Reflections and musings

[scba]

16 minutes ago, Marg M said:

Ana, I opened one box, saw something that speared me in the heart, and have not opened anymore.  I have one box marked "linens" and I bought all new ones so I have not even opened it.  I might never be able to.  I have gotten used to the big plastic boxes with tops that are clipped on, as furniture.  I'm fine with that.

Addendum:  There is always the option to give what is in the boxes to people in need.  To do that I would have to sort through them.  I'm not ready for that. 

I went back to the boxes once more to put a label on them. Had a quick look just to understand what could be there. "Kitchen". "Towels". "Linen". "Glasses". "Tea set". "Board games". "Books". 

I cannot yet give them away. I have new linens, new towels, new books. But I still need those to be there for what they represent. I will be ready, maybe, one day. Not yet.

[Margm]

8 minutes ago, scba said:

I cannot yet give them away. I have new linens, new towels, new books. But I still need those to be there for what they represent. I will be ready, maybe, one day. Not yet.

Exactly.  

[TomPB]

16 hours ago, kayc said:

Tom,

I'm glad you reached someone who understood, I remember a job interview I went to where the woman had lost her husband and she talked to me about it.  She would have hired me but it was left to a youngster that didn't know up from down, you know how it goes.  Anyway it does help to run across people that have been through it, kind of makes it easier.

Actually I had the same experience when I cancelled Susan's phone line. It seems there are a lot of "us" out there.

[Gwenivere]

I woke up this morn8ng and realized that is the true nightmare.  When things become so acutely real.  Dreams may not make sense, but I’m not in physical or emotional pain.  It’s like that Bizzaro World comic they had about Superman where everything is backwards.  I tried to envision all the medical procedures I need when I feel no reason to be here.  All invasive and no one to be with me, literally no one. Then I thought about living with all the maladies and how limiting my world is becoming.  I don’t know who designed this trap, but they.are a pro.  Ingenious.  Of course the biggest trap is my heart and mind.  I get thru my day just wanting to get home where I can be sad or frustrated.  That creates more because it used to be my best time of day with the love of my life.  Now it just filling hours and lord, this3 hours are long.  I can’t avoid passing places we went without the memories kicking in I had.  So I wonder, what is wrong with me that time is actually working against me?  I don’t cry as much, but I’ve never felt more empty in the reality I’ll never see him again in this life or ever.  I read about celebrity accidental overdoses and it’s so sad as they had reason to get up everyday.  Passions and family.  I have all I need fo4 a physical existence but a reason for it.  Would I still be in so much physical pain?  Probably.  At least I would have help and motive to act on it.  So now I drag mysel& off to volunteering again feeling older than the residents.  They may see I can still hobble around, but I see more content people there because they have reason to survive.  Some are looking forward to surgeries so they can do more....with their families.  It takes so little.  Someone that truly loves you and you can love back.  Take that away and you (I) write posts like this.

i don’t even know how often I sit here and stare into nothing.  I have so much to say but no one to hear it.  I can say it to myself, but I already know it.  A voice to say something back or tell me something they thought is such a simple thing to want.  But simple isn’t an option anymore, is it?  We all live in a physical world we never thought about because it made sense.  I’ve heard it called bearing the unbearable.  We are told it gets better, but as Tom said somewhere, I’ve been in this waiting room for years an$ wonder if I will ever be called.

[Cookie]

18 hours ago, Gwenivere said:

