I'm going with T to the piercing studio in a few hours. It's funny that I have found someone with the same addiction to piercing that I have; maybe it's a thing for kids who came of age in the 90s? We go there often to add holes to our bodies, and it feels the same as it did at 21; the endorphins are still just as powerful.
I am balancing my teenage nonsense with an appointment with the physiotherapist on Monday to find out why my right knee is hurting. I anticipate the answer will be that it has something to do with aging because I have not been doing anything that should have hurt it. Although J and I have been going to the gym pretty regularly, I have not been running (against my instinct); she makes me lift weight instead, and corrects my form like a drill sergeant.
I have never had physiotherapy for anything other than my stupid balance issue, so I don't know what that looks like, but I have this fantasy that it will involve shining magical lasers into my knee that will make it heal instantaneously. Is that a thing, magical lasers? I feel like it might be, and I feel like I want it.
*
Tonight I may go out with A for a short time; this is somewhat up in the air and I have mixed feelings about it. Part of me wants to stay home with J instead and be lazy. This obviously reflects some feelings I am having about the whole thing with A and my reluctance to address it. And my recognition that it moves around too fast for me to be sure what it means.
*
Saturday, November 30, 2019
Sunday, November 17, 2019
crickets
I talked with A last night, - and it turns out I do not know anything about what other people (besides me) are thinking and feeling. It isn't the kind of shift I was batoning down for. Shifts in his health choices, perhaps. If anything this has shifted me more than it has shifted him, and I find myself strangely and unexpectedly at peace with all of those changes in me. I have more room inside me than I thought I did. And more willingness and desire to change than I would have anticipated.
*
I spent the day downtown with C and L. C was my work momma for a lot of years, including some difficult ones, and seeing her happy and well is always good. And L, crazy and unpredictable and all over the place... I still enjoy her stories and her ignoramus comments and her kookiness. But at the end of the day I am tired, mentally. Tired from listening, tired from absorbing all her energy and chaos. It is much like being at work.
*
Work will be short this week. I have taken Thursday off to go to the dentist, and Friday I will be at the union office all day doing mediation training (which is sort of unnecessary but still a nice break break from the routine).
*
The time change is still throwing me off two weeks later. I have such a hard time feeling like doing anything when it's dark at 5pm. I am in my pajamas and thinking about my bed.
*
*
I spent the day downtown with C and L. C was my work momma for a lot of years, including some difficult ones, and seeing her happy and well is always good. And L, crazy and unpredictable and all over the place... I still enjoy her stories and her ignoramus comments and her kookiness. But at the end of the day I am tired, mentally. Tired from listening, tired from absorbing all her energy and chaos. It is much like being at work.
*
Work will be short this week. I have taken Thursday off to go to the dentist, and Friday I will be at the union office all day doing mediation training (which is sort of unnecessary but still a nice break break from the routine).
*
The time change is still throwing me off two weeks later. I have such a hard time feeling like doing anything when it's dark at 5pm. I am in my pajamas and thinking about my bed.
*
Tuesday, November 12, 2019
signs of wrong
There is shifting, which was inevitable. What the shift looks like is yet to be determined; I am mentally preparing to be crushed. That might be over-preparation, but I prefer that to the opposite. (It feels strangely like being 23 again, wanting very much to be loved but having no idea how to love anyone properly and unselfishly, including myself.)
*
*
Monday, November 11, 2019
a lot of dust
The irrational urge to be angry with A and pull away from him in his grief is powerful. Fortunately I am not nineteen and I have learned to use my pause button, but I feel my insides continuing to pull back, even while I actively force myself to be still and wait.
I cannot remember a lot of the details of how I managed my grief when my sister died. Of course it was not the same because she had been, effectively, dead for years before she died. A significant portion of my mourning had already taken place. A's brother had been alive and an important part of his life. So it's different - and we are different, he and I.
But I feel a shift, a change in his perspective, and in that new (imagined) picture, I am not where I was. I may not be in the new picture at all. And frankly, this would be for the best for me too, for me to fall off the edge and quietly disappear.
I am left with the question about how I can do that without it being an abandonment, without it being wrong. But I sense it would be right for him too. I really do. First death makes everything surreal and blurry and disorienting, and then it drops in a new lens that is incredibly sharp and clear, ushering in a time for changes when one is still numb and it hurts less to make those changes happen.
*
And Jesse's brother. I have texted with Jesse a bit, and the picture there is not the same, perhaps because Jesse is so practiced at loss and mourning. He is open to my overtures, he wants to talk, he wants the hugs. I want to comfort him, but I also want him to comfort me, and that's selfish... but that's how community grieving works, isn't it? Isn't that why we come together in the first place?
*
When Colleen died, I went to the funeral home alone. J was too young, I think, and needed someone home with her, so S stayed home. I talked to the death man (what are those guys called again?) about the disgusting details of cremation, and chose a casket. And listened to him make some weird jokes about his ex-wife. And turned down the offer of a visit with my sister's body, because I could not bear to see her any more dead than she had been for the last several years.
