Bookend

On October 17, 2019, I married the love of my life, during the dream trip of a lifetime. 126 days later, he died. 126 days after that, is today. 

We promised each other 20 years. We got 126 days. 

We will never celebrate a single anniversary. I'll never be able to tell him he's even more handsome than he was the day I married him. We didn't even have time to go through all our pictures and make a wedding album.

I've been Doug's widow exactly as long as I was his wife. And I cannot explain why that feels like a knife to my heart, but it does. It's like some kind of permanent stamp, marking our marriage null and void. Yeah, I know it's over; but this somehow feels different - almost as though it no longer counts.

I've been keeping my grief off the radar, for reasons you already know if you've been following along. And after this, I'll be going dark again. But this is a milestone I couldn't ignore. Don't interpret my quiet, or my sense of humor - the only quality I've kept since Doug died - to mean that I'm okay. I am decidedly not okay, and I become less so each day.

That said, I've learned that trying to explain how I feel is an exercise in futility. So instead, I'll give you a video I happened upon on Reddit, which provides a visual demonstration of the little, ordinary moments that make up a relationship, and what happens when one is left behind. Watch this. Then take how sad it makes you feel, multiply that sadness by about a hundredfold, and imagine feeling like that all the time for 126 days, with every reason to think that that will be the case in another 126 days, and 126 days after that, and 126 days after that...

I am NOT okay. I don't think I ever will be okay again.

Removing all doubt

I haven't written here since Monday (technically Sunday; I had Monday's post queued up and ready to publish ahead of time), although I've been plenty active on Facebook (only as regards the current sociopolitical chaos in which we're living). There are two reasons for that: first, because what's happening here in the States is heartbreaking and infuriating and cannot be ignored. Second, because... after what happened on Sunday, I no longer feel comfortable expressing what's going on inside me. Not here. Not anywhere, really.

I'm going to catch you up (the roughly two dozen of you who actually read this blog, that is) on what happened, and then I'm going silent again. For how long, I don't know. 

Just to recap my year thus far:

• My brand new husband died
• Field mice decided to make a home in the attic
• Tornado
• Pandemic, complete with three+ months of constant isolation
• Had to put down one of our cats
• Police brutality followed by civil unrest followed by so much batshit-crazy coming out of the White House that it's impossible to keep up

Grief is a whirlwind of emotions. I've been pretty open about that. Grief is also cumulative, especially when the hits keep coming one after the other before you've even been able to process the one(s) that came before. 

You may remember that I was scheduled to go back to work on Monday. Well, on Sunday afternoon, my 22-year-old son was sent to the ER to be checked out for possible appendicitis. I could not go with him, because no visitors are allowed in the ER. His CT scan found no indication of appendicitis. However, he was admitted anyway, because his heart rate was elevated, his lactates were elevated, and he had a low-grade fever. Oh, and he was admitted to the same hospital where my husband had died 101 days before. Of course, by the time they got him admitted, Nashville's curfew was in effect, so I STILL couldn't go there to be with him.

Allow me to unpack all this in a bit little more detail: when Doug started going downhill, the first sign of a problem (other than his alarmingly low BP) was that he became acidotic and tachycardic. Now, my son's lactate level wasn't to the point of metabolic acidosis, but he was presenting with hyperlactatemia and tachycardia.  

As you can probably imagine, I was out of my MIND with worry. I was picturing what happened to Doug; I was picturing that happening to my only child without me there to hold his hand. I was terrified, and panic-stricken. 

Now, the truth is that I'm pretty much ALWAYS out of my mind with fear and worry (and rage, and loneliness); I keep it pretty locked down almost all the time, because I have to: once I let some of it out, the release valve breaks and I'm in full-on meltdown mode for HOURS. Nobody sees this, though, because I'm alone all the time, and have been for more than three months.

So there I was, talking to one of the VERY few people I THOUGHT able and willing to deal with the full force of my emotions. This person asked if the CT scan had looked at the gall bladder as well, or just the appendix; I didn't know, because my son hadn't told me and I didn't think to ask. Then the person asked another question or two, to which I gave the same answer, at which point I completely lost my shit because I ALREADY feel like I've been useless to my son for the past three months, and there I was failing him EVEN MORE, and at the worst possible time. I started crying even harder and wailing about what a horrible, useless mother I felt like.