I woke up this morn8ng and realized that is the true nightmare.  When things become so acutely real.  Dreams may not make sense, but I’m not in physical or emotional pain.  It’s like that Bizzaro World comic they had about Superman where everything is backwards.  I tried to envision all the medical procedures I need when I feel no reason to be here.  All invasive and no one to be with me, literally no one. Then I thought about living with all the maladies and how limiting my world is becoming.  I don’t know who designed this trap, but they.are a pro.  Ingenious.  Of course the biggest trap is my heart and mind.  I get thru my day just wanting to get home where I can be sad or frustrated.  That creates more because it used to be my best time of day with the love of my life.  Now it just filling hours and lord, this3 hours are long.  I can’t avoid passing places we went without the memories kicking in I had.  So I wonder, what is wrong with me that time is actually working against me?  I don’t cry as much, but I’ve never felt more empty in the reality I’ll never see him again in this life or ever.  I read about celebrity accidental overdoses and it’s so sad as they had reason to get up everyday.  Passions and family.  I have all I need fo4 a physical existence but a reason for it.  Would I still be in so much physical pain?  Probably.  At least I would have help and motive to act on it.  So now I drag mysel& off to volunteering again feeling older than the residents.  They may see I can still hobble around, but I see more content people there because they have reason to survive.  Some are looking forward to surgeries so they can do more....with their families.  It takes so little.  Someone that truly loves you and you can love back.  Take that away and you (I) write posts like this.

i don’t even know how often I sit here and stare into nothing.  I have so much to say but no one to hear it.  I can say it to myself, but I already know it.  A voice to say something back or tell me something they thought is such a simple thing to want.  But simple isn’t an option anymore, is it?  We all live in a physical world we never thought about because it made sense.  I’ve heard it called bearing the unbearable.  We are told it gets better, but as Tom said somewhere, I’ve been in this waiting room for years an$ wonder if I will ever be called.

Gwen:  You are not alone.  I feel very similar things...time doesn't seem to lessen the pain as I was told.  Now, I will say that it's changed.  I also don't cry as much, but I can't seem to get really excited about anything and spend a lot of time looking at things I should do and then walking away without enthusiasm.  I agree, life is about having someone to love and be loved by.  I don't know about you, but I'm on the older end of it at 68.  I was very active until I had knee arthroscopy a month ago and now am very restricted and going crazy.  That was the one thing I could count on to bring some balance to me when I was really down.  Having some difficulties with this healing thing and hoping it does heal.  I get really scared about things that John used to be able to reel me back from.  I am missing him more than ever at this time.  So the question is how do you find others to be in your life when there is little to no family?  That is not as easy as it sounds either.  There are friends but they are wrapped up in their husbands and families.  Wow, just letting you know that I struggle with a lot of the same feelings as you....fondly, Cookie

[Gin]

Cookie  and Gwen,.  Count me in your group.  Even older at 78, almost impossible to  increase my friends.  I had terrible sciatica  and was in for almost 3 months.  Just starting to get out now.  Sure missed my rock.  Al calmed me and  I felt I could face anything as long  as he was by my side.

[Margm]

5 hours ago, Cookie said:

Gwen:  You are not alone.  I feel very similar things...time doesn't seem to lessen the pain as I was told.  Now, I will say that it's changed.  I also don't cry as much, but I can't seem to get really excited about anything and spend a lot of time looking at things I should do and then walking away without enthusiasm

Gwen, no enthusiasm, no "get up and go."  No reason.  But, I do have my granddaughter.  Just made a mad dash to Walmart to get the thyroid medicine I forgot about.  She did without it one day.  This has happened before, but I feel like a total dumb stump.  No, she cannot drive.  I want her to learn.  She is afraid.  We are going for more counseling.  Mamol has much fear too, but granddaughter makes me face it.  How can I fuss?  

[Gwenivere]

I have a question and would like some input if you are familiar.  I have an iPad (something I would not if Steve was here).  I’ve developed an obsession of looking up any strange thing I feel, usually leading to more fear and stress.  I have no one to take it from me an$ try to ignore the urge.  It’s he being alone and having 4 health conditions that are serious.  I proven over and over to myself this is not a wise thing to do as the web is full of stiuff I never thought of.  Some comes from the doc that replaced mine in May that was critical instead of compassionate.  I have a new doc that doesn’t do that and counselors that tell me to stop his voice in my head.  Things are certainly 5he most stressful they have ever been right now.  Any wisdom on how to control the obsession?  It gets so bad my Xanax doesnt cut it sometimes.  I don’t know why I torture myself.  Other than not having Steve here high was calming.  Wouldn’t even be going to these questions and the web.  The stress of being alone with my conditions makes want to find something affirmative.  But people doing well or have that don’t post, plus there are the Xanax equals evil links everywhere!  Any ideas?

