In the Mists of My Mind ~ Part 3 of 3

 

     I could not for the life of me figure out how to express ... to myself ... how I was feeling in all of that time.  But I knew that I wasn't me being myself during this period, if you can see what I mean.  I have read voraciously ever since I was a child and learned to read.  I have been writing ever since I learned how to write and about rhyming words.  I began keeping the things I wrote when I was fifteen years old.  Except for the time when I had children and didn't have time to eat or sleep let alone write anything, even then I managed a few poems each year.  I have always written poems and I have especially, "always" been a reader.  So what happened?  What was the problem?

     Before you say it, I knew it was grief, but I couldn't understand the lack of interest in reading, writing, or interacting with my children and yet desperately wanting to want to do all three of these things.  Instead I flitted from one thing to another like a hummingbird choosing which flower to seek nectar from.  I knew there was a way to define what was going on.  I, a writer, just couldn't figure out how to define it in words myself, let alone to anyone else.

     Well, during the week of 9/11 this year, I was watching the programs they have on, as I always do, and low and behold, one of the firemen who had survived the Twin Tower attacks explained it in one simple sentence.  He said, "After we finally got to go home, I would go home and do anything I could do so I didn't have to think." 

     Slowly over time, just before the OWFI Conference, my mind began to clear.  I began to write in my journal first. Then thoughts for the poetry books I am working on began to pop up in my head and I would jot those down.  Then a thought here and a thought there to add to the novel I am working on began drifting through my mind and I would write those down.  I finally realized I was writing again.  The champagne bubbles were running through my veins again.  The excitement and joy of creating was mine again.  I was returning to life.

     I have begun to read again.  I have stopped playing games on my computer (as often) and have begun to do more than function, I have begun to live again. To feel alive.  To dream again.  To hope again.  God carried me through the storm.  Now He is leading me into my future.  It still isn’t like it was before.  I am sure it never will like it was before again.  I deal with fears and concerns about what I will do to earn a living.  How I will cope with those emergencies that pop up when I had Bob here to keep me grounded.  How I will survive without him there to support and help me.  I do know God is in control and whatever happens He will lead me through the day to day life and comfort me during those times when I miss Robert the most.  It is a difficult road, as many people are aware, but my journey through life has resumed and my heart sings again and my minds joyfully dances with creating and fluttering from one project to the next.

In the Mists of My Mind ~ Part 1 of 3

     After my husband passed away last year everyone thought I would be doing my best work, writing at my very best.  This made me think I should be writing at my very best too.  To my chagrin, not only could I not write a word, I stopped reading altogether; and I am an avid reader.  I would sit in front of the computer, blank screen, and think to myself, "THINK.  Just think.  Put one word down.  Just one."

     Nothing.  Nada.  Not one letter.  Not one syllable.  Not one word.  Nothing.  More surprising, I didn't feel upset or frustrated  about it.  I didn't care.  It did not phase me at all.

     What I did do was turn on my solitaire and play ... for hours ... and hours ... and hours.  I had found Mahjong several months before my husband passed.  I played it.  For hours ... and hours ... and hours, also. 

     A dear friend introduced me to Pinterest.  I very quickly became obsessed with it too.    I would get on Pinterest and look at everything. I started with tea cups and tea pots, animals, houses, nature and styles.  Then I began looking at clothes, doors, windows, house decorating, outside décor, gardening, flowers, anything and everything I could find, I looked at.

     When I wasn't on the computer, wasting time playing and Pinteresting (did I just make up a new word?) I was trying to figure out how to fix every problem with our home --- painting, reflooring, gardening (a new hobby for me), trying to figure out who I was without my husband, figuring out what the next step was in my life.  Our children were basically grown and I needed them more than they needed me.  I worry I wasn't there for them, even though they insist they were fine.  For the first time, I didn't know how to be there for them because I was a ... what? ... not a mess ... more like an automatum … there physically but useless for anything.

     I made myself get up and do the things I thought needed done; basically, I functioned.  Although at the time, I didn't see it that way.  I gave myself brownie points on how well I was doing.  From the moment I found my husband in our bedroom, until sometime this past Spring, I kept telling my children and friends how well I was doing.  I would say, "Didn't I handle that well?"

 

~ To be continued ~