Death, discoveries, and decisions, Part II

When we left our story yesterday, it was Thanksgiving. Over the next few days, I thought maybe it was time to talk to a therapist again - but it needed to be someone other than Brooke. Don't get me wrong: she's wonderful, and I have no doubt I'll see her again at some point, but I wanted to talk to someone who did not know Doug, and did not know me in The Before Time.

Early the following week, I did just that. I can't say I particularly loved the guy, so probably won't see him again - there was nothing wrong with him per se, I just didn't feel like we resonated the way I'd like. Nevertheless, he was the catalyst for everything that followed.

He listened to my whole story, and after asking a few clarifying questions, he asked, "How much water are you drinking?" I told him that I had no idea of real numbers, but that it was very little. So he said that he wanted me to forget about everything else in terms of healing. All he wanted me to do was drink 80 oz of water every day. 

So I did that. I put aside all other thoughts about healing/grieving/moving forward, and each day I tried to drink 80 oz of water. And it was hard AF. The first few days, I really had to work to drink that much; I was pretty much choking it down. Now? I'm up to a gallon a day with no problem. My body is still not quite used to this much hydration, so I'm the queen of the speedy bio break. But... within a few days of making the effort to drink enough water, the persistent headaches I was having started to dissipate. My skin isn't as dry anymore. I even started sleeping better (no, I'm still not able to sleep in our bed); not all night, and not actually well - but better. And I started feeling better - physically. I was still an emotional wreck, but I was an emotional wreck who was sufficiently hydrated and considerably better rested than I had been in months.

I got to thinking, what if I did a little more? So I started limiting myself to two cups of coffee in the morning, and absolutely no caffeine after noon. If I want a hot drink now, I make some herbal tea. And that helped my sleeping a little more. Again, I got to thinking, what if I did a little more?

Eating was still a big problem at that point; I really wasn't hungry, but when I did decide to eat, it was either takeout/delivery (not fast food, but restaurant meals aren't known for being particularly well balanced), or it was junk food. So I decided I had to find a way to enjoy cooking again - or, if not enjoy it, at least find it tolerable.

The problem was that I missed cooking for Doug; I still do, and I always will. But that missing cooking for Doug made it damn near impossible for me to cook anything that I ever cooked while he was alive. How to foster enjoyment of cooking when I can't cook any of the things I used to love to cook? Turns out that a little creative thinking found an easy answer: cook different stuff.

Basically, what I've done is turned food into a challenge: first, plan meals each week following Michael Pollan's mantra: eat food, not too much, mostly plants. This works because Doug was NEVER going to eat primarily plant-based. So cooking vegan-ish doesn't bring up that lump in my throat. The second part of the challenge: make every single meal as delicious and appetizing (meaning: attractive plating) as possible. The third, and most game-ifying part of the challenge: use what I have on hand - don't throw away any perfectly good food.

Plan in place, I cleared out my kitchen: went through every single thing in the fridge, and if it was expired or I knew I was never gonna eat it, it got tossed. Then I did the same thing for the freezer. And the pantry. Oy, the pantry. SO MUCH CRAP that had expired over a year ago.

With a full inventory of what I had on hand, I planned a week's worth of meals, and ordered groceries for what I needed that I didn't have already. To help keep track of the calendar, this was on December 5. I started forcing myself to eat breakfast (overnight oats on workdays and tofu/veggie scramble on the weekends), lunch (curried chickpea salad with veggies on Dave's Killer Bread or a green salad or just some hummus and veggies in a spinach wrap), and dinner, every single day. Since I have a sweet tooth, dessert each night was either a cup of dark chocolate almond milk or two squares of dark chocolate (85% dark chocolate is my jam, yo; I like my chocolate dark and bitter - like my personality).

And do you know what happened? After the first few days (when I really did have to force myself to eat), I actually started getting hungry. Mind you, some days each meal is literally just a few bites. But I'm eating, and I'm eating food that's good for me and delicious. I'm having fish once or twice a week, chicken every week or two, and I haven't had any beef or pork since I started this experiment (I'm not opposed to either, it's just that they don't rank high in my priority food list until I start wanting a burger or a filet mignon or some barbecue).

