Muscle Memory is Killing Me

I am not doing very well. I woke up at 4am and I tossed around thinking ugly, dark thoughts until now. My head hurts and I am feeling a lot of pain and even though I realize this is self-pitying, selt-sabotaging behavior, I’m having trouble talking myself out of the funk I have been in lately.

I feel like there is so llittle love for me. I have, once again, entered a wishful state that Chris had survived his cancer, but that notion is just a fairy-tale of old.

Last night, I watched Larry King Live. Marlo Thomas was the guest and the show was about St. Judes Children’s Research Hospital. A few families and their doctors were also guests, along with child survivors of cancer.

Cancer is such a serious, scary, forboding disease. The one thing I wish I had in common with the families on the show is their getting to keep their loved ones. Their doctors saved the lives of their loved ones. They each got to feel what I felt each time Chris told me his tumor had shrunken. These families get to feel what I felt when the surgeon reported that she had managed to remove all of Chris’ cancer.

I am very sad this morning. I think my body is remembering the timeline. Two years ago, Chris was well into his 2nd diagnosis and had lost his belief that he would prevail. My body seems to remember and has begun to keep me awake at night, wake me up in the wee hours of the morning and infect me with depression.

Yesterday was day-one of my re-entry into the world of antidepressants. I am hoping my Zoloft will save me this time because I find that my brain has been telling me, once again, that the only way out of this mess is through death. I am trying, very hard, to turn this around, but I am really up against it this time because I feel as though none of my friends understand how painful losing my spouse has been for me. The worst part of that is that I think that they think they do understand, but that’s just not the case. Nobody really understands.

I am still fighting the fight and really trying to have a happy holiday season. I have to. I owe that much to myself. Muscle memory is beating the fuck out of me, though.

I have a hard time being around married people again. Carol and Josh are going strong and I find myself not really wanting to answer the phone when she calls. I am supposed to go with her this afternoon to see Josh play piano and then I am supposed to go out with the folks from my recently closed show for dinner. I don’t want to do either. All I want to do is crawl into bed and sleep until I die.

I know these feelings will pass. I’m tired. Maybe now the words are written, I have freed myself to go back to sleep.