One of my buttons involves my perception of some one crossing my boundaries. We all have various “lines in the sand” that when crossed provoke a response; one of mine is the demarcation between my professional life and my personal life.
For years I struggled with the issues of the work day long after I had left work for the day. It took me a long time to learn how to mentally and emotionally leave work, and all its stress, behind when I physically left the site for the day. One thing I learned that truly helped me was that no matter how much I accomplished in a day, or how much of myself I sacrificed on the altar of work, there is always more to do. So when I leave work for the day I no longer want to think about it, or deal with it in any way. You might say my boundary around work is a fairly wide and deep moat.
So last night when I got an email that was work related at my home address it upset me. Yesterday was the last day of my vacation. I was relaxed and comfortable; pleased with the past five days. So getting an email that indicated potential changes in my daily assignments, and asking for input regarding the change at 8:30 pm last evening, seemed to be very controlling, almost insulting to me. This couldn’t wait until tomorrow? It couldn’t have been sent to my work email address? Getting that mail changed my entire mood in just a few seconds. It, in effect, ended my vacation early, and ruined the last evening I had off before returning to the office today.
Although my lesser demons wanted to send a fairly nasty, passive-aggressive response, my better angels prevailed and I didn’t do anything. This morning I replied to the sender saying that it would be best if they came and talked to me in person. Still a bit passive-aggressive, but at least appropriate.
I found a bit of nirvana today; at least airport nirvana. With more than an hour to kill before my connecting flight boards I needed a place to sit, maybe eat some food, and be away from the teeming masses that surge through airports like so many lemming migrations.
What I found was a set of two chairs, off to the side, next to a working power outlet, and with a full strength Wi-Fi signal. In sight of the departure gate. So while I recharge my batteries all my toys are getting recharged as well.
One 90 minute flight to go and I’m home. Or at least down to a 45 minute drive from home.
My vacation took me to a context outside of the ones I shared with Michele. Traveling by plane was something we shared, and traveling was something we both appreciated. But going to Massachusetts was not something we ever did as a couple. In fact my trip here is a bit of a bookend, as the last solo vacation I had before marrying Michele was to this very place.
The several days I’ve been here have made me feel removed from Michele more than usual. She hasn’t left my mind, but her memory hasn’t been as strong because this context doesn’t include her. Tonight, as I prepare to return to Kansas, I am struck by a feeling of sadness and a return of sorrow. Tomorrow I return to the life that included her and is now desolate in her absence. I have needed this break from my routine, and I am ready to return to it now. Being gone has heightened my awareness of my feelings. Being gone has given me a break from the spiral of anger I was wrestling with in the days leading up to this trip. I am curious to see if my anger returns when I once again submerge myself into the routine of my life.
Of course, maybe that is the point. Maybe I should continue to alter my routine to help move me to a new set of the contexts; ones that don’t include the triggers for anger. Not a complete, immediate break from the past, but a gradual movement forward. Grief is standing still and allowing the world, life itself, to pass you by. Healing is movement, rejoining the stream and allowing your self to continue its journey unimpeded. I know that I will continue to linger in the backwaters and shallows of grief for a time yet, but through this vacation I have felt the pull of life again, and I know I can choose to rejoin that current when I am ready.
va-ca-tion | va-kay-shun | noun
1 an extended period of recreation, esp. when one is away from work while one’s co-workers are not.
Travel is not a major part of my life. One or maybe two trips a year is about my speed anymore. And I really haven’t traveled that much with a laptop at my disposal so I am new to the wonderful world of getting online in the airport. As I have some time to kill prior to my flight to Chicago today I wandered into the “Expedia.com Cafe” and got out my laptop. Trying to access my normal web home page resulted in the expected, “you have to pay” screen. Deciding that being on vacation was cause enough to splurge the 10 bucks required for Wi-Fi access I started filling in the online signup form.
However, as I was ready to submit the charge I noticed that every other laptop in use in the room was using a wired connection. Hmm. Breaking out my CAT-5 cord and plugging it in resulted in FREE access. No mention of that on the Wi-Fi greeting page. I guess it pays to try all the options available before plunking down your credit card.
I lost my temper again today. As is always the case, the straw that broke the camel’s back was a minor, insignificant thing. I live in an complex of two story apartment buildings, town homes and duplexes. The local Fire Department has cited the management for allowing us all to have charcoal and gas grills on our patios. When we were first looking at apartments 18 months ago we discovered that there was a regulation prohibiting gas or charcoal grills on the deck of any apartment. Makes sense actually, having a large potential fire source on a wooden deck attached to multi-unit housing is a disaster waiting to happen.
As it turns out using a gas or charcoal grill within ten feet of the building is against city ordinance as well. The city has asked the management here to have us all remove our grills from the patios and store them in our garages. This is the part that I don’t get, and what ultimately set me off this afternoon. I understand perfectly not using the grill within ten feet of the building, but I don’t get why I can’t STORE it outside less than ten feet from the building. My patio isn’t ten feet in any direction so I can’t keep the grill there. I guess it’s a fire hazard that close to the building.