All this means that I'm having to learn to make new things. I'm keeping track of the meals I love so they go into permanent rotation: fish tacos, veggie soup, and the Moroccan brown rice are keepers; the veggie-stuffed cabbage, not so much. I'm becoming much more adept at figuring out what else I can make from what's on hand. That's how the stuffed cabbage came to be: I was trying to figure out what else I could do with the cabbage I'd bought to have with the fish tacos. I'm also becoming a lot more adventurous in experimenting with flavors than I was before. This week's planned culinary highlights include African Peanut Stew tonight, and Sweet Potato Bisque toward the end of the week.

As I got into the habit of eating enough food (and good, unprocessed food at that), I also got into the habit of loading, running, and emptying the dishwasher every day. Yeah, I know that can be wasteful if I don't use a lot of dishes on any given day. But I also know that if I don't do that, within a few days I'll have a dishwasher full of clean dishes and a sink full of dirty dishes. Since I'm eating primarily plant-based, I also started taking a multivitamin and B12 supplement every day. 

And after a week of that, I noticed that my brain was working better. I was able to troubleshoot code without having to get help. I was retaining what my data governance software guru was teaching me on coding these blasted workflows. I wasn't at 100%, and I'm still not, but I'm performing much better than I was. Still can't read books, though. 😢

So I'm working better, and I'm drinking enough and eating delicious, healthy meals, and I started thinking about some of the other stuff: recreation in general; music and TV specifically.

Music is a big problem: Doug was a HUGE Beatles fan, so any Beatles song sends me straight to the fetal position, as do most love songs or songs about lost love. But Spotify has an enormous catalog of music, and I've discovered a new appreciation for hip-hop and African music. It is impossible to listen to African music and not feel an improvement in your mood. So when I'm cooking, I play African music, and I dance (badly) while I chop, and steam, and sauté.

TV is another problem: there are a few shows that Doug and I watched together that I can still watch, but quite a few that, for reasons I can't explain, are just not possible. So I've deleted a shit ton of stuff on the DVR that I was never going to watch; I cancelled a shit ton of series recordings; I've found new shows to watch, when I'm not listening to music or staying on top of the Covid situation (which: please send help, because Tennessee is NOT okay).

That's what's happened since Thanksgiving. How am I? Physically, I feel much better. I feel good, even. I'm able to enjoy cooking (and eating) again. I'm sleeping better. I'm functioning better at work. I'm even enjoying work again (to a small degree, but it's a step in the right direction): it's not giving me the fulfillment it once did, but I'm able to enjoy the technical/intellectual challenge. I have a schedule and routine that are working for me. I'm even ready to start dipping my toes back into acting again, assuming I can find an opportunity to do so (virtually, of course - not doing live theatre until it's safe to do live theatre again).

That's all the good stuff. Now, for the bad: I'm still an emotional wreck. Covid isolation is weighing on me. Yes, I know it's weighing on everyone, but it is not the same for those of us who lost spouses in the past year, so please try to resist the temptation to "we're all suffering" this situation. I didn't go from single to covid isolation; I didn't go into covid isolation with my immediate family; I went from happily married to the love of my life, to widowed and covid isolation in less than one month's time. It's not the same as it is for the many people whose lives will return to normal when this is all over. I don't ever get to return to normal. I have to craft a new normal that promises to be but a shell of the normal I had. I miss Doug. I miss inside jokes, snuggles, kisses, screaming at referees, his smile, his voice, his smell, his hands, that dimple in his cheek. I miss being loved. I miss being known inside and out. I miss loving him. I miss him loving me.

And all this "progress" I've made is taking me further away from him, from us. And I hate it, even though I know it's the only way to survive. 

A marriage is three discrete entities: the two spouses, and the marriage; on the surface, I lost two-thirds of my life, but in reality, I lost all three. Because I was right: I died with him. The woman typing this post is not the woman who married Doug Allen 437 days ago; this woman was born 311 days ago, when that woman died along with the only man who ever loved her. I now eat different foods; listen to different music; watch different programming. 

