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I get a hollow brain sensation
when I’m overwhelmed
Like my brain is porous
and anything can fly in or out
It’s an unsettling feeling, to be sure
Feeling unmoored
unglued
Something About Nothing
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I haven’t posted in almost three months because I feel I have nothing to say. Well, at least nothing I think people want to hear. Maybe it’s the result of living in a social media-based world, wanting to be more positive and feeling that writing about unsettling or unpleasing topics and feelings is ever so uncool.
In that vein, I thought I’d go ahead and post Something About Nothing. Like Seinfeld, the self-described TV show “about nothing.” But there is always something to be found in nothing. A silver lining to every dark cloud.
Sometimes I long to feel nothing, and sometimes my prayers are answered. My old friend Anhedonia creeps in, putting my feelings on ice, wrapping me up in a delicious blanket of numbness and don’t-give-a-damn. Merriam Webster defines anhedonia as “a psychological condition characterized by inability to experience pleasure in normally pleasurable acts.” This condition also makes you impervious to emotional pain, at least that’s how it works for me.
Nothing. The absence of something. The absence of stuff, baggage, fears, sadness, happiness, inhibitions, guilt. I’m riffing here.
On another note, grief is settling into my bones, becoming more a part of who I am,
not a negative, fearful thing. Merely a thing that exists, like the scar on my palm after I cut it on a cat food can. I’m a slow healer, so it will always be there.
I am making plans for this year, not resolutions, but plans. Resolutions is too strident a word for me.
Nothing is part of my plan. To let nothing stand in my way. To let nothing tear me apart. To let nothing and no one tell me who I am or what I can and cannot do. To enjoy the entirety of life and accept the love I receive without question, without trying to control it or judge it. To embrace life in all its nothingness and something-ness. To take NOTHING for granted.
Nothing can be a good thing.
Serenity (of The Smug)
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Serenity of The Smug
the breezy manner
that accompanies
Good Fortune
The knowing smile,
shared,
that says, “We have it all.”
(and you don’t.)
Untouchable
No surprises
Dark deeds
easily erased
Oh, it’s good to be us.
Such security
of the mind
Protection
of the body
Absence
of heart
We don’t abide
The have-nots
It’s their fault, anyway.
They didn’t work hard
enough
They are lazy
They don’t come from
good stock
We deserve everything
we have
God has smiled upon us
We are blessed
And you are f**ked
Shadow Self
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It’s all the bright I cannot see
when it’s right in front of me
Shadow Self
Bursts of light make it through
in spite of themselves
like a fragile shoot birthing through
the crack of a New York City sidewalk
The will to live
Remains
only altered, and strange
beautiful in a different way
Shadow Self
The Leftovers
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Running does not help
They will still be gone
We will still remain
the lost
as much as they
My hope is that
they watch over us,
guide and protect us
let us know, gently
when we are
going further astray
Keep us from hurting
ourselves more
And rather, feel
their love
every day
September
So this widow thing has not been easy. The almost two year mark is fast approaching: September 29, 2016. Permanently etched in my heart, mind, body and soul. Sometimes I feel insane, like I might break into a primal scream at my workplace, but I try my best to keep the rage and insanity at bay.
August 30th is our wedding anniversary. I try not to think about it, but I do. It would have been ten years.
September 26th is my birthday, which feels like a permanent wash. I do not know if I will ever enjoy having a birthday again. Lorin said he wanted to celebrate my birthday after we arrived in Savannah, September 29, 2016. The new chapter of our lives that never was.
He told me he had purchased special jewelry for the occasion. It was never found at the scene of the car accident.
Not that it meant much at the time. More salt in the already-tired wounds.
I am full of rage at the injustice of Lorin’s death. He was not ill; he is not “in a better place.” I am a lapsed Catholic. I was a very pious child—wanted to be a nun for all of third grade. I believed in a “better place.” But I don’t believe in heaven anymore, so there’s that.
There is no way to “spin” the rage or the sadness when it comes. I don’t make apologies for it.
