Anxiety

 Dear Will:

I’m going to the city that we shared in joy for fifteen years … or at least we were joyful until our last trip during which you had a visible stroke and then shit yourself on the way to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

I had so much grief then.  So much grief right now. I’ve been crying off and on since yesterday afternoon when I went to visit your grave.  Your coffin is probably gone by now but your carcass, full of formaldehyde as it is, is probably still lookin like yourself, floating in a dirt bath.

Right now I’m sitting in the RDM airport and there is NO ONE around me.  I’ve never flown a red eye in the states before.  It will be interesting. I decided not to take a nap at the hotel when I get in but go to breakfast and then to a fancy schmancy church.  And then in the afternoon I’m seeing Elizabeth McGovern as Ava Gardner.  Very excited for that.  And then I’ll either crash or pick up one more play.

I’m going to move from Bend, sooner rather than later.  I’ll be leaving your grave and our house and all our Bend memories behind. Bend is so different than it was when you settled there. I miss our regular life together so much.  I miss your body so much.  But I am so grateful you left me with enough money to pay people to touch me and listen to me, even if I’m saying things the other person doesn’t want to hear.

My recent work with Sarah has been very powerful. I can talk to her in ways I’ve never talked with other therapists, telling my point of view of what’s going on based on my understanding of communication theories. (Ie, I sometimes deconstruct the appointment as we’re speaking). We worked on your negging the last time, worked on how you insulted my body, especially that one time, and how you never told my I was beautiful or even pretty or attractive. Because I was fat. You built on my family’s stated perception of me.

Reminds me of the Kandor and Masteroff song, “So What”

When I had a man, my figure was dumpy and fat
So what?
Through all of our years he was so disappointed in that
So what?
Now I have what he missed and my figure is trim
But he lies in a churchyard plot
If it wasn't to be that he ever would see
The uncorseted of me
So what?

For the sun will rise and the moon will set
And you learn how to settle for what you get
It will all go on if we're here or not
So who cares? So what?

Sarah asked if you’d ever shot off your mouth rudely and critically to others.  I told her the Dorothy story and the Bob Barber story.  We did EMDR around that particular remark about my boobs and how hurtful it was (in the fucking middle of making love). Maybe that’s why you told one medium that you were mean to me and you were sorry about that.

There was so much that, in contemporary thinking, wasn’t working in our mid-Century relationship but what did work worked so very hard, worked so very well, that I can’t stop missing you, loving you. Fortunately, the pain of your absence, while continual, isn’t always at the same level. My love for the dogs, my delight in being a fan girl, and (of course) weedy weed all raise the temperature of the ice cold weight of you gone. I will have lots of fun in New York. It will be interesting to see Lee and Jay, that old married couple.  I’m not doing their kind of thing this time just to hang out with them.(the offer was a play about Jane Austen or a drag show.  Blech.  Never read Austen.  And while I admire drag performers, I don’t like most drag humor — except the humor of Pantomime Dames.) I’ll go and see them at 2:30 on Wednesday.  We don’t eat at the same time so I won’t be required to eat with them (which has often been a huge pain in the ass, especially when Lee has been in charge of dining).

I didn’t go to the women’s lunch today nor will I go to the women’s retreat as I just can’t keep explaining that “I’m in this group but I don’t identify as a woman or man.” There’s no queer group at church.

I’m taking the doll that represents you and Barry Fox. And some Snickers.

Thundershower

 Dear Will:

Photo by Rioji Iwata on Unsplash

Big thundershower happening right now. I am remembering one of our few trips to Nebraska when a big storm was going overhead. I think it may have been when we went to Bill's funeral. I couldn't remember when that was and I was shocked, after searching Ancestry, to see that it was in 1994.  Bill was five years younger than you. That was a sad time. A big funeral and so many greasy casseroles after. And one night we were there a big storm blew through. The televisions were on in two rooms of the house through the night, with worry about tornadoes. And I held you and counted the moments between the bright flashes outside and the big booms. Gradually the time between shortened and then the giant crash that came along with the lightening. And then the storm slowly moved off in the other direction and the count got longer and longer. 

