Relapse

This morning, when I could find nothing in my head to write about, I decided to look back a year to see what was on my mind then. A year ago. Of course I remember, now, what was on my mind. My wife was, very briefly, at home. She was sleeping a lot and eating very little. I had hired an agency to help me look after her at night; to turn her during the night and to help minimize the pain she was feeling. I think I knew at the time that my wife was dying, but I did not want to admit it to myself, or to her. I wanted to think she would recover from five months of lonely, painful, isolation. I wanted to believe her misery would come to an end and we would once again be able to converse with one another, talking about something other than her disability and her discomfort. As I look back a year from today, I wonder how I could have been so damn clueless. I wonder how I could have allowed myself to hope for the best, even though I had witnessed a daily decline for five months. A year ago, it would be almost two months before she would die and I was stubbornly clinging to hope she would get better and would survive. God, what a miserable experience those awful five months were for her. I can only imagine it because I could so rarely see her and talk to her. And she either refused to talk about it or did not realize how bad it was. But I knew, deep down. I knew the world was crashing in around her and, by extension, me.

There’s something about the calendar changing from October to November that feels so deeply painful. It’s as if the world has robbed me of the ability to make any difference in the way the days play out. Depression doesn’t begin to describe  my state of mind. This morning, it’s more like terminal pain. This morning, I can feel myself clawing to reach out for soft, caring warmth and tender comfort, but I’m alone in an empty room. Normally, I would welcome this early morning isolation, but this morning it feels more like hollow desolation. Like abandonment; but I know I wasn’t left alone. It was more like I abandoned a life that defined mine, creating an empty shell out of the remnants of all the mistakes I made over the course of a lifetime.

I haven’t felt so damn vacant in many months. I don’t know quite why it all seems to be collapsing around me this morning. I guess it’s just the fact that it’s a new month like last year. And like last year, this one has no hope of recapturing what was lost long before.

It’s not fair of me to feel so bleak and lonely. I should feel grateful for my IC’s presence, and I do, but I am fighting with myself about how I can overcome the rawness of this morning. How can I be grateful and appreciative but, at the same time, be lonely and sad and utterly bereft? I hate writing this stuff because it must seem like I am not grateful. But I have to write it so I can remember, later, how I felt on these random days when I wanted to just curl up and disappear into vapor. There will be a time when it’s just a memory and I will be glad it’s gone. But I think I need to remember so I will recognize how bleak it felt, even ten or eleven months after the fact.

It’s not fair of me to share this with anyone, least of all with my IC, who somehow drew me out of the grey edges of doom into the light. But it’s not fair to keep it hidden, either, pretending I have gotten beyond the sharpness of the pain. I am fortunate to be able to emote, I guess, but it feels more like a weakness than an outlet.

I have to stop this. Just let it settle. This is a temporary dip. All will be well, eventually.