I guess a person can only live under a cloud of bereavement for so long. Not speaking for others of course, but I would never choose such a cloud. Still, I had one which started forming about when ’03 segued to ’04 and the person I loved began to morph from partner to guy-in-need-of-care.
You can’t help it is the thing. When you’ve spent 20 years in life-meld with an other who buttressed, buffered and ballasted you it’s not going to feel good when those features of his personality fade into oblivion. So, while I always got-r-done, it is also true that I continuously carried a small but potent albatross of grief in my left jacket pocket.
What happened is, sometime this year, as Summer turned to Fall, (can’t pin it to a day,) the albatross disappeared from my pocket. I’m not worried about the albatross. I think he will reappear in a slightly different guise somewhere down the road when PCA proves that it is, in fact, terminal. But for now I’m not going looking for him. Somehow, finally, a self of me emerged (or re-emerged,) and it’s one that is happy enough unpartnered.
Another interesting feature that was revealed as the skin of bereavement sloughed off is that I don’t mind being a caregiver as main occupation. Not because I think it’s cool or anything...it’s decidedly not-cool, but heck, I don’t care. Life can be fun. You just have to gear your activities appropriately.
There’s movie called Death Becomes Her in which the character played by Bruce Willis finally throws off the burden of being doormat to a domineering spouse and declares that “life begins at 50.” Luckily I have no nasty people to dispense with, but I’m pretty sure my 50s are looking like a nice change from my 40s.
7 comments:
:)
yes yes! no albatross
love you
Dear WonderWord Woman, What part do you think hiring some help for Jeff's care has had in your emptying your left jacket pocket? Cuz if it's had any at all, I'm getting me some.
Well, Jeff is not hard to care for, nor are his behaviors challenging (I mean he's pleasant, not ornery.) What having someone come twice a week accomplished was allowing me to finish a writing project. So I probably feel a little better because of that milestone.
I've got the aides on hold for now, due to it's being a time of year when my kids come and go, so a regularly scheduled aide is often redundant.
I have no concrete reason to explain why I feel better, but it does seem to be a lifting of grief. This is not to say that my stress level won't ↑ again when the care becomes more intensive, but the grief part...I think it's just gone. Maybe an example of time healing all wounds?
You are dealing with a spouse, which I'm sure is more intense than my experience in dealing with a mother. However, I found that that most of the grieving is on the front end. As things get more intense, much of the grieving that normally is associated with death has already been gone through, and your emotions are more now focused ("I'm tired", "this is hard", etc). You seem to have a good support system with mother, sister, children, and extended family, plus you have all of the growth you experienced through Jeff's investment in your life. I'm confident that you will continue to do quite well.
That is true...but it was a looong front end!
For me, there was always the tension of grieving what I've lost versus trying to appreciate what I still have. Often, I would regret focusing so much on what I had lost in previous stages that I had failed to appreciate what I still had, but that which I had failed to appreciate was also now gone. For example, when she kept asking the same questions or making the same comments over and over, as if in a loop, I did not appreciate it and only thought of how I had lost normal dialogue. But the day eventually came when she stopped asking the questions, and there was almost nothing that felt like verbal communication from her. I thought, "I should have appreciated the silly questions while I had them." Much of the grieving was on the front end, but I also found that failure to appreciate caused later condemnation.
This might be confusing to you as it is hard for me to express feelings this complex in another language.
It makes perfect sense. One would hardly notice that your English is not native.
It has been a recent welcome change for me that I am appreciating simple things like Jeff laughing for no apparent reason. Getting beyond NEEDING the relationship as it used to be is a big help.
My main wish for now is that he will remain content.
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