[Margm]

Well, I don't want to read Xanax equals evil, for sure.  I'm sure after this prescription they will try to nail that to my forehead.  I will have to face that or go back to my Arkansas doc who understands why I need it.  

But, the looking up of stuff.  I did not have computers back in the cancer time (this was 1982) and I don't think Google was born yet.  I haunted my medical library which housed all the literature that was "out there" on any disease, surgery, anything medical, it was the doctor's library..  Every 15 minute break and hour lunch I was in the library.  My doctor begged me to quit going because I was reading stuff I did not understand.  This went on for months, then I found myself reading about my cancer in a rabbit.  I don't know why, but that totally blew my mind.  What kind of moron reads about rabbit gynecology anatomy and diseases?  Just like that, I quit.  

Now, you are doing something that my granddaughter took up a few months ago.  She would get so scared and the anxiety was terrible on an 18 year old kid.  She will start therapy again, but just like you, she could not stop.  And this was just wisdom teeth.  Now she is into paranoia about someone hacking her phone and computer.  I tell her we are unimportant people to hackers, we don't have money, no past history that is worthy of interest by a hacker and the amount of money in our accounts at any time of the month is not worth looking into.

Do you like to read mysteries and stuff like that?  That is my  therapy.  I don't look up anything and I really am a ticking time bomb.  So, reading won't help me.  I read autobiographies of famous people.  If you belong to Amazon you can join the reading club I kept Billy in, and continued it.  It is $9.99 a month. (why can't they just say $10???)  Start using your iPad for reading books.  Look up poetry (if you like that stuff) and then look up life's of poets and read Wikipedia on movies, famous people, infamous people.  There are a lot more interesting things on the web than WebMD.  My daughter hates reading, so not everyone likes books.  Anyhow, Wikipedia is a lot more interesting about plants, birds, dirt, gossip, trees, all kinds of things but what we might have, or might not have medically.  

It is an obsession, and I have been there.  I told you what broke mine, but I doubt you are reading about rabbit's anatomy. 

[kayc]

20 hours ago, Cookie said:

Gwen:  You are not alone.  I feel very similar things...time doesn't seem to lessen the pain as I was told.  Now, I will say that it's changed.  I also don't cry as much, but I can't seem to get really excited about anything and spend a lot of time looking at things I should do and then walking away without enthusiasm.  I agree, life is about having someone to love and be loved by.  I don't know about you, but I'm on the older end of it at 68.  I was very active until I had knee arthroscopy a month ago and now am very restricted and going crazy.  That was the one thing I could count on to bring some balance to me when I was really down.  Having some difficulties with this healing thing and hoping it does heal.  I get really scared about things that John used to be able to reel me back from.  I am missing him more than ever at this time.  So the question is how do you find others to be in your life when there is little to no family?  That is not as easy as it sounds either.  There are friends but they are wrapped up in their husbands and families.  Wow, just letting you know that I struggle with a lot of the same feelings as you....fondly, Cookie

Cookie, I guess the "better" is that you don't cry as much.  I still don't have the want to with my hobby, making cards, I did it for so many years, have thousands of dollars wrapped up in supplies and tools for it, and there it sits, taking over my family room, but I only seem to do it when I have a card I have to make.  When George was alive I used it, he commented on how happy I was when I was doing it.  Maybe HE was the source of happiness and it was merely how I displayed it.

I'm 65 and I find the same challenge...my friends are "fringe", my closest friend having moved a few years ago, and another close friend disappeared on me a few years ago, I really haven't made any close friends since, but I keep working at it.  No close family nearby except one sister and she is not able to help me as she needs help herself so if I'm physically in need, there is no one here.  It is a scary time in life, to be alone, just as you're approaching old age!  I've had to do for myself or leave it undone.  

I thank God our husbands didn't know what they were abandoning us to, it would have hurt them terribly had they known.  This is George's worst fear come true!

[TomPB]

1 hour ago, kayc said:

Cookie, I guess the "better" is that you don't cry as much.  I still don't have the want to with my hobby, making cards, I did it for so many years, have thousands of dollars wrapped up in supplies and tools for it, and there it sits, taking over my family room, but I only seem to do it when I have a card I have to make.  When George was alive I used it, he commented on how happy I was when I was doing it.  Maybe HE was the source of happiness and it was merely how I displayed it.