So we’ll keep it INSIDE the building. Yeah. That’ll be better.
There was a message waiting for me on my voice mail when I got home today from one of the new people in the office. (There’s always a new person in the office.) She told me that I had to move my grill before the inspection or I’d be fined $75 by the city. I lost it. I screamed and threw things. I hit the walls and desk. I yelled so long and so loud that my throat is raw even now, hours later. My first reaction was to throw the grill away, or better yet drag to the office and dump it in their doorway. Some shred of calmness took over and I only stuffed it into a corner of the garage. Getting to the passenger side of the car while it is in the garage is no longer possible.
I went so far as to call the non-emergency number for the Fire Department, but they only referred me to the administration office, which naturally had closed ten or fifteen minutes earlier. So I yelled and ranted some more, scaring the cats and generally behaving like a lunatic. Eventually I ran out of expletives and energy. Instead of making dinner (I was in NO mood for cooking) I ordered Chinese take out and ate that instead. In a minor miracle my throat did not seize on me and I was able to eat without difficulty.
Laying in bed just now trying to fall asleep I knew I had to write about this in order to capture it to read later, and also to help me finishing venting. I know my rage this afternoon wasn’t really about the OPFD or the grill or the apartment management. It was about feeling a loss of control. Someone outside of me was telling me what to do and I didn’t like it. You see, Michele, by committing suicide, in effect told me what to do. And she put me in a situation where I frequently feel out of control. Since I haven’t quite forgiven her for that transgression, I can hardly let anyone else off for doing the same.
I think that coming back from the edge of despair is really about regaining control when everything feels beyond your ability to direct. It’s about relearning how the world works and what coping tools you have available to deal with the vagaries of life. Initially your freeboard (the distance between the water line and the edge of the hull on a boat) is greatly diminished by the weight of the grief you are carrying. The slightest upset results in water coming onboard raising the possibility of your sinking beneath the waves. Over time you manage to toss overboard some of the grief, and you gain some more freeboard. Upsets can still happen, and they are all the more scary because shipping more water now takes you back to that precarious time when one more drop would take you down.
Put another, less prosaic way, your greatest danger lies not at rock bottom. At rock bottom you have nothing else to lose. You just exist. But once you start the climb back towards normal, any fall, any slip takes you back to the ultimate place of despair, of which you just clawed your way out. Going back down is scarier than anything else for me. I don’t know if I can climb out again. Having weathered the first three months of this new stage of my life I now have something new to lose, and no way to recover should I get knocked down again. Had my contract not been renewed I don’t think I would have survived. I think I might have tried to follow Michele.
Having dodged that bullet, however, I am now wary of situations that contain in them the potential of great failure or turmoil. I need to have a period of rest and strength building at this first plateau above despair, so that I can climb up to the next, and the next after that. My anger is merely an expression of the fear I have of falling now that I am up from the very depths of hell on earth.
I am so mad at Michele these days. Everything I try to do seems to fall apart and she’s not here to support me. Furthermore my inability to be coherent or focused is a result of her death. I feel as if she abandoned me and all the responsibilities of this life - left me holding the bag. All the bills, all the creditors clamoring for their money now only have me to focus on. And I don’t have anyone to fall back on for support.
While a part of me wants to make excuses for her action of October 10th, I know that my default mode is to make excuses for the people I love when they let me down. I will defend her at another time, today I have to vent my anger before it consumes me. Her suicide leaves me with all the pieces to pick up, the bills, the cats, everything. And I don’t have anyone in my life to turn to on a daily basis anymore. And I don’t have a reason for continuing either. If not for Nekko and Taz and my inability to consider killing them before myself, I would follow Michele.
I am in so much pain; every minute of every day hurts. I feel like a wire that is stretched to its breaking point, only the wire is brittle too - the slightest touch will shatter it into a million pieces. I can’t reach that part of my that was grounded and whole anymore. That part of me belonged to Michele, and when she died she took it with her. I no longer like who I am and I am very angry at Michele for taking away the life I loved.
What’s left is a life I am not happy with, routines that only serve to fill empty hours, pointless meanderings through daily existence. I hope this gets better because I can’t imagine anything that would be worse.
Michele, I am so fucking angry at you right now. You left me and now I have nothing. No reason to feel, no reason to care, no reason to be. You took away everything I was or wanted to be. How can I ever move on from this? It took me 20 years to find you. I compromised and grew, I molded myself into us - just as you did. I cannot conceive of ever being able to do that again. Or even wanting to. You left me in a way that has filled me with rage, sorrow, anguish, and fear. I’m increasingly taking my rage out on poor little Taz. I haven’t hurt her - but I toss her to the ground and yell at her. I don’t want to be mad at her - she doesn’t do anything except love me. My anger is about you, not her.
Being this angry at you hurts me so much. I don’t know how to express all the pain I’ve got. If you were here you’d sit across from me and wait until I popped the bubble and vented my upset. Then you and I would talk it through and I would feel better. Of course, if you were here I wouldn’t feel this way, now would I?