That was over thirty years ago. And your longest lived brother Sam died in 2009 at age 87. You decided that you would live to a greater age than he did. And you accomplished it, by four years.

I was really scared of that Nebraska storm. It was so comforting to have you there to hold. Like a thundershirt. 

The new dog, unlike Princess Birdy, doesn't need a thundershirt because she isn't as frightened of loud noises outside as Miss Birdy was. But it does make her anxious. Mr Winston is just annoyed he has to pee on concrete. The cat is in the study on her thousand dollar chair.

I met with a friend whose spouse's funeral was week before last. She is a writer and reminded me about how healthy writing is.  I'll restart my morning pages tomorrow. 

I feel like the past three days have been getting me ready for Eugene. 

Last Day at The Haven

What I haven't seen since last September 26

 Because of the puppy, I haven't been going into The Haven in the early morning and the afternoon just isn't the same thing.  It's really been a waste of money since September and even though I cut back to $165 month, I still wasn't getting my money's worth. So I had Hosanna close out my account this afternoon and I'm typing and having my last free beer.

Carrie and Scott  (owner-founders) have fled Bend for Seattle so I no longer feel a personal connection to the place.  I need to find another spot to write and look at the river.  I've also been having more luck writing in the house these days.

My mind is already getting ready to leave Bend, no matter how much I love my house. 

My life hasn't turned out how I thought it would. I never expected to live past 30 and now here I am age 71 and by myself without any intention of being in an intimate relationship again when until December 26, 2021, being in a love relationship was the most important thing in the world to me. 

I'm not capable of a healthy, loving relationship with anybody else but the dead one. It took us 17 years to work out our best life together. I don't have that much time left. 

I've been working on the memoir as well as transcribing my handwritten "sex memoir" I wrote back in 1995 (I had wondered if I'd counted my "conquests" correctly and, yes, I had).  I'm also having fun with a group called The Narrative Method which is an online project by an art therapist. So I'm trying to be a writer again, and not just a dog walker. Doing my best to make and keep working commitments to myself.

Now I need to go home and put all the things that are scattered over countertops into their proper places so that I have a spot to put this laptop as I crank out the memories, sacred and profane.
 

Deer napping outside The Haven on my last day

 

 

Fun Pun

 For some reason my church decided to say good-bye to the summer with a Hawaiian themed service. The 13 year old boy who lives in my head (alongside Todd from Scrubs) was vewy, vewy pleased.

 

 

The tree of leies in the meeting hall

 

Wow - Good Work Today

 Sarah and I did some good but exhausting work today.

Byzantine devil

We were both deeply present and I talked with her more honestly than I have with other therapists.

We had an interesting discussion about the concept of "worthiness."  She was thinking/saying that my core issue is that I don't feel "worthy" and for me the core issue is "i am bad".  She thought they meant the same thing but for me they don't.  Not being "worthy" suggests or connotes to me that there is an "average" person (B student) who can't become extra special, ie, get the A.  On the other hand,  being a bad person means that one is starting below the average line - that being bad is an F for Failure student of life.

Can I get rid of the core source of my depression? Can I stop the despair cycle?

It would be nice to be healed, like the stooped woman. Luke 13.  Pastor Joseph Yoo had a great, one minute sermon on that in which he identified mental self wounding as analogous to the physical image of the bent over woman.

At one point today I got very angry with Sarah and instead of hiding my anger I told her. She saw the anger as a defensive move. I saw it as something else but we were able to process it and I stood my ground and was honest with her.

See, along with my core belief against myself, I also believe that no one (but Will) is dependable over time and that loving someone is no proof that the very next day after they tell you that you can count on them forever they will not walk out on you and call you toxic and abusive. How somebody is to me today is no proof that they will be that way tomorrow. People are not the sun.  

It feels risky to be as honest as I'm being with Sarah. But it's riskier not to be. 

I remember doing therapy with Phil and how even though we did good work together, some of it got ruined by his stupid Jungian insistence that I was feminine.  I told Sarah today that at one point my brain was telling me that "What if Sarah is like every other therapist and wants to force me into her framework." She was able to hear me and not get defensive, unlike past therapists.

