Sage Advice Today

 I've been having a lot of sadness for the past couple of months ... lots of tears through February.  Sarah and I decided to go back to a once a week schedule. Today she gave me a lot of good advice some of which I could hear through my sobbing.  

Monty Python Pictures Ltd.

1. She reminded me that many others who grieve have the same problem with loss of friends.  It's true that misery loves company but that's mostly because the pain of ongoing depression and grief in a world which wants everyone to be happy all the fucking time makes one feel like an outsider.  I have felt like a truly terrible person because of my experience with friends not wanting to be friends with me anymore.  If I were a likeable person, wouldn't people want to be with me? I told Sarah about dead Kathy's advice to be amiable Sarah talked about advice she'd given other grievers whose friends no longer want to be friends with them.  "You are not terrible people.  But you [ed: and the pain you carry] ARE terrifying to people."

2. She said, "Decision-fatigue is a thing." I have gone from making decisions only in a few select areas to making decisions about all the things (like a normal person) and I get tired of having to be the one in charge of my life when there used to be someone else carrying the weight with me.  And I know that Jesus says "My yoke is easy and my burden in light" but I am actually finding being Christian these days is also challenging.  Thanks, Dan McLellan.

3. She told me to get rest but easier said than done. I've been getting along on a broken sleep of about 6 hours when it's not 5 -- waking up most nights at 2:30 or 3.

4. One aspect of my sadness is my inability to know who I am and what I want and yet knowing that living in a place I hate so deeply isn't it.  Sarah came up with this visual metaphor.  She waved her hand in the air saying that "this is inside" scattered and amorphous. And then she dropped her hand like locking something down and said, "Yet you are imprisoned in Bend."  And that's it.  I feel stuck here.  imprisoned.  There is nothing for me here except a few people, my house, and a beautiful church.  But I can serve in any church. I have too much freedom in my head and not enough freedom in my life (because of my own fear).

5. She also reminded me, yet again, that I have been much more functional than I am right now and I probably will be again (whether or not I believe it).

6. She reminded me again that now that much of the initial feelings of loss have subsided, what I'm feeling is the requirement that I learn to live in the world on my own and that just still feels overwhelming to me and, after 50 years of bonding with another person until they became my ground of being, that's not so surprising.  "This is the first time you've been a widow." It's very hard for me to project further into the future than my next altar guild job.

 7. She also checked in to ask if I'd thought about cutting myself and I haven't had those thoughts. 

8. She also said that raising a dog, let alone taking care of two dogs on one's own is a challenge.  I had confessed that I don't love Sequel yet. I am caring for her but she hasn't been making herself lovable. She threatened me last week - teeth bared and everything. She is definitely not my baybe. But I am her pack leader and I made a commitment to her. But I know she would much rather be in a houseful of other puppies. Nevertheless, I don't want to send her away to dog sleep-away camp and won't give her up.

9. Sarah agreed that living in America during the crumbling of empire is exhausting all by itself.