I'm sorry and I know people mean well - most are genuinely concerned when they ask the question, and they are actually looking for an answer from me - well the blunt and honest answer to every single one of these questions is "I'm doing crap!"
I've thought about getting a t-shirt or a cap printed with those three words written on it, or maybe something like "please don't ask me how I am!" just to head people off at the pass, because it's automatic these days to ask how someone is when we meet them - and to be honest 99.99% of the time it's not a problem.
But unfortunately I happen to be currently existing in that 00.01% of space - and being asked how I am doing is the worst possible question - because I just want to scream out "How the **** do you think I am? I've just lost the love of my life after watching helpless for three years as her body shut down and stopped working - so I'm obviously ****** marvellous!!!!" - but you'll be pleased to know I don't say anything like that at all.
I've created a kind of fixed expression that's not quite a smile - it's about as neutral and nondescript as I can get and answers those questions just as a shrug of the shoulders would do - a kind of "I've nothing to say" really.
"Functioning" is the word I've started to use - because that's what I'm doing right now - just functioning. I get up everyday and I do things to get me through everyday. I'm keeping myself presentable, managing to eat, keeping the house clean (I even painted that back room), shopping, walking the dog, I even joined the gym (that was predictable I suppose) - so I am doing "stuff" - but nothing that requires too much effort.
I went into the bank to pay off the mortgage today - as the lady behind the counter handed me the paperwork she said "that must be a lovely feeling for you". In that split second I was torn between reaching across the counter and punching her or screaming at her that my wife had died which was the only reason I had the bloody money to do it. But I realised that she had no idea what was going on in my life and didn't need her day ruined by some mad customer - so I just walked out......but about ten minutes later I was in tears.
You see people are still a problem - and not just because they ask how I am or say things off the cuff like that lady did. I just don't want to enter into general conversations because, in my current state of mind, none of it matters to me. Those things that I found interesting before no longer register - that's another trick grief plays on you - not caring about what's going on in the world around you because you're own world is all consuming. My brain is still scrambled with too many thoughts to deal with at once and my concentration span is minimal - and tears come very easily, and come everyday.
Yes, I know "in time" things will change - and that's another wonderful element of the grieving process - time. What to do with it, how to pass it, planning how best to use it, not wasting it - that used to be easy in my previous life but it isn't right now.
And looking back at that previous life I can quite honestly say that I'll never be the same again. That sounds like such a grand statement to make but, whatever the future holds for me, I do know I'll never be the same person I was before December 29th 2011.
That person was part of something so much bigger, sharing a life and a journey with someone he was so very fortunate to have found. That person was made better because Carol loved him so much and gave herself to him. He was half of a whole, he felt like the stronger half but really knew he wasn't - Carol was that and a lot more.
I've said before that caring for Carol was automatic - it's what you do when the bond is so strong and it's also why the fall is so dramatic. Remember I spent 25 of my 44 years on this planet with Carol so I didn't know anything else.
Don't get me wrong the person I was is still in there, and always will be, but he needs to live on for two now - to fulfil the life that Carol didn't get to live. He needs to become something he never expected to be - to live a life without his soulmate by his side - and it needs to be a life that will make Carol proud.
So you see, we really are now in that scary future I thought about in posts that seem so long ago - and right now I have no idea what I'm going to do about it.
No comments:
Post a Comment