EMDR

 I'm back to once a week with Sarah and we're going to do some EMDR to work on hitting all the places in my brain where I received the information that I was disposable, as I did last week.

That's where my brain goes to when I'm struggling - I'm bad and if I'm punished enough by someone things will get better.

Today, one of the first things I told her when I walked in was an epiphany I had on the dogwalk this morning:  Between first grade (age 7?), when my first memory of some kind of abuse occurs, and Will's death, the amount of time when I could be fully myself with the people who loved me most was FOUR MONTHS, the months between my family leaving Pocatello in 1971 and when Will yelled at me for seeing Dwight over the holidays in January 1972.  I could never tell mom what was happening to me because it would make her sad.  Will and I worked out a relationship where he didn't have to know who I was because it made him sad.

from South Denver Therapy

I've done some EMDR on the kidnap and rape but It might be useful to return it not as a violent act but as the experience of being "nothinged", especially in regards to the fact that my older sister then lied about it telling everyone I made it up and how I got absolutely no support except Will's love. 

Sarah says she wants to help me believe that I am not a terrible person who deserves to be punished whenever anybody gets upset with me.

If it's possible for this to happen, it will be amazing.

EMDR .... changing the brain.

Sarah explained to me that my reactivity is like a soldier's reactivity.   She said that when stuff like last Wednesday happens, and I'm laid low through a variety of experiential aspects, it's like when a soldier hears a backfire and falls face-down on the floor. It's reactivity to multiple and powerful messages over time.  And our work with the EMDR will be to search out the most telling moments during which I received the information that my opinion, mySelf, and my body were nothing.  The work of retraining my brain is to put chronemic space between the backfire and the response.

It's funny.  Because of the rape experience, I've always felt some connection to combat vets. This will be another link.

The Expert

 Mary Francis runs the carefully curated widow's FB group I'm in and she ran her most recent blogpost   in the group this morning. We're not allowed to share anything specific from the group but here are some paragraphs from her website.

from the Rock Hall in Cleveland

"The death of your spouse will put you into your own uniquely grief journey.  The truth is everyone’s marriage is different.  Therefore, it should come as no surprise that your grief will not necessarily be the same as another widow’s.

Your loss is influenced by your marriage, manner of their death, your emotional support, age and background.  Don’t compare your grief journey to others or make assumptions about just how long your grief will last.  Take a one-day-at-a-time approach that allows you to grieve at your own pace.

Don’t be afraid to talk about the person he was and the memories that allow for both laughter and tears.  It’s important not to ignore your grief and to talk about the death of your spouse if you need to.  It’s okay to speak from both your heart and your head.

You may feel confused, disoriented, fearful, guilty and angry all at the same time.  These emotions are all normal and healthy so permit yourself to feel and don’t be surprised if surges of grief suddenly come out of nowhere.  Seek out those people who encourage you to be yourself and are willing to acknowledge your feelings."

She ends with a peroration to go out and experience life.  Well, I've done that. I have taken three trips overseas since Will died (Deutschland, Ireland, Scotland). I've seen the opera in San Francisco four times. I've been to the Willamettte Coridor, the Oregon Beaches, Denver, Cody, Missoula, Seattle, Santa Fe, and fuckin' Cleveland (which rocks).

And I got a danged poodle puppy that completely changed my daily life. 

I have grabbed life by the proverbials and I still fall apart and cry sometimes because I'm living as half of what I once was and the cauterized edges still ooze pus. 

Will, during a time of crisis, once told me, "you do not need my approval" to live my life. Because my church has been so important to me, I've allowed myself to forget that I don't need its approval either.  Because I've felt so existentially alone, I've let critics into my brain that hadn't lived there since Will and I married and his became the most important inner voice. 

Will was like my mom (his face so like hers that a postman once thought they were siblings) in that he both appreciated my ferality and was appalled by it.  But he loved me nevertheless.  The last day I saw that love was December 24, 2021.