I am ordering some Jahrzeit candles from amazon to mark the second anniversary of Lorin’s death. They don’t sell them at Kroger or Publix. In New York City, they are easy to find.
From Wikapedia: A yahrzeit candle, also spelled yahrtzeit candle or called a memorial candle, (Hebrew: נר נשמה, ner neshama,[1][2] meaning “soul candle”; Yiddish: יאָרצײַט ליכט yortsayt likht, meaning “anniversary candle”) is a type of candle that is lit in memory of the dead in Judaism.[3] A yahrzeit candle, also spelled yahrtzeit candle or called a memorial candle, (Hebrew: נר נשמה, ner neshama,[1][2] meaning “soul candle”; Yiddish: יאָרצײַט ליכט yortsayt likht, meaning “anniversary candle”) is a type of candle that is lit in memory of the dead in Judaism.[3]
I am terrified. I don’t know if I can make it through these next seven weeks, without . . . but I will try.
Inglorious Rage
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Nobody likes an angry woman
she’s unbecoming in the worst way
a primal scream can’t cure
an uncontrollable rage
it frightens me
how deep it is
rooted in me
like an ancient tree
I want it to go away
but somehow, I don’t
It lets me know I am still
alive
and that you matter so much,
and that you will never go away
20 Months
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Today is the 20-month anniversary of Lorin’s death. I think about him every day, and light a candle for him every night. The passage of time has not altered my love for him or the depth of my sadness, and anger, that he has left this earth.
Lorin and I loved our many road trips together. He used to say he was “Driving Miss Sweetie” — Miss Sweetie being me.
We planned our music, audio books, snacks and drinks ahead of time. It was always an adventure.
On the drive home from Orlando after a long weekend, there was a delay on I-4 East due to a car accident. A fatal car accident.
In the past, I might have been annoyed at such a delay, but yesterday I felt differently.
I imagined how annoyed motorists must have been after our car accident on September 29, 2016. How they might have been complaining how they would be late for work or to take their kids to school that morning. I used to be one of those people.
Yesterday I felt profound sadness. Tears welled in my eyes as I thought of the life or lives that were lost on I-4. As we passed the mangled red SUV, I said a brief prayer for the deceased and his / her family.
Another lost soul on the American highway.
Another family, grief-stricken and traumatized.
I will never forget the beautiful person I lost on September 29, 2016. I am forever altered and still struggle to understand why only my cat Samson and I survived.
Perhaps someday it will all come clear. Until that day, I will do the best I can to make sense of it all and live another day.
April Showers
It’s April.
Time of spring, Easter, resurrection, rejoicing or . . . not.
I’m not finding it very cheery thus far.
Perhaps it’s due to the gloomy weather we’ve been having in the low country.
At the risk of waxing too melancholy, I will invoke the spirit of writers past who conveyed it in ways quite sublime, albeit tragic/sad.
A Well-Worn Story (Dorothy Parker)
In April, in April,
My one love came along,
And I ran the slope of my high hill
To follow a thread of song.
His eyes were hard as porphyry
With looking on cruel lands;
His voice went slipping over me
Like terrible silver hands.
Together we trod the secret lane
And walked the muttering town.
I wore my heart like a wet, red stain
On the breast of a velvet gown.
In April, in April,
My love went whistling by,
And I stumbled here to my high hill
Along the way of a lie.
Now what should I do in this place
But sit and count the chimes,
And splash cold water on my face
And spoil a page with rhymes?
The Waste Land (T.S. Eliot) (an excerpt)
April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Survived Christmas
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No Christmas movies on TV this year
Caught “Bad Santa” on Netflix, though.
Enforced jubilation wears on the soul
inside I’m screaming, “No more!”
Wish I had a new brain
free of the pain
no trauma
to re-live
helpless, out of control
I sincerely wish you all “Merry Christmas”
and a “Happy New Year”
though I can’t wait for it
to go
Don’t expect me to smile
though I know how to laugh
Surviving the Ghosts of Christmas
Present and Past