Taz has returned to my arm as I type this one-handed. The spurt of anger that I exploded with a while ago; that precipitated this posting, has calmed now. And this incredible bundle of acceptance and love that is Taz, has forgiven me.
I love you Michele - but I am very angry with what has happened. Only by expressing it here do I feel I have any chance of letting it go before it drags me under.
In the several hours since my rage filled posting earlier today I have had quite a breakdown. Initially I started expending the energy from my repressed anger by cleaning up what has become the storage closet. The Saturday of New Year’s Eve I removed all of Michele work clothes and took them to Goodwill. Since then the closet and adjoining bedroom have been a shambles. I finished moving things around inside the closet and returned all the items I had strewn about the room. The closet is accessible again, and everything inside it is as well.
Burning off the energy helped to bring me down, in fact I crashed at bit. Sitting at my desk I felt weak and incredibly tired. I put my head down for a minute and woke up 20 or 30 minutes later, stiff from the hunched over position. I wanted to go lay down on the bed, but it was unmade as the sheets were in the dryer. It figures that after several days of putting off changing the bed that it would be unmade when I really needed to lay down.
Instead I crashed on the couch, which immediately attracted both cats. Nekko assumed her usual perch on the back of the couch, and Taz laid on my hip for a time, and then curled in the space behind my knees. I slept and dozed for maybe another 30 minutes before watching the latest episode of “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” on the Tivo. I almost always get into the emotion of the show and this one was no different. I cried almost continuously throughout the program. I know that the tears weren’t so much about the family getting a new house but about releasing some of the toxin built up inside of me over the past 98 days. Writing my earlier posting expressing just the surface of my anger at Michele and this situation opened up the flood gates, and seeing a sentimental program helped me to release a lot of pent up emotions.
I feel cleansed now, if utterly exhausted. I was going to make fried rice for dinner which required a quick trip to the grocery for the carrots I forgot to buy two days ago, but I’m not sure if I can muster the energy to make the trip now. The emotional outpouring has moved me away from the anger center of my emotions and toward the middle once again. I have been resisting the idea of participating in a “survivors of suicide” group because I didn’t want to share this with anyone, because I felt my situation was different. Experiencing the anger “high” and crying “low” today has shown me that I do need to work on this outside of myself. As strong as I am, and as introspective as I can be, I am not enough by myself to overcome this trauma.
A quick search online turned up a survivor’s group nearby at a hospital. They meet once a month for 90 minutes. Their next meeting is the first week of February and I think I’ll attend.
Because I can’t read a calendar, or rather didn’t try to read one, my short mini-vacation is scheduled for next weekend rather than this three-day weekend. D’oh!
So I’m working the holiday today to make up for the extra vacation time my error will cost me. Having the contract end on a Thursday this year (the 12th) has also given me some extra hours. At the start of the week I only had 32 hours I could bill against the old contract, and eight hours I could bill on Friday, day one of the new contract. As I was ahead on hours by close of business Thursday I carried the six hours I couldn’t bill over to this week. That six hours, plus time here yesterday and today, will easily offset the extra day of vacation and more.
For whatever perverse reason I’ve always kinda of liked working on a holiday. There’s no one else here so there aren’t any interruptions, and there is a very casual feel to the job for once. The only downside is that this building is a bit creepy with all the lights off. The sun is barely up so there isn’t any light from outside yet, and the long hallways are shadowy and empty. Ooky-spooky.
Only two more work days until vacation.
I am starting to wonder if there wasn’t a grace period on my grief. Except for the first couple of weeks, which were very rough, I have had a seemingly smooth ride through grief. The people I talk to about this all say that I am doing very well, and a part of me wants to agree. But there are increasing signs that the facade of normalcy is starting to crack.
Every day when I come home from work I have some daily chores to tend to, and then the rest of the evening is mine. Only I don’t want the rest of the evening. At 6:00 or 7:00 o’clock I am ready to go get into bed. I want to hide from the world, and hide from my loneliness. Friday’s are simply awful. Because I am staying at work longer during the week (so as to shorten the evenings a home) I run out of billable time by noon or earlier some Friday’s. The afternoon and evening stretch out forever, only to be followed by two long weekend days. This weekend will be even worse as it is a three-day holiday weekend for me. My plan is to work on Monday, a the office, just to fill the time.
Most evenings around 8:00 o’clock I start to get very antsy and nervous. Last night I calmed myself by taking a hot bath. Most nights I crawl into bed and numb myself with an hour or two of reruns on the Tivo. going to bed early does shorten the evening but it also means I wake up at 4:00 or 4:30 in the morning. I feel like my schedule is slowing moving away from every one else’s. I am lost an alone and the mechanisms I am employing to cope are further isolating me.
Even as I am typing this posting I am thinking that I could go into work all three days this weekend, just for a few hours each day to fill the hours that are empty now. Tonight I am telling myself that I can go to Border’s and browse or sit and watch the people. Just to be away from all this empty.
And everyday my need for fulfillment gets stronger, and my fear of nothing to do gets more intense. I think the grace period between the shock of Michele’s death and the reality of my emotions about that event is coming to a close. I fear the next few weeks will be intensely rough.