Alone, alone, alone. I feel as though I did most of it alone, while trying to hold up J, who was surprisingly resilient and strong. Maybe I wasn't as alone as I think I was. I barely remember my parents being involved, but they must have been. They must have been.
At work, I told C not to let the stupid "sunshine committee" send me flowers and cards. I didn't want the house to fill up with dying flowers. And I read the condolences that people posted online. They all said they were sorry to my parents. None of them seemed to remember that I had lost someone too, and that stung, while I simultaneously refused to make any public acknowledgment of my loss.
At the service, my parents both spoke. J sang. And I sat in my chair, paralyzed, and refused to participate in the process more than just to be there. I didn't even want to do that much, and wouldn't have if I could have avoided it without hurting my family.
In retrospect, it wasn't helpful to me. I could have had some support if I had held open my arms for it. But I was hurting too much for that to be possible. That's what I am trying to remember as A shuts down and turns away. Perhaps he is more like me than I thought.
And most of all, absolutely none of this is about me.
*
I wrote these things this morning - and have come back to edit, because this afternoon I met with A so we could sit in a parking lot in my car together and cry while watching the video he made for his brother's funeral, and wiping our noses on fast food napkins stored in my console.
A told me his brother had been cheating on his wife with more than one woman. When he died, there was a collective effort on the part of a couple of friends and family to sanitize the phone before returning it to his wife, to protect her from knowing. This made me feel ill.
*
I cannot remember a lot of the details of how I managed my grief when my sister died. Of course it was not the same because she had been, effectively, dead for years before she died. A significant portion of my mourning had already taken place. A's brother had been alive and an important part of his life. So it's different - and we are different, he and I.
But I feel a shift, a change in his perspective, and in that new (imagined) picture, I am not where I was. I may not be in the new picture at all. And frankly, this would be for the best for me too, for me to fall off the edge and quietly disappear.
I am left with the question about how I can do that without it being an abandonment, without it being wrong. But I sense it would be right for him too. I really do. First death makes everything surreal and blurry and disorienting, and then it drops in a new lens that is incredibly sharp and clear, ushering in a time for changes when one is still numb and it hurts less to make those changes happen.
*
And Jesse's brother. I have texted with Jesse a bit, and the picture there is not the same, perhaps because Jesse is so practiced at loss and mourning. He is open to my overtures, he wants to talk, he wants the hugs. I want to comfort him, but I also want him to comfort me, and that's selfish... but that's how community grieving works, isn't it? Isn't that why we come together in the first place?
*
When Colleen died, I went to the funeral home alone. J was too young, I think, and needed someone home with her, so S stayed home. I talked to the death man (what are those guys called again?) about the disgusting details of cremation, and chose a casket. And listened to him make some weird jokes about his ex-wife. And turned down the offer of a visit with my sister's body, because I could not bear to see her any more dead than she had been for the last several years.
Alone, alone, alone. I feel as though I did most of it alone, while trying to hold up J, who was surprisingly resilient and strong. Maybe I wasn't as alone as I think I was. I barely remember my parents being involved, but they must have been. They must have been.
At work, I told C not to let the stupid "sunshine committee" send me flowers and cards. I didn't want the house to fill up with dying flowers. And I read the condolences that people posted online. They all said they were sorry to my parents. None of them seemed to remember that I had lost someone too, and that stung, while I simultaneously refused to make any public acknowledgment of my loss.
At the service, my parents both spoke. J sang. And I sat in my chair, paralyzed, and refused to participate in the process more than just to be there. I didn't even want to do that much, and wouldn't have if I could have avoided it without hurting my family.
In retrospect, it wasn't helpful to me. I could have had some support if I had held open my arms for it. But I was hurting too much for that to be possible. That's what I am trying to remember as A shuts down and turns away. Perhaps he is more like me than I thought.
And most of all, absolutely none of this is about me.
*
I wrote these things this morning - and have come back to edit, because this afternoon I met with A so we could sit in a parking lot in my car together and cry while watching the video he made for his brother's funeral, and wiping our noses on fast food napkins stored in my console.
A told me his brother had been cheating on his wife with more than one woman. When he died, there was a collective effort on the part of a couple of friends and family to sanitize the phone before returning it to his wife, to protect her from knowing. This made me feel ill.
*
Sunday, November 10, 2019
useless now
A is still home, and has gone out of contact for the last 24 hours, which is unusual. (It would certainly be supportive of me to make his tragedy about me and my insecurities.) It activates my doubts about everything - maybe because of the way tragedy makes me question my own decisions and ways of doing things, and energizes change. The urge is to make a million assumptions about how he will return, changed, and prepare myself for those. I won't. I do not want him to have to contend with anything extra.
*
On Friday I met with D and the new people on his support team. It is good to see that certain bells I rang two years ago have continued chiming, and it is strange to be on the periphery of caring for this young man when I was once at the centre. It is a relief to have passed off the responsibility to other professionals, and difficult to trust them. Yet, they seemed to be doing the right things for him, with the exception of his social worker, who has always seemed to be moving in slow motion.
