Thirteen Weeks
Today, I keep thinking about change.
Ihad a difficult morning, and actually ended up texting a few people to get some support (one of those times when I felt I needed to ask for it directly). I was grateful to get the responses from folks that I did, but nobody needs to feel like they’re on-call for me.
I think that one of their observations rang true for me, and that the reason this morning was so emotionally heavy for me was because the weather was pretty fall-like. The temperature was down in the mid-60s, and the sun wasn’t shining blindingly, and the air felt crisp and not boiling or humid enough to make me sweat the second I stepped out the door. It really did feel like fall to me, and fall has always been my favorite season. I think it’s very possible that the sensations of entering a new season hammered home to me, once again, the fact that Kellie is gone. I won’t have her here with me to celebrate fall this year, or winter, or any more seasons at all. Spring of this year was all that we got.
Fall feels like comfort and relaxation and rest to me, and now I’m worried that I’m not going to be able to get those positive feelings when it does roll around. In much the same way as the joy of reading has been mostly eluding me for these past three months, I’m concerned that fall has also been taken away from me. I realize that “taken” sounds like an act done out of malice, like something that included volition and something intended to make me hurt.
It still doesn’t feel like anything “took” Kellie away from me, but there have been so many elements of my life that have been taken.
It’s easy for us to think of grief and loss as being about a person being gone, but I’ll note once again that your entire life is now gone. Or at least what it once was. All these parts have, really, been taken from you. Some folks feel that they’ve been lost too, because they’ve changed so much themselves as a result of the experience. I’m not to that point myself, yet, but I do really regret how many parts of me feel so much worse than they used to be just a few months ago.
It’s a challenge for me to put as much importance on all kinds of things which used to be major priorities for me, these days. Sure, some of that is simple executive dysfunction stuff, but my memory and my hobbies and so many parts of me that I once felt were fundamental are missing for the time being, and so much change can make us feel foreign to ourselves.
I hate knowing that I have some fairly important tasks to tackle and yet not feeling able to do any of them at all. I have faith that I will address the ones that need immediate attention, and I’ve built up enough good will in my various roles that folks are still giving me the benefit of the doubt when things fall through the cracks. I still experience guilt on a nearly-hourly basis about all the things I should be doing instead of writing, instead of taking a nap with the dogs, instead of sitting on the bench in Kellie’s garden and trying to make sense of what my life has become.
Another change that’s brand-new for me is that I’m now a person who gets homesick, and not just a little bit. I’ve always been a guy who looks for new situations and new places to explore. I love staying in hotels, and I can’t remember ever feeling a strong pull toward home when I’m away overnight. Kellie was the opposite—she would always rather be back here to sleep in her bed and shower in her shower and eat at her table. She wanted to be here, in our space that we love, although she loved exploring with me too. At the end of the day, she’d rather be here.
That doesn’t mean I wasn’t homesick for Kellie when I was out without her. The difference is that I could always call her and alleviate that discomfort. We could (and would) talk for hours, just like when we had a long-distance relationship when we first got together.
So my feelings of what was “home” and what I needed to return to have always centered around Kellie. She was the planet I orbited. And now that she’s gone, I feel homesick for my house for the first time in my life. I struggle to stay overnight more than a night without giving up and heading right back home. If it was Kellie I was missing, I could just call her and relieve the tough feelings. But it’s my house, and there’s nothing I can do to feel better besides drive home and be in this space.
Part of it is probably missing the dogs, because I love them very much and it’s always harder to sleep without them. But there’s something about this house that I’m drawn back to now—I feel a physical need to be back.
Change can be a good thing or a bad one, and it’s much more likely to be both at once than a single note.
And I can’t tell you how many times I’ve told my students and clients (and myself) that change is difficult no matter whether it’s due to something good happening or not.
These changes in me, and in my life, are not due to something good. I think a lot about the concept of post-traumatic growth. The fact is, people often learn and grow in the aftermath of a trauma. I also think about how fruit which grows from a poison vine can end up being lovely, but can also end up being poisonous itself. Either (or both) could be the case here in my life.
These changes might be poison to me, and they might be positive. Them all occurring as a result of Kellie’s death have a tendency to make me label them as being uniformly negative, but that’s not necessarily fair. As an example, me waking up early without an alarm has been something that I’ve come to accept as a welcome change. I’m now somehow a morning person, against all odds, and I’m now okay with that. Not a negative change, though I felt it was when it first popped up in my life.
So as I keep changing (or, more accurately, as I keep noticing changes that started slowly happening two or three months ago), please keep being willing to give me grace and letting me acknowledge that I don’t feel at all normal. I’m not admitting, yet, that I’ve lost myself. I think there’s still a chance at me recovering some of these aspects of myself that feel like they’re gone forever.
XOXO,
Matt