Who Am I Now?

One of the things that doesn't often get recognized about losing a spouse is that grieving the death is only one part of the process. There's a ton to deal with in there, and it can take a long time, especially when it's sudden or there were unresolved issues or conflicts. In the case of a suicide, both sets of aggravating factors are there. There's anger about what they did and what we're left to deal with. Often, there's question about what we did (or didn't do) that might've played a part in the choice they made. We wonder why we weren't enough, or why they didn't ask for help. Sometimes, there's wondering what's wrong with us that we'd choose someone who'd do that or wouldn't see it coming or wouldn't be good enough to stay and try for. And those just scratch the surface.

A whole other dimension to it is when we get to the point of having to figure out who we're going to be now. When you get married to and live with someone, a decent-sized chunk of identity gets based around that relationship, around having that person around in your life. It's pretty much inevitable, and, for the most part, it's a good thing. From that comes learning how to compromise, how to think of what's important to the other person, how to look at what's good for the relationship and not just what we want at any given time. It creates the tension, sometimes, of the conflict between what we need and what the other person wants. We get the chance to learn how to communicate, how to hold our own boundaries, how to figure out what it is that is really important to us. Those are things we don't always have to learn, especially not in that kind of intimate and consistent context.

And suddenly that other person isn't there anymore.

On the one hand, it can create freedoms we didn't have before. We don't have to think about what plans someone else might have for a given evening. We don't have to consider how he or she might react if we're going to go hang out with a friend they didn't like. We don't have to stop and figure that finances have to get discussed before going ahead to do something. Even simple things change. We don't have to pay attention at the grocery store to get the kind of soda or lunch meat or toilet paper that they preferred. We can play the radio on the station we want, as loud as we want, when we want. Or, just as valid, we can have it quiet when we want it quiet. But that freedom can be scary at times, too. The longer we were with someone, the more time we had to develop the habits around their needs and preferences. If there were things they took care of, the freedom to make those choices for how to do it now are coupled with the responsibilities, too. It might not seem like much to decide whether to pay a bill right on the first or to wait a few days until the paycheck's come in to cover it. Added to all the other things, though, and even those little extra responsibilities can quickly feel overwhelming.

It can take a long, long time to figure out how we want to do things, how we want them to be, how we want to be ourselves. It's a pretty major shift to go back to just thinking of what we want. In areas where we'd decided they weren't all that important and made some significant compromises, we might not be used to even thinking of what we want. Suddenly faced with that option, we can find ourselves drawing a blank...and then feeling fucked up in a new, special kind of way. Aren't we all supposed to know what kind of music we like? Where we'd want to go for a trip? What kind of job we want to have? Where we want to live? Those things that are “normal” suddenly feel alien, and sometimes leave us wondering what the Hell else is wrong with us that those answers don't just pop into our minds when the question comes up.

The psychologist John Bowlby wrote about something like that in describing the model he put together for grief and dealing with loss of loved ones. The third stage, which he called Disintegration, is where we have to go through the process of dismantling all the beliefs and habits built up around having that person in our lives. By extrapolation, the bigger a part of our day to day lives that person was, the more work there'll be to do there. The final stage, which he called Reintegration, was where we start building new beliefs and habits to replace those we had to let go. He gave rough estimates of how long each could last, and the final one was projected to take at least as long as the others, if not longer. It was the one where the guess was most tentative, acknowledging just how much there could be to that process.

This all got highlighted for me earlier today in, of all places, the shower. See, in the latter years, my wife had developed sensitivities to any kind of chemical or synthetic scents. It meant that I ended up switching to the natural shampoo and deodorant that she could tolerate (and I didn't find too annoying or offensive or flowery). She'd also gotten increasingly irritable about noise in the house, especially anything that was unexpected. One of the things that meant was I stopped singing in the shower (which I'm sure some would say was a kindness to humanity, but that's an issue for another post). It hit me today that I could buy a different shampoo if I want to. That raised the question for me of whether I'd kept buying the natural, herbal stuff after she died because I prefer it or if it was just the habit of those old compromises still playing out. I also found myself singing in the shower, at least for a bit. I couldn't do it in the goofy voices I once enjoyed, or intentionally mangling the lyrics for comedic effect. But at least I could sing a couple things that I liked and, for the first time I noticed, was able to enjoy it. It brought up some of the other stuff, too, like some guilt about enjoying singing now and wondering if it had really been worth it to give that up. But it was a step in the direction of working those issues out for me.

I still am not sure where I want to live. I still am not sure where I might want to work. Hell, I'm still not sure about the whole dating thing. I just have to believe that, like many of the other things I've faced, that as I keep working on it, things will get clearer. Until they do, it helps to remember that this is a long, uncomfortable process. I don't get to dictate when I come to resolution on some of these things. I just get to do my part, look at my stuff, and trust that I'll eventually get and then be able to see the progress.