So exhausted from losing my mind...where did I put it?

I need to print a shipping label so I get up from my desk and put label stock in the printer. Back to my computer and I fill out the USPS label form. I get involved with other things on my computer. And then remember I have to pack up the item for shipping.

I take several sheets out of the printer, box up the item and look for the printed label. It is printed on regular paper....because I apparently printed something else before I printed the label, and that webpage printout is now on label stock.

How could this happen? I specifically remember thinking, "I'll put the label stock in and print out the label before I do anything else." And in the time it takes to turn around and sit down at my desk I forget about the label?

I have a COD package coming. Write the check for it and put it by the door so "I won't forget". And then I walk out of the house and go meet a friend for lunch. When I get back there is a note on the door from FedEx about the attempted delivery.

I'm getting dressed and as I am putting on my socks—why this triggers the memory I have not idea—I remember that I had agreed to do something for a friend. That is all I remember—do something. I rack my brain and come up with she was supposed to email me something. Something! Don't know what we talked about or what she emailing. But feel I have let her down. What had I promised to do?

I make lists. And then promptly lose them. Or they get buried under other pieces of paper. Under other lists. It is like finding a treasure map when I unearth them. Ahh, this is what I was supposed to do!

Someone placed an order on Sunday and wanted to know when he would receive it. I told him by the end of the week. He offered to pay extra for express shipping. I promised I'd call when the item was in and then we could discuss shipping options. I mailed the package on Thursday, with no memory of our conversation. Until now.

A friend just called. After I hung up I got thinking about what I could work on and wandered back into my office. Sat down at my desk and imagine my surprise to find this post...waiting for me unfinished!

Grief is a brain altering event. A buddy said it is just like a concussion. She should know she had one. 

I Do Not Need Fixing. I'm Just Grieving the Death of My Husband.

I had to see my primary care physician because I now have a new one. My doctor of over thirty years left to set up a concierge practice two years ago. His replacement lasted little more than a year and now I am on Doc #3.

All I needed was for my prescription to be rewritten. My prescription for those life saving little yellow pills. My safety net. But protocol demands I meet the new Doc #3 before she will write said prescription.

I painted her a picture of my current situation. An abridged version, my husband's two year battle with cancer and his death four months ago. I was crying in the examine room while waiting for her and thought it might be helpful to explain my tear stained face.

She listened. And then her defining question was "Do you have family to support you?" "No, well I have a brother in Ohio."  She looks at me with great concern, "Are you seeing a therapist regularly?" "Not a therapist, I meet with the Rabbi every other week."

Have to admit I do not  understand the question about family and the assumption that family is what you need. Or that they can help. I do have family, it is just that they are not supportive or understanding or compassionate. For those things I turn to my friends....my cats, my horses.

I meditate, work on being in the moment, feeling what is going on with me. I do Tai Chi, I gather support from my friends, I joined a Bereavement Group. Apparently not enough for Doc #3.

She gives me her prescription: Weekly therapy sessions and the little yellow pill. There was no, "you might want to consider" or "a suggestion"— it was a prescription to see a therapist.
She said based on what she had heard a therapist would help me get through the grief faster. What it is now a race? There is a time table? I need to be fixed fast? Is a psycho-therapist like a physical-therapist? Have to get there in a timely manner or else.

The top of my head blew off! My anger was over the top. And I flashed back on what I had just been reading before she came into the room in Living Beautifully, with uncertainly and change by Pema Chodron:

   "First, come into the present. Flash on what's happening with you right now. Be fully aware of your body, its energetic quality. Be aware of your thoughts and emotions.
   "Next, feel your heart, literally placing your hand on your chest is you find that helpful. this is a way of accepting yourself just as you are in that moment, a way of saying, 'This is my experience right now, and its okay.'
   "Then go into the next moment without any agenda."

Oh I was in the present. And flashed on what was happening to me. I was totally aware of my heart pounding, my breath up around my ears, and the anger ready to spew out. I turned away from her and paused. This was a defining moment for me. I was aware. I thought of what I had just read. I thought about the consequences of my actions. I was making a fully conscious decision. This was not reactive. I was taking care of myself.

I told her I was outraged by her comments. "You Do NOT Know Me!"  That she did not know what I had gone through and what I was going through. She had no idea how I had dealt with the last two years or how I was dealing with them now. All she had to go on was my request for the little yellow pill. And now she was TELLING me to see a therapist. Not "it is a suggestion" but a prescription.

Doc #3 was taken aback. She thanked me to telling her how I was feeling. Was I being stroked? And she admitted she did not know me. Progress. The therapist was offered as a suggestion. Better. And she wrote the script. Probably to get me out of her office. Looking for Doc #4.

