Low Key, High Spirits

The train boarded mid-November, as it does each year, and after Thursday, I will have reached my destination at Wedding Anniversary Depot, after which I will place Grief-Relapse 2008 (GR-08) into the archives along with GR-04 through GR-07.

Anybody who says grief gets easier with time has probably never lost a spouse.

My tears no longer remain round-the-clock, nor do they flow as often, but when they flow, they flow with the same intensity as when this crazy train-ride began, on November 19, 2003. The moment I sat with Chris in the examination room, fighting the stream of information coming from his doctor’s mouth, will forever be embedded in the crack within my fractured brain, spackled over with plaster-of-denial. Each year, I need to perform preventative maintenance to keep the sadness, horror and panic of that day and the year and a half that followed packed into the crack where it remains contained well enough to allow me to live my life without Chris.

I have been hailed by many since that day, honored with words such as “courageous”, “brave”, “strong”, “amazing” and the like. Those who hail me only see what I show. Those verbal medals of honor don’t stick when I close the door behind me upon my return from work each evening.

My very busy and enjoyable life keeps me acutely aware of the emotional benefits of a change in cognition. Since Chris died, I have sought, found and earned two new jobs, each more rewarding than the last. I have performed in four stage productions, began boxing, worked my jogging distance up to seven miles, moved to two apartments in two cities, again each nicer and more befitting to me than the last.

Forward movement has never been a problem for me, and for that I have my father to thank. That man never stops moving forward. Despite my adolescent misdiagnosed hatred toward him (It was really just anger. Who knew?), we share the same genetic makeup. Whenever I feel limited, in any way, I remember that my father returned to school and earned his masters degree at age 62, and then nailed a management position at 64. Who am I to deny that anything is possible?

So, even though I returned home from work last night and paced around my apartment, and ate more than I should have in an attempt to push my grief back down into the black depths, anguish enveloped me and dragged me down...but only for a few moments. I patted my tears dry, changed my shoes and headed out for another audition, where I got to stand on stage and sing in front of a panel of auditors (my favorite thing to do). Case in point: changed cognition changed the course of my evening, if only for a while. I rode the high for a few hours before the undercurrent returned and dragged me under for another hour. Sleep came to my rescue and I awoke to a new day and now the rain is outside my window instead of inside my mind and body.

God, the rain outside my Dickens-esque windows is far too beautiful for me to believe. This morning’s plan is to take a nice, long run around the Charles River in that rain, read for my psychology class, study some computer code for my new job and head out for a haircut.

Low key high spirits is today’s motto. I know enough about my emotional rubble by now to understand that “today” is as far in advance as I can plan.

That’s good enough for me, as long as I get to feel happy sometimes.