One of the hardest things for me to wrap my head around has been just how long this kind of stuff can mess with me. See, with just about everything else I've had to deal with, I've been able to get it back together again a lot sooner than this. For example, getting my back sprained when I was 19 laid me up for a few weeks and then had me working to get strength and flexibility back for a few months. The ugliest relationsihp breakup I went through messed with me for about a year, but that was about it. It's been a little over 18 months, and I still don't feel like I'm even close to being back to "normal."
The first parallel that I'd come up with came from talking with my aunt who's a doctor. The effect of Ariel's death on me got compared to what it's like to have a stroke. You're fine and then the next moment....BLAM!! Some things still work, others only kind of work, and the rest are just....gone. And there's no way to know when they'll come back on-line. The best you can do is just try to keep working on it and trust that, in time, functioning will come back.
Lately, though, I've come to see it a little differently. It's seeming more like an energy game to me. The parallel that I've been kicking around is that of being a general manager of a mid-sized company. The company has been working pretty well. Like most companies it's always got its trials and tribulations, but for the most part it's doing pretty well. All of a sudden, one day there's a catastrophe and about half of the employees are just...gone. They get replaced by completely new people. Fresh-faced, motivated people with decent work ethics....but no experience. And it's not just the newer or more unskilled folks. It's not evenly distributed, either. Some departments are fairly intact. Others are just about cleared out. Sometimes it's the folks who used to supervise, and in other cases its those who just did the work for the company itself.
Imagine what it would be like. The general manager usually can just rely on supervisors and other subordinates making sure that things get done. He doesn't have to go down and watch the custodial staff to make sure everythings getting cleaned up well. He doesn't have to go down to the warehouse and make sure that things are organized well and that supplies and products are inventoried and tracked well. He doesn't have to make sure that the accounting is taking place consistently, credits and debits all accounted for.
Instead, the general manager's now got to go through and check in with each of those different areas. He's got to go train the different supervisors. He's got to help train some of the front-line workers with how to do their jobs. And this is all on top of trying to keep the company moving along as it was. How exhausting would that be? How distracting? How hard would it be at first trying to keep everything going and train up so many different people for so many different functions? It's not like just training up one person to supervise everyone else. The warehouse can't just stop while that happens. Customer service can't just come to a screeching halt to allow for getting other areas up and running, not if business is supposed to continue at least fairly well. How long does it take to just train one employee? How about five? How about half of the company?
Welcome to the Energy Game. There's only so much time and energy our general manager's going to have to throw into trying to keep the company running and getting people trained up to do their jobs. The same is true in dealing with the death of a spouse, or any other major loss. There are so many habits that we build up over the years we spend living with someone else. All of those habits are shortcuts for the Energy Game. They take less time and effort...and energy...than having to stop and take care of everything intentionally. Especially if it's sudden. There's no time to prepare for the shift. There's no advanced notice. It just shakes almost everything to its foundation and leaves a long, LONG road to getting things back up and running even somewhat smoothly again.
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