You could say those are superficial data points, and you wouldn't be wrong. But I am - of necessity - a different person, and it's unnerving to think that I could turn into someone that Doug maybe would not have loved (and what are the ramifications of that possibility in the afterlife, if it exists)? You could also say it doesn't matter if I become someone Doug would not have loved, because he's not here - and you wouldn't be wrong there, either. But it feels viscerally... uncomfortable. Wrong. I'll work through it, I imagine, but it's a thing that weighs heavily on my mind.

No, I don't beg for death every night anymore. Yes, I still do on some nights, and more often that not. And even on the nights I don't beg for death, I'm still fine with it it if happens. Yes, I still pray that he'll be sitting in the living room when I walk down the hall. Yes, I still cry. Not all day every day, but at least some on most days. No, I don't know how long that will last.

While I'm in a routine that's working for me, my house is still a disaster area. My sink is emptied every night, but it needs to be scrubbed down, and I haven't gotten around to that yet. The whole house is cluttered - piles of clean clothes on the bed I don't use, coloring books and art supplies and notebooks and other 'weapons' of mass distraction are everywhere. The dust/fur bunnies roam freely in the wilderness that is my unused dining room (okay, they're in every room). Doug's things are all pretty much exactly where he left them, right down to his toothbrush. I can't yet bring myself to even move them, let alone start going through them to get rid of them. But, baby steps, right?

I'm back to brushing my teeth every day (yes, for a while, that was not a guarantee - I literally forgot to do it on some days), but daily showers are still a pipe dream (in my defense, I don't go anywhere and I don't see anyone, so a big part of me figures why bother? every other day is good enough). I'd started biting my nails again (a habit I gave up at 21, but extreme times and all that), but I've gotten that back under control.

As I wrote yesterday, I'm starting to engage more on Facebook, and I've started texting people again, a bit. I even had a lengthy conversation with a friend on Christmas Eve (and only cried once). I'm not yet ready for socializing (zoom or otherwise), but I imagine that'll come if I keep working this "find a way to function" experiment.

I'm moving, but I'm not moving forward yet. Like a hamster on a wheel, I keep running but I go nowhere, because the circumstances of grief during Covid make it impossible to remodel the house or shop for decor (or frames to hang up pictures) or really plan for the future. I still don't (can't) sleep in our bed. I'm lonelier than I can express or that you can understand (unless you've been here), and it's not a loneliness that time with friends or family could help: I'm lonely for the kind of constant, integral-part-of-your-daily-life intimacy that doesn't exist outside of a full-time, living-in-the-same-house love. Like I said above: I miss being known inside and out. There is no substitute for that kind of intimacy, and therefore no way to fill that particular gaping hole inside me.

I'm still angry/sad/scared much of the time; I don't want this life. I don't want to live alone. I don't want to be celibate. I want to dance in the kitchen with a man who looks at me as though he's been looking for me his whole life. I had that; but for far too short a time. Yes, I know that no amount of time would have been enough, but let's not pretend that losing a spouse after only four months is the same as losing a spouse after 30 years, okay? I'm not saying it's worse, but it's not the same. And I don't know how (or if) I'll ever get beyond that anger/despair/fear due to what was stolen from Doug and me.

There is no pain so exquisite as wanting only one thing and not being able to have it; but even worse is having it and then losing it nearly as fast as you got it. And there is absolutely nothing that can ease that pain, even a little.

And if you're wondering how I can say things are better when I'm still in the emotional shitter, it's because things are better. I'm physically better. I'm cooking again (in fact, I haven't had takeout since December 4). I'm sleeping better. I'm less emotionally volatile. I'm able to enjoy bantering with friends on social media. There's no denying that I'm better. Yeah, I still hate this life, because I'm alone in it. But I'm better.

Now, you may be thinking - as I have several times over the past few weeks - "You stupid bitch; you could've done all this ten months ago like everyone told you to, and you'd be so much further along!" And it's a reasonable thought, but it's wrong. I really couldn't have done this ten months ago. Or two months ago, even. I couldn't have done it, and it wouldn't have made a difference if I had, back then. I couldn't get to where I am now without dealing with and, in a way, bonding with that deep, dark well of misery. I'm sure AF not going to say that those most horrible months were good for me, but they were necessary.

That's where I am, and how I got here. Tomorrow, looking toward the future.