, would she still love me? Would she like me? Would she give me that smile and that sparkle? Will I change so much I'm no longer the "Johnie" part of "Johnie and Linda"?

...and why would a loin-clothed Charlton Heston figure so prominently in my imagination today?

Surprised by Vague Well-Being

“God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out their quality. He knew it already. It was I who didn't. In this trial He makes us occupy the dock, the witness box, and the bench all at once. He always knew that my temple was a house of cards. His only way of making me realize the fact was to knock it down.” 

― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

This weekend was a welcome departure from the normal widower fare.  I did very little outside the apartment. I watched some movies. Cleaned. Did laundry. I purposefully did not work (much). I wish I could say I found "joy" this weekend,  but I will say I wasn't as sad. Instead of wearing the cheap polyester leisure suit of grief (replete with disco-bells and absurdly wide collar) I was allowed the rare emotional equivalent of a sweatpants weekend.

Some of the things I learned or relearned this weekend, in no particular order:

1) I instinctively make my bed with hospital corners. This is leftover emotional conditioning (scarring?) from my military days.

2) My wonderful dog Chloe, who passed away last month, is somehow magically still shedding in my apartment. The jury is out in my mind if she's some kind of crazy Ghost Dog. I could build another dog out of the hair she's left behind, which I'm tempted to do except I'm sure it would either try to kill me Pet Cemetery style or the local villagers would storm my complex with pitchforks and torches (thank you, Stephen King and Mary Shelley!)

3) One no longer mops with a mop. There are all manners of contraptions to choose from, none of which look like the Raggedy Ann-style Rasta-dreadlocked  mop of my youth. Why does the world hate mops, anyway? These weird sponges on a stick or dryer-sheet looking sticks don't cut it.  If you think these are an improvement, you have been duped my friend. This is not progress. It's literally frustration on a stick.

4) I read for the first time in a long while this weekend  I've dearly missed reading. The last two years I haven't retained anything regardless the number of times I'd re-read a paragraph. The five years before that  I read medical journals and tips on care giving. Unless you're an even sadder and more depressed person than I, these things could never be mistaken for "pleasure" reading.

5) I spent a lot of quality time trying to remember the activities I enjoy. This will sound ridiculous to anyone who hasn't suffered loss / PTSD / depression or similar injustices of spirit and is not as easy as it sounds.  The last seven years (the final of the last 17 years) were spent as shield bearer to my Soul Mate as she fought back cancer.  When constantly in battle, you enjoy the quiet moments just being together. Going for a drive. Holding hands. The "little things" cliche is true when you spend every month unsure if this doctor's visit will be the one where the final shoe drops.

Now that I'm single (I could say a widower, half a person, alone, abandoned, but I think "single" is a sufficient euphemism especially as I really am having a good weekend), I've forgotten what I like to do. Sure, I know what I used to like to do but that's more like a vague theory than a memory. Ever try to recreate something your grandmother baked?  You remember how much you loved it. You have the stupid recipe but you just can't quite get it. It's kind of like that. Only instead of a baked treat, it's your life.

Recalled to Life

 “Buried how long?” 

 The answer was always the same: “Almost eighteen years.”

“You had abandoned all hope of being dug out?”

“Long ago.”

“You know that you are recalled to life?”

“They tell me so.”

“I hope you care to live?”

 “I can’t say.”

~ Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities 

I know grief and loss. The dark nights of anguish. The questioning. The anger. The despair. I know the endless days when it feels like you're losing your mind. I know the weeks that flash by when you just know you have.

I'm no psychologist. I'm not a counselor or clergy.  I'm educated in nothing therapeutic. I'm a career military and security professional. I'm a political scientist, a father, and a self-described a semi-kosher Zen Methodist. 

And I'm a widower.  A younger widower.  My Beloved Bride passed away 19 months ago.  I didn't sign up for this club willingly. I was drafted entirely against my will. I've become the most reluctant subject matter expert in the history of subjects, matter, or experts. I share my experience freely for those in the same leaky, terrible boat and those looking on safely from the shore. I'm sometimes funny, often inappropriate, but always touched with a little sadness.  I'm a clown on fire. Kinda funny. Kinda horrible. Kinda hard to stop watching. 

I've experienced grief in most varieties; anticipatory, complicated and most shades in between. In the five and a half years after my Bride's cancer metastasized, we lost her mother, father, and grandmother.  I retired early from my dream job to become a caregiver.  Last month my Grandma died. Hell, three weeks ago I had to put down the family dog who'd been with us since 2001.  I'm not sure what I've done to piss of the LORD, but I am truly sorry (did I mention I'm sometimes inappropriate?).

19 months on and I can function some days. I even manage a sort of happiness for brief periods. But if this is my "New Normal", I don't care for it at all.  I'm being recalled to life. I'm being recalled and I go kicking and screaming. Do I care to live? It's still too early to say. 

Life Goes On...

Wheel in the sky keeps on turnin'
I don't know where I'll be tomorrow
Wheel in the sky keeps on turnin'
~ Journey

It's been a long time since I've been able to write. It was too soon when I tried two years ago. It was too soon when I tried again last year. I honestly have no idea if it's too soon now. So much has changed since then. Things are better, worse, and the same. My journey (I hate that word...more on that in the future) has had more incarnations than Dr. Who and more emotional turn over than ...well, lead singers for the group Journey (which I don't hate so much).

My grief has subsided and intensified, depending on your perspective.  It's subsided in that it is not the overarching theme of day to day living anymore. Had you told me this last year, I'd have laughed at you. Loudly. And probably rudely! And I might have punched you in the throat.

It's intensified in that I've transitioned from grieving the loss of My Beloved full-time to simultaneously grieving loss and rebuilding a life where I'm almost single.  Grief has gone from an 80-plus hour a week profession to a part-time fast-food job. It's irritating, doesn't pay well, and offers no benefits. The loss is no longer in a suit, shouting in its cell phone and angrily texting while driving 85 through the school zone of my sanity. It's now a pimple-faced teenager in polyester that can't get my order right despite asking me three times if I want fries with that. ("I don't want fries! Sweet Jesus, I ordered a chicken salad! Why would I want...? Never mind, kid. Just ring my up.)

I'm rebuilding my life while dealing with the ghost of my marriage and past life. My emotions and thoughts are a construction site cacophony of complicated grief and pale hope. I occasionally have flashes of insight, but more often than not I stumble in the dark; laughing, crying, sometimes both at the same time. Sometimes making that weird snorting sounding when you halfway cry then have a hiccup (man, that hurts).

Through all our travails and pain, life goes on. The wheel really keeps on turning. The trick is not letting it crush you.