Overwhelming grief and an unexpected life preserver

Every time I think there is some hope for a break in the grief, I run into a wall. Today is the fourth month anniversary. And the grief feels as overwhelming as the first moment. I want to just walk around screaming his name. And Where are you? And How could you have left me? And How do I live without you? And I miss you so much.

My cats and horses help me. I joined a Bereavement Group and find talking with other women, okay other widows, helps. But it is the between times that get me. When I stop doing and lift up my head.

Oh I can keep busy—I can visit friends, go to events, clean the house, do the laundry, go see the horses, work on the taxes, take some photos, ship out some items, work on my websites, write someone's copy, pay the monthly bills—all not working for me right now. I don't even want to call anyone. Don't feel like talking. So I find myself here. Writing. Thinking. Feeling. Grieving. Grieving. Grieving.

I've been reading about staying with my feelings, going into my pain. Accepting. Acknowledging. Being in the moment. Problem is I feel like I am drowning. That the abyss will swallow me. And I suppose it is a testament to my life force that I don't want to be swallowed. That there is still a fight left in me. I just don't know how to survive without Rob.

I found this poem, again. Rob believed that he had experienced a life/death choice during his surgery. And wrote this poem from his experience. I always read it thinking of cancer and illness and death. Now I feel he wrote it as a life line to me.

Ever/Bardo

By Robert Greenebaum

Have you ever dropped out of time

Have you ever been where

There are no directions

Where there is no bottom

But you are not falling

Where there is no volition

No will

No lies

Where the idea of hope

Is not yet emergent

Where even blankness

Has withered away

Maybe you have been there—or maybe not

It is not a place one chooses to go

It just happens

Maybe in an instant

If this has ever happened to you

Perhaps you might be interested in this:

Try it on for size; see if it fits; learn it

Word by word

Each word is a vessel into which you

Can pour your own meaning

Yet it is a vessel

A vessel hewn from within the bardo

If you use it, be patient, be diligent,

Be stubborn, and never give up

For a billion, billion lifetimes:

I

May there now arise in this very moment

Pervasive ease of well-being

II

Throughout the entire mind

And body with no breaks,

Holes, or lapses.

III

May the entire mind and body

Be wiped completely clean

Of any and all ill-ness

And all dis-ease

IV

May there now arise in this very moment

Pervasive ease of well-being

If you take up the mantra

Never lay it down

I pass it on to you from within the bardo

May you receive its beneficial effects

Freedom is not all its cracked up to be

This past weekend was jam packed, again, still. A combination of my need to keep busy and the freedom to actually be able to get out. But obviously that freedom comes at a high price.

All the usual running around I have been doing has not been that far afield. Pretty much in a 45 to 50 minute radius. But to meet with a group of like minded horse people on Sunday I drove almost 2 hours just to get there. That brought up some of the same feelings I had when I was driving around for Cavalia—being away for hours or a whole day. My heart attachments were being stretched once again way beyond their limits.

It took me a while to recognize what I was feeling. Going away from home. Home and Robert used to be synonymous. I had to make a huge mental adjustment that he was not home waiting for me. Yes to more driving and crying. I do that so much I have a box of Kleenex on the passenger seat.

Felt like I was passing through a portal. Moving through it was hard and painful, but once on the other side I was okay. And I arrived at my destination to a large group of old and new friends where I enjoyed myself.

After the group get together I was then onto uncharted territory. I was going to meet a client in a place I had never been. It was getting dark and I was coming from the unfamiliar north. I found myself totally dependent on "Steve" my GPS' voice.

When I made the arrangements it all seemed so logical. But there is logic and there is emotion. And to avoid emotions I operate on logic. Which gets me into these situations. You would think I would learn. Or perhaps—obviously—this is my learning path.

Driving in the darkness only intensified my feelings. I had to face being totally and utterly on my own. The cockpit of my car was the familiar and everything I was seeing out the windshield was the unknown. I so wanted to reach for my phone and call Rob. To touch base. To be grounded. To be connected. To be reassured. But there was no one to call.

I was—to refer to one of my posts about time—untethered. Ah the title of the book, the untethered soul….maybe that is why it resonates so much with me. Yes I was feeling completely untethered. And again I had to adjust my thinking. I could, and can, and it is okay, to stand on my own. To be on my own. This is not about being alone. Words words words.

I find I am now free to do what I want, to go where I want—when I want. I am not accountable to anyone. Untethered, adrift, unattached, unbound, cut loose, unanchored, unmoored.

Being connected has always been my safety net. I know friends saw me as independent and doing my own things. Yes, I would go out and explore and experiment and test the waters—but I knew my anchor, Rob, was waiting for me. No matter where he was, he was there for me. And now he is not.