I'm 65 and I find the same challenge...my friends are "fringe", my closest friend having moved a few years ago, and another close friend disappeared on me a few years ago, I really haven't made any close friends since, but I keep working at it.  No close family nearby except one sister and she is not able to help me as she needs help herself so if I'm physically in need, there is no one here.  It is a scary time in life, to be alone, just as you're approaching old age!  I've had to do for myself or leave it undone.  

I thank God our husbands didn't know what they were abandoning us to, it would have hurt them terribly had they known.  This is George's worst fear come true!

I've given away most of Susan's knitting materials, tho I recently found more. Still see her cookie making things every time I open a kitchen cabinet.

Susan would have not wanted to put me through this. One positive I can find is that by going first she doesn't have to do it, tho I think she would handle it better then me.

I have made new friends and that helps.

[Margm]

My daughter and son cleaned out the RV yesterday.  A lot of Billy's fishing stuff was still in it..  They both said it was best I not know what they did with it.  He was their dad, he is not going to use it again.  I cannot use it and neither could they, so  I won't ask questions or think about it.  In leaving her partner, my daughter had to leave behind my mom's big sewing machine and cabinet.  The partner will probably sell it.  It is too heavy for any of us to pick up.  None of us are going to use it and my mom was so proud of it when it was new.  Beautiful heavy cabinet and drawers.  I have no sentimentalism toward it.  I should.  After my dad passed away my mom sold all his musical instruments.  I could not play them, my sister was her partner in the selling of these musical instruments.  Some were worth quite a bit I would imagine, but my mom told me she held no sentimentality toward them.  I have his Bible.  My mom is gone, Billy is gone, they cannot use the things any longer.  I gave a lot of his stuff to the sheriff's department's animal officer.  I know that is not what she is called, but she was very happy to get his CD's and books.  We had someone hear about our moving and he came and collected all that Scott would let him have.  I don't want to know..  I have his cabinet full of the animal calls, and it is a pretty piece of furniture.  I have not put it up, just like the boxes I cannot open, I am like a statue made of stone sometimes, heart and brain.  What does it matter?  I saved things I keep close to me.  They hurt sometimes too, but if I don't look at them, just know they are there.  He is not though.  

[Gwenivere]

I can see into Steve’s office from the bathroom.  I see his recliner where he sat so much chatting with his buddies, laughing, working on his music.  Now there is a medic alert box on the table.  That is his replacement.  Silent and cold.  I want my old alert back.  The one that had life and was warm.  The one that didn’t need a button and only for emergencies.   

[Gwenivere]

Today must be a day of refelection.  I was talking at Steve thinking about being dependent.  Yes, I was dependent on him for many of the things I do now, but not because I couldn’t do them.  I don’t take any pleasure in doing this stuff.  All the things I have to do now were a division of labor and interest.  Worked out well as we each liked our roles.  But there was only one thing I was totally dependent on him for - happiness.  That one I can’t hire out, learn myself or purchase with any kind of currency.  This led into our discussions about about who would leave first.  Always the 'if you really love me, you won’t leave me to a life without you'.  We never settled that one, nature did.  I don’t know how Steve woulD have fared these last 3 plus years except his telling me that he would have stayed til our only dog passed and he probably would have drank himself to death.  That was his go to for pain.  Every time we lost a furry kid, member of the extended family or a friend he got drunk.  He had me to get back to life for.  I wouldn’t have wanted him  to feel this pain I do, but i knew him enough that he probably would have taken that path.  I often feel guilty it hadn’t gone the other way.  I just wasn’t cut out to live without happiness.  This is a mishmash of thoughts.  I rarely talk at him.  I needed him to know how hard this is, at least in my.mind and heart.  One thing I feel I do know after this talk if he could hearit, he would understand now.  He wouldn’t see me as selfish but the intense love that has made life a struggle and my need for that dependency.  There are no winners or losers all in all.  There was nothing to win.  How could there be in death and it’s  fallout? 

