I have created a new phrase to describe this widow journey, and that is “Raccoon Brain.” Raccoon Brain Syndrome When you go chasing all kinds of shiny objects with an intense fascination, only to get distracted by the very next shiny object and forget the first one. To be fair, I’ve always had a little bit of Raccoon Brain Syndrome. So did Tim. We both were pretty good at getting super excited about one hobby only before jumping off to…
When I wrote the one month post, I felt like I blinked and thirty days had passed. Things are slower now – slower and different than before. Foolishly, I thought this would be a linear process. While I used to define my grief in good vs bad days, now there are just days. Lots of little things come up during the course of a day – something someone says, a song, a memory or an item I find in the…
A friend has mentioned that she keeps waiting for my angry/explosive phase of my grieving. I’m not sure if that will happen or not, but my fuse is really short right now in general. The list of things that annoys me is deep as the contents in my storage shed that I still need to go through. I’m really trying to be patient and kind. I’m trying to understand that other people are grieving too, and just because they didn’t…
I came back to work a week and a half after Tim died. My boss was out of the office that day, but messaged me to check in and see how I was doing. He said, “People may act weird around you,” and I remember thinking tell me something I don’t know! Our society doesn’t really know how to handle someone like me. It’s an unusual circumstance, and people struggle with what to do to comfort someone who has suddenly lost…
Prelude: This post today does not mean I’m sitting here in my desk crying, but rather I’m sitting here at my desk at boots & breeches because I’m showing after work today. Schooling was great, but I’m super busy this week so I have a blog post I wrote a week ago for today. Will have a show report for y’all Monday! I am not what you would call an emotional person. Between the two of us, Tim was always…
For I have known them all already, known them all: Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons; I know the voices dying with a dying fall Beneath the music from a farther room. So how should I presume? The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot Tonight after work, I move into my new apartment. I’ve been dreading it. At first I thought I dreaded the move because it was…
This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper. – T.S. Eliot, “The Hollow Men” I have been doing a lot of thinking about Tim’s final thoughts on this earth. The afternoon before he died, I talked to him on the phone after his therapy appointment. Tim was in pretty good spirits considering everything that had been going on for the previous weeks, and it was a positive phone call. Through my extremely impressive detective…
Tomorrow will be one month. I know the saying “time flies” is something that everyone is aware of, but I’m not sure I can describe to you how much this past month has been a blur. Initially, I feel like I was being led through it by my family and friends. I guess I was, because if they weren’t here I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have gotten out of bed or eaten or planned a proper memorial for my husband….