Shift Happens

Two days ago, things shifted rather intensely and radically for me. For the first at least year after she died, it was serious work to try to pull up recollections and memories of the good times. The best I could get were like the equivalent of faded black and white photographs. You know the events they captured and commemorate, but they really don't let you see or feel much of it. That's what it was like. Slowly, a bit more of the detail started to come back, but the color still stayed horribly faded and achromatic. I'd said for quite awhile that my hope is to eventually get to where, when I do think about her, it mostly brings up the good memories about what we had and got to share. I know the other stuff will always be there, and there's good reason for it. If nothing else, I've gotten to learn some things I NEVER want to do again. But that's been the hope.

In the last six months or so, a change started coming up. With some of the more intensely positive memories, I started having some of that neurological crap hitting along with them. See, one of the lovely things I've gotten to deal with in the last couple of years is what seems like some neurological dysfunction. It's not constant, so thankfully it doesn't look like it's Parkinson's or anything like that. However, when emotionally overloaded, I'll start shaking like I've got a moderately-bad case of Parkinson's chewing on me like a hyena on a downed monkey. I've also gotten to deal with these brief, intense jerks and twitches. They're almost like mini-seizures except they only last for a fraction of a second and only hit one area or muscle group at a time. It really sucks when they hit my back and shoulders, as that jerks and tosses everything around. Believe me, neither of those are fun while driving! It also sucked in that I haven't been able to find anything I can take that'll do anything about them. Once they hit, I get to just wait it out. I'd mentioned this to my doc, and his take has only been to say that he'd like to see me get to sleeping regularly and then see what happens. Asshole. Added to that, nothing he's offered has helped with sleep, but that's another rant for another time...

Anyway, the stronger the positive emotions associated with those events, the faster and more intense neurological crap I'd get hit with. The ones that would instantly kick off those mini-seizures, ECT-wannabe reactions were the memories of us making love. To make matters even worse, in the last three months or so, while more of those memories have been coming up, they've also been feeling almost alien, like they're not even mine. Like I'm remembering things that someone else lived. How's that something to mess with one's head? You can remember the bad stuff plenty clearly, and your biology won't react much at all, but the memories of the good times feel alien and get your nervous system shorting out like the Xbox some jackass just accidentally inundated in Diet Coke.

And then Friday night....it was different. I got home from work feeling like something was trying to change, to move, but I couldn't for the life of me pin down what. When I just sat with the feeling for a bit, the idea came to mind to go outside by the garage and sit. My outdoor chair's been coming apart for awhile, but hers is still solid. I went out there to see what'd happen, and pretty quickly started having memories of good times we'd shared coming up. One of the first things that struck me was that I could recall them a lot more clearly, and with more of the emotion from the time present. Color had come back to them, even if it's still kind of faded. And, as worried as I was about the neurological crap getting kicked off, there was none of that. Not with ANY of the memories that came up. I'd originally gone out there with the idea of sitting for maybe 15-20 minutes.

When I got back inside, I realized I'd been out there for about an hour and a half.

I was exhausted. It was a helluvan intense experience. Not all of the emotion was fun/positive/up. Some of it was still uncomfortable, like some of the sadness over realizing there won't be those times with her again. But at the same time, it feels like a significant part of me has come back on-line. It's going to take a bit before that feels normal again. I reckon that's a lot of what it's like when a bone's popped out of joint and needs to be re-seated. There's a sense of relief and things being right when it finally gets put back in place, but depending on how long it's been out, it might take awhile for that to feel totally normal and comfortable again.

I can't say for sure what made that happen. I'm pretty sure part of it is just time. There's a lot that the brain and nervous system need to readjust when a spouse is lost suddenly, regardless of why. There's also a lot of emotion there to have to deal with: anger, fear, sadness, guilt, shame, resentment, etc. Those answers don't come quick. At least for me, I've also learned that I can either deal with them now or I can stuff them back. If I do avoid them, though, then the price they demand still comes due...and it's given the chance to build interest. I think some of it's also come from some of the things I've been able to do, like contacting her family, getting ahold of the folks who adopted her daughter, scattering her ashes, and even taking some time on days like our anniversaries or her birthday to honor her. I'd be quite surprised if there's not a lot more to it. Those are just the pieces I see.

Then again, Dante didn't get to see all of Hell. He just got to see what he needed to. And, like him, this seems like one of those rare moments when I can look up at where I started and see how far I've come. I've had my own versions of the desert of raining fire and the river of boiling blood to deal with. Those are done; they hold no terrors for me now. I may have to deal with them again, unlike Dante on his journey, but I know what they are and that I can make it across/through them again if I need to. They don't hold me back anymore.

And each step farther down brings me that much closer to finally getting to the way out.