It is this part of being on my own, of having no attachments like I had with him, of being free that is so incredibly difficult to deal with. The personal pain is so enormous.

How many people does it take to fill the hole in my heart?

I have taken the warnings about the holidays being a difficult time to heart. Too many notable events that are firsts. Too many thoughts that start, "Last year at this time we were....."  As a consequence I make plans and accept invitations. Anyone who calls with a, "Would you like to...." is greeted with an emphatic Yes!

In the last week and a half alone, I have gone out to dinner and seen a play, met with the Rabbi, attended an awards presentation for a very special person I met at the hospital, and was supposed to go out to dinner with another, but started having chills and thought it better to cancel. Darn!

 Christmas week started with dinner with two friends on Monday night, then Christmas Brunch with a friend's family including a 3-year-old. After 2-1/2 hours with the 3-year-old I was ready to go home for some peace and quiet and a nap. Rounding out the week was dinner in town with another friend and her family.

Sunday I went to visit someone I haven't seen for a while. And that brings me up to New Year's. I don't want to think about New Year's. Because if I do it will lead me down the rabbit hole of thinking about beginning a "new" year. And that "new" year is the first one of many to come without Rob by my side. Tears. Heartache.

See it is much better, easier right now to stay busy. Running around. Constantly on the move. It is the sitting and thinking that leads to feeling. And the grief can get so overwhelming. So quickly. I logically can tell myself it has not been all that long. But why does it still hurt so much?

Looking back over what I have been doing and with whom, I am staggered to realize it has taken 17 people to keep me on an even keel for a week and a half. And that does not include the friends I talked with on the phone. Or the ones I saw at the barn. Or the ones who emailed me. Boy when they say it takes a village, they (whomever they are) are not kidding.

All this is to help me try and fill the empty space in my life—left by one person. Robert.

Moving forward while still looking in the rear view mirror

I am moving forward, trying to figure out my life, looking to the future. How is this possible? I am on a path that I do not have much control over. And going forward seems to be the direction I'm heading. It feels like a juggling act to think of the future and have the past an active part of the present. I think of Linda Blair in The Exorcist when her head swivels is around and around.

Robert is such an integral part of the fabric of my life. He is everywhere with me. This morning I was preparing the cat's breakfast. I used to just open the can and mush it with a fork. Robert instructed me to add a can of warm water and then mush it to a smooth consistency. Now I do this every morning without a thought.

He bought me the computer I sit and write at. The iPhone—my lifeline was another of his gifts. Can't imagine managing without it now. My GPS unit was beginning to become undependable and when I got the Cavalia gig he uploaded the TomTom app to my iPhone and signed me up for traffic updates. Can't imagine navigating any other way now. Technology was his domain, and he brought me along kicking and screaming and resisting in every way. I now wonder why.

Everywhere I look I feel his presence. Where he sat on the couch. The table we bought together. The lights he put up. The door to his room. His books. His, now my car in the garage. A pine cone we picked up in Maine. I even wear some of his clothes. Or think of what he would say about some of mine ; -)

These are the objects and thoughts that are of the past and very much in the present. Physical items that are filled with memories. And the memories feel like walking through water. Initial resistance and then you get used to the feel of the water and keep going.

Forward movement is planning to go out to dinner with friends. Flying to Philadelphia in January for a trade show. Making arrangements to meet virtual friends at a horse event in February.

I am walking along a very steep narrow mountain ridge. Any misstep and I tumble off to one side or the other. But I keep walking, one step at a time, knowing that even when I do fall, I will clamber back up and keep moving on. How can this be? How do I keep putting one foot in front of the other?

Is this faith? Spirituality? Belief in something that I don't even know what to call?

The Way

I decided I needed to connect with some of the fun and life affirming activities Robert and I enjoyed through the years. With the Holiday Season in full swing I choose the Christmas Revels and called a friend to join me.

Only after the tickets were bought did I notice that this year the Revels' story was taking place in Spain. And not just anywhere in Spain, but along el Camino de Santigao de Compostela.

Synchronicity once again. I suppose I can find meaning and connections to just about anything these days. Both Rob and I loved Paulo Coelho's El Camino de Santiago. We had even talked of one day going to Spain to walk along part of el Camino de Santiago. And then the movie "The Way" came out with Martin Sheen and Emilo Estevez. Death, life, choices, friendship, love. A powerful and profound movie. And one we watched numerous times together.

I was faced with choices. Was this going to be too evocative for me? Should I cancel going? Plan on bringing lots of kleenex? Maybe embrace the synchronicity?

At times I am able to experience the world as a strange and wondrous place. I made the choice to enjoy myself. To encounter any memory that came up—and there were a lot—with joy, love and compassion. To bring Robert on this adventure into town with me, and watch the play unfold with him in my heart.