Sofa Psychosis or A Good Mood

As I walked to the train station this evening after work, I noticed the absense of something and that something was grief. When I realized how calm, serene and content I was, I breathed in the feeling and just allowed myself to cuddle with the peace and be completely thankful for the proof that I am still able to feel this way. I had forgotten I had such capacity. I instantly called Bonnie to share my hopefully infectious good mood with her. When happiness strikes, I try to share it with the wonderful, patient people in my life who listen to me cry again and again and never seem to lose patience with me.

I’m not sure what has changed that has caused me to feel such a release. I have spent some of tonight trying to analyze the change in the winds. What I have come up with is this:

I have been kicking, fighting and screaming in aniticipation of Chris’ birthday and Thanksgiving for the past four or five weeks. These fast approaching holidays had been instilling pure terror within me and as a result, I have spent each night doubled over, a prisoner of my grief, feeling as though there was no escape and I was going to feel this badly for the rest of my life.

But with the coming of each object of my fear, comes the going of that same object. Somehow, with Chris’ birthday just two days away, I feel better because after Wednesday, the fear and anticipation will be behind me. I will have survived the worst “first” of all, my sweeheart’s birthday.

Oh, the things we would have done, the smiles, the mountains of devotion, walking around together, me forcing him to kiss me in the Public Garden as part of my romantic memory campaign. Creej would always tease me by holding me, kissing me and saying, with both hands raised in the air in a sarcastic gesture, “Here. Here’s a PRECIOUS romantic memory.” I didn’t care. A romantic memory is a romantic memory, with or without the sarcasm. I took it.

Everything Bonnie and I have read about anniversaries and firsts suggests that the anticipation is far worse than the actual event. Once the event comes, it goes.

What I am learning throughout my journey of grief is that the pain really does subside, if in spurts and sporadic moments. The thing about grief is that I can feel wonderful one moment and think that it’s smooth sailing from here on in, but that just isn’t the way grief works. I have followed up the most fantastic surges of euphoria with the blackest rock-bottom, death-wishing tornadoes of utter despair. Grief has no order.

I will admit I am paranoid that this peaceful feeling is going to end. Actually, paranoia may be too strong a word or too negative a word. I know the feeling is going to end just as sure as I know I will be happy again some day.

I certainly took advantage of my feelings tonight. I came straight home, long enough to change and head out to the gym to lift weights and nurture my sudden strength. Yep, me and a bunch of muscle-bound beefcakes hittin’ the iron, doing our best to ignore and grunt at each other. I wonder if I disgust them the way they disgust me. Maybe they feel that I don’t belong there. I digress.

I’m still feeling wonderful, yet keeping my eye on the Ativan just in case. I really don’t like to rely on the drug. I use my artificial “okay” once in a while when I feel like banging my head with the force of a sledge hammer, on my kitchen island. When I can vividly hear the sound of my head connecting with and cracking on it’s two-inch thick butcher block surface, I pretty much know it’s time for “social worker in a bottle”.

So here I sit on my beautiful cushy L-shaped sectional couch, given to me by my friends, on which I am still not able to relax. I was given the sofa after Chris died and somehow I am still not over the guilt that he had to endure week after week of chemo side effects on an old, hard, mishapen futon couch while I, if I choose (which I don’t...well, can’t) lounge about in the lap of luxury on a sofa fit for a queen.

There is so much more to grief than just sadness. Clay willl take the bite out of my sofa-psychosis.

Okay. Now I am laughing out loud after having looked up the definition for psychosis on dictionary.com. I will leave you with the results. Enjoy and don't forget to relate them to me, rolling around in a psychotic episode on my sofa!

psy·cho·sis - n. pl. psy·cho·ses

1) A severe mental disorder, with or without organic damage, characterized by derangement of personality and loss of contact with reality and causing deterioration of normal social functioning.

2) a serious mental disorder (as schizophrenia) characterized by defective or lost contact with reality often with hallucinations or delusions

3) any severe mental disorder in which contact with reality is lost or highly distorted