*
S is away camping again this weekend, and J and I have been left to our own devices. Neither of us went anywhere or did anything remarkable, other than ordering takeout food. We really know how to live it up.
*
*
On Friday I met with D and the new people on his support team. It is good to see that certain bells I rang two years ago have continued chiming, and it is strange to be on the periphery of caring for this young man when I was once at the centre. It is a relief to have passed off the responsibility to other professionals, and difficult to trust them. Yet, they seemed to be doing the right things for him, with the exception of his social worker, who has always seemed to be moving in slow motion.
*
S is away camping again this weekend, and J and I have been left to our own devices. Neither of us went anywhere or did anything remarkable, other than ordering takeout food. We really know how to live it up.
*
Friday, November 08, 2019
eggs
A is still home with his family, grieving their loss. He sends me messages that break my heart open. I keep comparing his experience with mine in my mind. He tells me two churches in the community had to collaborate for his brother's service because so many people wanted to attend that they could not all be accommodated in one church. (I think of my sister, and how no one except my parents' friends were there for her. She had no people of her own, and this hurts right now for some reason. Of course I am not telling A these things. They are private and he does not need to absorb any more emotion from anywhere else.) I have collected money for his family from my people at work, who were so kind and generous. I will give this to him when he comes home.
Today is meant to be a day off work, in lieu of an extra day worked in the summer. And like a chump, I forgot this and booked two meetings today with parents. (Tracy asks me, "is it a ball or an egg?" as in, it's okay to drop a ball or two...) I am going to the meetings. I think they're eggs.
*
Today is meant to be a day off work, in lieu of an extra day worked in the summer. And like a chump, I forgot this and booked two meetings today with parents. (Tracy asks me, "is it a ball or an egg?" as in, it's okay to drop a ball or two...) I am going to the meetings. I think they're eggs.
*
Wednesday, November 06, 2019
pending outcomes
And A's brother died yesterday afternoon. When he called to tell me I was confused. How could his brother be dead? Wasn't it Jesse's brother who died? Two people I love are going through this at the same time? Like Jesse's brother, A's brother had young kids. He was only 40. A will be going home to his prairies for services; this changes my plans for the weekend, which is totally fine. I have no place in this grieving process. I am lingering on the periphery, trying not to make eye contact with anyone, and wishing I had someone to hug.
*
My conversation with the VP turned out to be about M and her incompetence. It is always reassuring at first to hear that other people see the same thing I see. But then it always moves to a place of being frustrating that no one is going to do anything about it. It isn't possible, I suppose, for much to happen in a unionized environment. She is protected. So I have satisfy myself with knowing that it took the new VP only about 8 weeks to be troubled enough by it to want to say something.
*
*
My conversation with the VP turned out to be about M and her incompetence. It is always reassuring at first to hear that other people see the same thing I see. But then it always moves to a place of being frustrating that no one is going to do anything about it. It isn't possible, I suppose, for much to happen in a unionized environment. She is protected. So I have satisfy myself with knowing that it took the new VP only about 8 weeks to be troubled enough by it to want to say something.
*
Sunday, November 03, 2019
talk to us
Jesse's older brother killed himself yesterday. The number of directions Jesse's heart has shattered in the years I have known him should make it impossible, by now, to hurt him at all. (It is not.) I haven't seen Jesse's brother in more than 25 years; I cannot imagine what has transpired since then. Unfortunately I can imagine what transpires now for Jesse and for his brother's family. They are more religious than my family, so perhaps there will be more ceremony to it.
When my sister died, Jesse reminded me how important it would be to hold accurate memories that didn't make believe Colleen was a martyr or an angel, or anything she wasn't in order to protect anyone's feelings about what had happened to her. He told me it would be important for us to tell true stories, true memories, good and bad, honest and ugly and beautiful and real, because no one would be missing the pretend version of her. They would be missing the real person, and want to remember her as she was. This advice has helped me a million times in the years that followed, as Colleen's daughter grew up and became a young woman who doesn't remember what size shoes her mother wore, and wants to know details of who she was. It has helped me to remember that we can embrace the painful memories as well as the beautiful ones. It has helped me to keep her closer.
I found myself reminding Jesse of all of that this morning when we spoke. I hope he can use it too. I felt the weight of my sister's death behind my words about his brother. I did not want us to have this in common.
*
When my sister died, Jesse reminded me how important it would be to hold accurate memories that didn't make believe Colleen was a martyr or an angel, or anything she wasn't in order to protect anyone's feelings about what had happened to her. He told me it would be important for us to tell true stories, true memories, good and bad, honest and ugly and beautiful and real, because no one would be missing the pretend version of her. They would be missing the real person, and want to remember her as she was. This advice has helped me a million times in the years that followed, as Colleen's daughter grew up and became a young woman who doesn't remember what size shoes her mother wore, and wants to know details of who she was. It has helped me to remember that we can embrace the painful memories as well as the beautiful ones. It has helped me to keep her closer.
I found myself reminding Jesse of all of that this morning when we spoke. I hope he can use it too. I felt the weight of my sister's death behind my words about his brother. I did not want us to have this in common.
*
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