Caught Between Two Worlds
September 9, 2021: Am I ready? (Sigh) Now's as good a time as any. Jumping to the heart of the matter, we "lost" little Pibbles on August 2nd. As if anticipating the third anniversary of Jeff's passing the next day (August 3rd) wasn't nerve-wracking enough, Pibbles bit the crap out of my pinkie finger while I was trying to get her to eat. I realized it was time to let her go. She was totally miserable. I've gone through her various ailments in these pages previously so I won't rehash those bits of distress here. Suffice to say that week, and much of the month, shrouded me in depression.
Dealing with physical therapy kept me busy, to a degree, and I've worked hard at it this time. My home-health therapist encouraged me with his kind words and I felt good about my progress. Same with the out-patient PT. I got released with flying colors and released for driving shortly thereafter. I've started walking my two remaining dogs somewhat regularly, and have been back to the senior center gym several times. I'm getting physically stronger.
Mentally is another beast altogether. The senior center re-started their grief support group, but it only meets once a month. Of the two meetings so far, I was able to attend one. I'll go to the next one October 1st. The meetings are helpful if only to make me realize I'm not alone. One lady, who had been a member of the previous, weekly, group, lost her husband of over fifty years (I think) just the week after I lost Jeff. We have an affinity. But once a month is not often enough. Not sure what I'll do about that, and it will probably take losing one of the pups, to spur me into action, but we'll see.
The main thing I took from the meeting was that one of the , , , symptoms? reactions? . . . to grief is simply not caring about anything. (Nodding my head.) Yeah, I'm there. I mean, I get my bills paid on time and of course, I care about the dogs and my friends, but keeping up with social media, let alone writing, has fallen by the wayside in a major way. People ask me if I'm writing, and I tell them no. Because . . . seriously. I think about the works I have "in the pipeline" but I haven't opened any of the files in months.
One of my WAWG members called me on the phone a couple Sundays ago and we had a wonderful conversation. He belongs to another--maybe two--writing circles and he's found many of his fiction-writing friends are in the same boat I am. Not necessarily the grief part, but not being able to write the fiction we love. As we discussed this aberration, we realized the problem may be the events of the day (current world events) are keeping us too attuned to the world around us. Our abilities to leave this world in order to enter our fictional worlds have been thwarted. This discussion sort of made me feel better in the short term, but ultimately, will there be a time when I--we--will be able to escape this ever more violent, destructive, hateful world and get back to a world that makes better sense to us? A world where we can envision a happy ending?
I don't know. I continue to struggle. Wish me luck.
