"Take me to the magic of moment
On a glory night
Where the children of tomorrow dream away
In the wind of change."
~Scorpions, Wind of Change
Things change a lot in the wake of trauma. It's like a Category 5 hurricane - it wreaks havoc on the people it touches, consumes everything we've worked so hard for, and leaves little but destruction in its wake. Before Jon died, I was always a good girl. I may have been an incredibly fussy baby but I spared my parents the pain of being a rebellious teenager - I played by all the rules, I got good grades in school, I was polite and respectful to my elders, and I participated in every extra-curricular activity under the sun; in short, I was pretty much the polar opposite of the cool kids in my class who wore Guess jeans and Abercrombie & Fitch sweaters and got in trouble for smoking pot and making out in the school parking lot.
However, being a good girl apparently doesn't guarantee a fairy tale ending, so when Jon died, I made a lot of stupid decisions and did some very dumb, reckless things. One of the self-help books I read recently said that I'm allowed to break the rules now that THE big rule has already been broken (i.e. my husband died). Looking back, I guess that's what I did without even realizing it for those first few years. It ultimately wasn't a helpful strategy in dealing with the grief, and I'm sure it looked to others as if I was trying - for some inexplicable reason - to inflict even more misery on myself than I was already forced to face in the months following Jon's death. For example, I'd smoke cigarettes, not because I was addicted to them, but because they were bad for me and I didn't care if I wreaked havoc on my body. I stopped caring about the things I'd previously taken such pride in, like staying in shape. I'd make excuses to the people who reached out and tried to get me out of the house about why I couldn't make it to events - I wasn't really busy or even all that tired, like I often claimed to be. It was more that the indentation on my couch where I sat all day watching "Snapped" on Lifetime TV had a gravitational pull that I found hard to ignore. Sitting in that perfect indentation, eating potato chips and ice cream, and drinking a whole bottle of wine by myself seemed like a whole hell of a lot easier than the effort it took to be social. Plus, back then, I lived in Jon's t-shirts and rarely bothered to put much effort into my appearance, even in public. Most days I felt like whatever I was wearing might as well be modeled off those F.D.N.Y. shirts that tell people to get back, only in my case, the disclaimer would read: "Widow - Stay back 200 ft."
Things have changed again since those first miserable months. Now I depend more than ever on the very same social interactions I used to avoid to maintain my sanity. Even though I often don't have the energy to go, I'll still commit myself to events and outings so that I have something on the calendar. I think I've said it before but I can't emphasize it enough - a barren calendar is like self-induced torture for a widow whose mind is constantly churning with the thoughts and memories of a life lost. I've also noticed that certain things bother me far less than they used to because they just don't seem to matter, while others require only the slightest provocation to get me all riled up. Before the worst thing that could possibly happen actually happened, I was afraid of failing at the things over which I could exert some control, like achieving professional success and financial security. After my world was turned upside down, however, these things disappeared into the backdrop of a whole new set of fears and anxieties. A book I read about a widowed woman in her mid-30s talked about how things like death become far less terrifying than they were before the loss of someone who has already crossed over from the living to the dead. When her father comes to stay with her and take care of her after a depression-induced breakdown, she starts to panic, as I often have, about losing the other people she loves in her life: "Suddenly I worry about when Dad's going to die. I hope I die first. I'm not afraid of dying. I'm afraid of everyone else dying and leaving me behind."
Me: "Isn't there some way around having to start this new life without my husband?"
Uninformed, blissfully ignorant outsiders: "Oh honey, you know he would want you to go on and to be happy. He wouldn't want you to be a grieving widow for the rest of your life."
One thing that hasn't changed over the past few years is how annoyed I get when people try to put words in Jon's mouth. They'll say that he wouldn't want this, he wouldn't want me to do or feel like that, etc. Guess what: He didn't want to die because he had so much living left to do. It's easy to talk all day long about what we'd want for our loved ones if we were no longer with them. I realize, of course, that it's just something people say because they don't know what else to say. But the hard truth is that, until the possibility becomes a reality, trying to conjecture over what one would theoretically want is pretty pointless. I think mere survival is the most one can ever truly ask or hope for. And even then, it's easy to feel resentment at survival when you're the one left behind. I know I'm probably not supposed to say this, but I can't help but think sometimes that if there is no more pain and no more tears in heaven, then those who are gone actually have it pretty good. Those of us who are left behind here on earth are still very susceptible to a daily, hourly, and minute-to-minute dose of all the tears and pain associated with grief.
Another things that hasn't changed is how prevalent the reminders of my reality are, no matter what the situation. When I got married, I was so happy. Happy to be committing to spending the rest of my life with such an amazing man. Happy to be part of an "us." Happy to have found the man I felt honored to call "my husband" so early in life - I thought it meant we'd have more time to grow old together. Happy to NOT be single. I didn't realize, though, how my overly effusive happiness probably created an extra layer of heartache for the people around me who did not find themselves in the land of milk and honey. Sometimes that's one of the hardest things about being a widow. Although social gatherings and events are a necessity, I often look around and start to feel almost claustrophobic from how surrounded I am by couples. They're everywhere! I think wistfully to myself, I used to be one of those...and I look away when people embrace or kiss. It's just another searing reminder of the pain of being an "I" after I was so happy to be a "we." I can't tell people to knock it off - it's not their fault, and I do recognize that my own misfortune doesn't mean that they too should be unhappy - but sometimes the sugary sweet stuff gets under my skin and stays there like an itch I can't quite scratch.
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