At this critical moment, when all of the primal fear in me was exploding in full force, what did this person do? Did they follow the overarching directive for dealing with someone in grief and witness and validate my pain? Did they let me get it all out? Did they say, "I love you, and I'm listening, and we'll get through this"? Did they say, "I know you're terrified - take a deep breath"?

Oh, no. They interrupted me to yell, "Get a grip!"

Five days out from this confrontation, let me say this: I would dearly LOVE to get a grip. I would LOVE to feel as if there's even ONE PART of my life that isn't TOTAL AND COMPLETE SHIT. I would LOVE to feel as though I had the TINIEST shred of control over ANYTHING. But I do not. I CANNOT get a grip. Because the weight of EVERYTHING that's happened in the past three-plus months has completely destroyed my ability to get a grip. I. AM. FUCKING. DROWNING. Have I not been clear about that?

So, yeah: This person yelled at me to get a grip, at which point I finally learned what "blind with rage" means, as I indeed saw red and remember nothing beyond screaming "FUCK YOU!" at the top of my lungs over and over again while desperately trying to hit the button to end the call.

A few seconds later, I received a text to the effect of "I can't talk to you when you're like this." I strongly suggested that I should be left the fuck alone. But, oh no! I got several more not-apologies that included such gems (paraphrased) as "my intentions were good!" and "I remember this time in my life (when I got a reality check)..." for a situation that didn't actually bear ANY resemblance to mine, and several passive-aggressive self-flagellating thoughts like, "OK, so I guess I'm a piece of shit." Because I have zero control, I replied to every one. At length. And not very kindly (and that's very, VERY much an understatement, because I was LIVID).

Now, was this person upset? I'm sure. But was that okay? Was ANY of it okay? Nope. Have I received an ACTUAL apology yet (y'know, one that starts and ends with "that was a shitty thing to say; I was wrong, and I'm sorry")? Nope. I've gotten pseudo-apologies with addenda of rationalizations and excuses, but not a simple "I was wrong and I'm sorry."

I'm sure that there are any number of people who think I should go easier on this person, because they were worried about me. I maintain that if it's that hard for someone to HEAR the full force of what I'm living for TWO FUCKING MINUTES before they lose their shit and yell at me, maybe they could try considering how hard it is for me considering that I FEEL like that ALL THE TIME, even when I'm not expressing it. Let me say that again: whether I'm showing it outwardly or not, I am ABSOLUTELY hysterical and panic-stricken on the inside every minute. My exhaustion is not solely due to lack of sleep; it's also from keeping my emotions locked down so I don't go on a destructive tear.

FYI: My son was discharged Monday evening and is now fine; they determined he had a viral infection that led to dehydration, and that's why his electrolytes were out of whack.

I ended up not sleeping at all on Sunday night. I slept three hours on Monday night. Didn't sleep at all Tuesday night. Slept two hours last night. 

I've been telling y'all for three-plus months that I'm falling apart. I literally cannot have a conversation without crying anymore; the only exception to that is at work (so far), but I'm not even going to talk about the hell that was my work week other than to say that my skills deficit (where I was four months ago compared to where I am now) is much, MUCH worse than I feared it would be; that's another thing I cry about every evening. I'm not being dramatic; I'm not indulging in hyperbole: I am BARELY hanging on to anything REMOTELY resembling sanity. 

Having this person - this person I TRUSTED - emotionally slap me in the face like that? Well, that was the perfect way to confirm that what I've believed all along is absolutely true: I had exactly ONE person who both truly understood me and WANTED to understand me, and he's dead. Other people may SAY they want to be there for me, but that only lasts until they get too uncomfortable to deal with the reality that I live in all the time.

For now, I can't write about my grief. It's back to being so raw that I don't even know if I can articulate it. And even if I could, I feel too self-conscious to share it with anyone other than the professionals I have to pay to listen to me without judgement.

I'm not looking for sympathy, and I'm not looking for (nor do I want) anybody to ask me to keep writing, and I'm not looking for anybody to go after this person with torches and pitchforks (verbal or otherwise); they were doing their best. Ultimately, this is on me: I made the mistake of thinking I could be completely real with someone who isn't Doug.

Won't make that mistake again.