 

[scba]

14 hours ago, Gwenivere said:

 But there was only one thing I was totally dependent on him for - happiness.  

 

I'd like to take this. I was totally dependent on his light in my life. On his courage and wisdmom. On his care. On his smile.

[Gin]

I also was dependent on Al for my happiness.  Nothing seems happy anymore.  My car is broken and I need him to decide what to do...fix it or have to get another.  When he was here, we figured things out together.  Now, together is me.  Me is not doing very well at the figuring.

[kayc]

Gin,

At the end of the day all we can do is our best and not look back at our decisions.  I've made some mistakes with my decisions, but I've learned from them too.  Is there anyone you know that you could invite to look at your car and help you with your decision? Do you have a garage that works on it where they could help you assess it?

[Gwenivere]

I’ve been noticing that every single person I have contact withs lives are so packed they don’t feel they have enough time.  I have way too much now.  I never was as overbooked as they are, but days didn’t feel like they lasted a week.  I joke with them saying they can have some of mine.  But I mean it, anything to shorten these long days that drag by like torture.  They complain too.  Sometimes I want to shake them and say.....at least you have options.  You can cancel that dinner or party you feel you MUST have.  You don’t have to take  2 classes of school when you really only have time for one while you work a full time job.   And the biggie I hear is they have absolutely no time to watch thier favorite shows, so much to do.  Geez, slow down and be grateful you have choices!  My once balanced day, which I made sure was that way, has too many hours.  I have to think of things to do to fill them on my own.  It was so easy once.  Always something I could choose from, biggest being stuff for us.  Errands for Steve.  Errands for things we needed.  I miss being 'just right' busy living as a team.

[mittam99]

Gwen, one thing I try not to do is compare. What other people have and what other people do just isn't a part of my life I need to worry about. I think if I did, and compared their active lives to my empty schedule, I'd be in a much worse place than I am now.

But, I totally hear what you're saying. We had a life that had real meaning, real love, real understanding, real companionship etc ... in other words a life that was fullfilling. What we have these days is more like some poor imitation of a real life. The happiness and love has been replaced with a gloomy haze of drudgery, loneliness and emptiness. No matter how hard we try, real contentment or the feeling that our lives have real meaning eludes us. I often wonder "is this as good as it will ever get?".

Of course, none of us knows exactly what our future holds. We both know how true that is. Life goes along blissfully and in an instant our life changes in ways we never could have imagined. We've been on the tragic side of that equation. There is that hope that maybe, just maybe, we'll see positive changes in our futures. Those prospects may seem bleak and farfetched today, but you gotta have hope, right?

Mitch

[Shoosie2]

Mitch, that is spot-on!  We have been robbed of the 'our' future, but we still will have a future. It's what we do with it from now on that will make or break us. I just came across an interesting article while taking a break at work. It's very uplifting.

https://www.soulproof.com/loved-one-died/

 

Peace

Stephanie

[kayc]

@Shoosie2 Thank you for sharing that article with us, it resonates with me.  I think we need to be careful not to place limitations on our loved one.  I choose to look at it as they are no longer bound by their physical bodies but in no way died, but rather transformed into a different phase of life.  We are still very much connected and our love continues.

[Gwenivere]

I was looking at the definition of alone.  

Separated from others, isolated.  Considered without reference to any others.

what a cold word for a cold reality.

[Gin]

It sure is!

[Gwenivere]

I keep,running into articles about grief.  The latest I read said don’t think about your loss before sleeping.  Really?  I don’t know who wrote it, but I didn’t feel they had a clue of how hard that time is.  Just like the other 23 hours of the day.

[TomPB]

On 4/26/2018 at 11:18 PM, Gwenivere said:

I keep,running into articles about grief.  The latest I read said don’t think about your loss before sleeping.  Really?  I don’t know who wrote it, but I didn’t feel they had a clue of how hard that time is.  Just like the other 23 hours of the day.

Yeah, the internet is swarming with grief experts, in many cases repeating the same ideas, being clueless, or trying to make a buck. There is good material out there, like from Marty, but a filter is needed.