Grief, Stress, and fighting your way out of darkness

It’s really hard being in a dark place. It’s hard to think. It’s hard to function. It’s hard to BE. I knew grief was going to be hard. Believe me. I watch people (face to face and virtually) and I knew it was going to be hard. Never in my darkest imagination did I ever realize just how hard.

We are at the far edge of January. I’m sitting in my half cleaned office at o-dark-thirty lit by my happy tree and candle light. It’s “go live” weekend in Asia so I’m on call and semi-trapped near my desk, I’m WAY WAY WAY behind in everything that is life (go figure… 107 days being completely and totally lost most of the time puts you way way way behind…). This weekend, not being able to go anywhere, I decided to dedicate to cleaning my office. It was a good plan… but has kind of been a bad execution. I realized half way through that not only am I way behind on life, I hadn’t touched a LOT of what is in my office in… yeah… 107 days. Cleaning was really hard yesterday. Oxygen hoses… the waterproof pad off of the hospital bed… shirts and boxers… things go put places where they didn’t have to be dealt with. Now they have to be dealt with. Some of them I still can’t quite cope with but now they are in a crate together with other things I can’t quite cope with so when the time comes I can probably cope with them all at once.

or maybe not

Stress sneaks in… being the only one who can possibly do laundry… being the only one who can possibly do dishes… being the only one who can clean the dogs’ booger bowls so they have water… being the only one… the only one… the only one… the only one… and realizing that I am failing epically at everything I try to do as managed to send me into panic attacks far more often than I like to realize. Not sure if my PCP will prescribe another small prescription of xanex when these are gone or not. I try hard to not take them even when I know I need to take them because I’m always afraid that I’m going to need them worse later and they won’t be there. I doubt myself at every turn. Tears are never far away.

I know in my head that I’m really not like this. I know that I’m not stupid. I know that I’m not epically a failure. I know that some how I can get a handle on things. I also don’t know how. But it’s coming…. slowly I’m shoveling my way out. If I can just get through until MY taxes are done and the return is back, maybe I can start to fix the mess I keep finding myself in. I would love to ask my fairy godmother for about $1500 right now to get to a place where I think maybe I can breathe just a little…

No is not a popular word…

In my head, I also know what stress does to my body. Periodically I’m reminded of just what it does do. The last few days life has really caught up with me and I’m fighting a flare (one that I’m trying to fight through without asking for prednisone because I really don’t want to resort to that if I don’t have to). It’s funny…. I get torn between I am REALLY sorry we got the walk in tub (because I’ll be paying it off FOREVER) and being incredibly grateful for the fact that I lost 60 pounds so can sit on the floor of the tub and that the hot (thank you for the HUGE new water heater) water comes up to my neck… sitting in hot water helps and the normal tub wouldn’t probably do it for me. Yesterday it was just my shoulder, this morning my wrist joined in. I KNOW what stress does. What I don’t know right now is what to do about stress. I’m burning candles. I’m playing meditation on Headspace. I’m playing Sorcerer radio. I try to walk (but the treadmill isn’t as good as outside and outside when Asia is going live isn’t an option).

again… I know in my head I can do this… but… man… knowing and doing some days are really different things.

Some days (and I feel like today is going to be one of them) it’s all I can manage to do to simply hang on… Not do… not be… not anything… just… dig in my nails and hang on.

Reading this, I realize that I probably ought not puke words through my fingers to screen… too much honesty… too much reality… too much… just too much… but I also know that at some point the too much might be what I need or what someone else needs to hear. So I guess I don’t delete it I just soldier on.

And the world around me is coming to life… so… I guess it is time to pull up my big girl panties and do what needs to be done. I know I will get “there”. I know I will. The light days are gaining on the dark ones… until whenever… just keep swimming… just keep swimming… what do we do… we swim…

Love and Light
AprilJoy
1/31/2021