Friday, February 4, 2011

Grief: Keep Talking, Keep Feeling

I took my grief out to celebrate my birthday/anniversary.  I had a good time.  Someone gave me purple tulips.  What a beautiful present in the middle of winter.  A smart friend not to give me roses which is what my husband would have bought.  Was awfully lonely last night and sad today.

I have a lovely coach for my solo show - Kevin.  When he came today (we work two hours a week - will be more closer to the date) I had nothing prepared.  He didn't scold me.  He said it was part of the creative process.  Sometimes you just can't find it in yourself to perform.  We talked a little about the show but mostly about what is going on his life - and about my dealing with my birthday/anniversary without Artie.

I have heard a lot of people say they don't talk about what they are feeling because they are afraid people will feel sorry for them or feel burdened by what they say.  I don't mean a sixties kind of let it all hang out - but a fact of my life is what I call "dead husband syndrome" - my husband is dead and I miss him and it touches every area of my life.  I'm not afraid to talk about it.  I talk about a lot of other things as well - but talking about it opens up other people to talk about things themselves.  I can very quickly tell with the simple sentence - my husband died a little over a year and a half ago - if someone wants to make that part of the conversation or not.  Some people probably don't want to be my friends - but that is okay - because the people who are my friends give me the greatest kind of support - from a loving word - to a joke.  Someone gave me a magnet for my birthday with a picture of a dog that says, "Sometimes I want to pee on the whole wide world!!"  She also wrote me a poem because she said that there aren't any store bought birthday cards for women with dead husbands.

A long time ago I realized that if I put on a mask that I would never know if anyone liked ME - I would just know that they liked my mask.  Once I was talking about something personal and a new friend confided that she had once been hospitalized for depression.  She never would have shared that with me if I was pretending to be happy all of the time.

I like having friends I could say to yesterday - I went out and celebrated and came home and spent time with my husband's ashes.  I hate having ashes to share my anniversary with - I can hear Artie saying - don't share it with my ashes - share it with my spirit.  Thank you Artie.  I also - with most friends - can say what I just said - "Artie says..."   I don't know if it's really him (he says- it's me) but no one thinks I'm crazy.  Or if they do - they think I'm crazy in a good way.

Today was rough.  I always find the day after the date the roughest because it has less distractions.  DVDs for me and weird sleeping patterns.  Maybe tomorrow the gym and some good stuff.  I did spend some time on grief sites on Facebook.  It helps being part of a community for me with - what I called today - house training the grief beast.  I think I've got it following commands and then there it is - (hope this doesn't offend) pooping in the living room again.  Nothing to do but clean it up and start over - if not today - tomorrow.  xo

No comments:

Post a Comment