Pensée time...

Honest truths. It might hurt but give me the ugly, please never lie.

The other day, I was asked – paraphrasing here…’why didn’t you stay at the hospital when stuff was happening?’

My first response was, I could not, I had other responsibilities – the dogs, the birds – someone had to take care of them. That has always been my response. I would get there at 7 or 8 in the morning and stay ‘til 8 or 9 at night most nights if not later.

When more gently asked of why I did not let someone help me during that time, My honest hard reply though after taking a breath, was,  I desperately needed the break. I needed some ME time. I needed to be away for a little while. I needed the quiet that I did not have anymore.

More quietly, to myself, I was slowly falling apart, and that time alone gave me a little reprieve.

That may make me a bad person and that is okay. I am the only one who has to live with that.

I needed a break.

Having those few hours of no responsibility was like having the silence when the eye of a hurricane is over you.  That time before shit starts twirling around you again and you have no idea what things will look like in twenty minutes or two hours or the next day even.

How else can I say it other than, it was my time to let go of the breath I had been holding all day long while sitting there in the hospital with Brandon.

So, I went home at night. I got a break for a short bit of time to refresh and sleep and get myself prepared for going back the next day or later that night to sit with Brandon and be his rock.

I just wish he had had that chance, too, to take a break.

End of the day

Ends of the day are my most difficult times during a day as I had alluded in my last post.

End of the day is when all the busy abruptly stops. Your mind in motion with things you have to do at work is suddenly halted and that's generally when one can start to decompress. Usually, my decompression would happen in my car during the drive home when I was still driving to work. 

Mindless music, an audio book, or just taking in the scenery; all a needed intrusion into what is an otherwise overthinking/hyperactive mind.

When COVID hit and I started working from home permanently, that decompression time was kind of lost. I no longer had that drive time; that half hour to myself, with no phones, no emails, no gotta do this, gotta do that. When COVID hit, that decompression time became where I would go chat with hubs for a few and we would rehash our day before moving onto  things needing to be done or things we wanted to do after the work day had ended.

When Brandon got sick, our days and schedules changed significantly. 

<where I sound like I am ungrateful or bitchy, perhaps both? I'm not either, I promise.> 

He was no longer sitting in his office because it hurt too much for him to sit at a desk. He was now here in the space where I sit about fifty feet away from me. 

We had gotten him a lift chair as standing up unassisted became difficult. The quiet little space I had created for my "office" was now a space where the TV was on all day long and where another body filled the room, dogs were meandering around, etc.

I had some important stuff going on at work, but those things faded quickly and deeply with Brandon's diagnosis. My co-workers and boss understood and gave me a huge leeway. That presented some stress nonetheless, I tried to maintain normalcy which sometimes added further to my stress.

Where it started gradually, I was suddenly juggling an additional ball in the air. Wife first/foremost - not new although those dynamics changed, too. Worker - also not new, except for now sharing my work space with hubs doing his own thing IN that same space. The new ball was the new position of Caretaker. That included being a nurse, an Uber, an appointment keeper, a medication reminder, a medication giver, a wound caregiver, chef, housekeeping, therapist, etc., all while trying to maintain somewhere in all that, me. Very new, very huge, very stressful.

It was all a 24 hour job and I didn't have any ME time anymore. 

When Brandon died, I had an hour drive to make to get back home. I had back a "moment" of decompression where my whole life was suddenly and vastly different than it had been just a few hours earlier when I'd taken the drive in the middle of the night down to the hospital. 

That first "ball" of being a wife was gone. So was the third ball of being a caretaker. Right then and there, all I had left was the second ball and that was it. Continue to work, continue to exist and somewhere along the way, I have to figure out how to bring myself back into the equation.

That is where I find stuff difficult. I have a huge gap of time in between work and the sleep that ends one day and begins another to contend with. As that moment draws near Monday through Friday, a tiny part of me way deep inside feels a panic. 

It sounds dumb, but going from a million miles an hour to suddenly crashing into a brick wall and finding out you're still alive but very much alone after you wake up is kind of heavy. 

So, I write, I walk, I clean stuff, I talk to people if they're available, I put on music and balter goofily around the kitchen singing. I do busy stuff to occupy my new found huge gaps of time that for a while I did not have. 

I hate it. 

I am learning how to deal with it though. I have lists in my head of things I want to do once things have calmed down a little more, after I find my footing really is  secure.

I'm figuring out "why", "where", "who" and "when" and until that time I'm sort of just moving through the motions at the end of the day. 

Four Months In - Gettin' By

October – four months in

Mornings are becoming slower to start even though the time change has not happened just yet. The last two days have begun with some beautiful pink tinged clouds accompanying the much cooler temperatures that this area has had recently. The cooler weather, a welcome change. Evenings come a little sooner now and are a little longer.

Mornings and evenings are usually “difficult” times for me.

Morning – waking up from under bodily warmed covers in a still dark room and becoming conscious again of what is.

Evening – ending the day with a comfortable sigh but not having your person there to talk about your day.

Morning first.

Morning time is becoming a bit less difficult in that there is routine. Wake, stretch, yawn, pat a couple dogs, wake up a couple more that are still drowsing and help them out of their bed. Take them outside and walk around for a bit. Start food bowls for the parrots, take care of my own needs; Dress, coffee, then begin work. All fairly mindless actions.

That first moment though of opening my eyes after the alarm goes off where stuff rushes back in very quickly and suddenly? that is difficult. That realization of the sheer and utter singularity of the life I am leading right now. I am in charge of me, and I have some decisions to make right now before I swing my legs out of bed.

What is today going to be like? Well, obviously one cannot definitively answer that question, but I can control how I will feel and react. So, how will I handle today? How am I feeling inside right now? Kind of sad? Well, okay, you need to put on something that you think is pretty or powerful.

Feeling strong today? Keep that feeling. Again, dress for it, keep it going. Dress your naked face maybe and own that feeling. Don’t hide your face with your hair. Get up and just keep moving.

Work keeps me busy, but there are times when I lean back and for a millisecond, all confidence is lost and I wonder why?

What is all this for and how did I end up here? How do other people do this – life.

I know I am not the only one to lose someone. There are folks before me who have loved, who STILL love but also lost or are losing someone. Whether it be from death, sickness, age or divorce or another reason altogether. No matter the reasons, their pain is just as valid as is mine. I am just sharing me and how loss has affected my own person.

Right now? I kind of feel “blah” and I’m going to quote Bon Jovi’s song from Cross Road Someday I’ll be Saturday Night here…’my life’s a bargain basement/all the good shit’s gone.’  

But...someday, I WILL be Saturday night ;) 

I am just trying to figure out where I belong right now and doing things a moment at a time…

To be continued…