Well. Here we are. 2017. Another year. I’ve somehow made it through the last one and face another year in the After. I like to have a guiding word for the year. Something to rotate my thoughts and ideas around. As 2016 was finally ending, I started searching for the word that seemed to fit my life & would serve me well in the upcoming year. I’d sit & pray & think & listen to that still small voice. I didn’t get a word. I got a picture. It was of a large, menacing-yet-beautiful wave just off the shore. I am standing in front of it facing it head on. I am called to walk through it. Into the Overwhelm. No tidy, cute, one-word mantra. A picture and a phrase. I don’t like the implications but it fits. It feels right. Into the overwhelm I go.
Naming it into the overwhelm requires an admissions of sorts. Requires me to be more transparent than I care to right now. I found it easier to be transparent when I had my person & my close friends to support me. With my love gone & my friends no longer able to support me, I feel the weight of holding myself up resting squarely on my own shoulders. Here goes nothing.
The truth is that here in the After, anxiety runs rampant. After living through the unthinkable, anything is now possible. Your child’s eye infection could easily be meningitis or worse requiring hospitalization. Then who would watch your other child? You have no spouse. No family. It’s all on you. You’ve already had the “we can’t do anything” speech from doctors before. There is nothing stopping that from happening again. Your world has been disintegrated. It could happen again at any time. Life is brutal, fluctuating, and uncertain in the land of After.
I be 20 months into this journey. I can honestly say it’s not easier now; it’s a different kind of hard. I am still struggling to stay on top of all the things there are to do. I never had to run a household & raise 2 children solo before. I was always part of a duo. Matt was my rock; my calming anchor. If he said it wasn’t that bad, I believed him. There is no one here to talk me down anymore and I now know full well life doesn’t go as planned. Stupid, little things that I use to brush off with ease now upset me or stress me out. I discovered a leak under my sink on Christmas Eve. In the Before, I would have plopped a bucket & towel under the sink & dealt with it after Christmas & not given it much thought. Here in the After, it made me upset & cry. One, because it was the 2nd Christmas without Matt & I was a mess. Also, I didn’t want to bother anyone on Christmas Eve & mess with their day. I was also running a fever & feeling physically miserable on top of the emotionally miserable & still had stuff to do to make Christmas nice for the kids. It never once crossed my mind to put a bucket under the sink & deal with it later. It was instantly something I had to deal with on my own. Instant stress. Stupid little things cause me instant stress now. I’m not use to it. I was never so anxious about things which is bizarre to me as things don’t rank as important anymore. I don’t operate the same way I use to. Occasionally I get a glimpse into how I was before. I wonder if eventually my usual thinking pattern returns or if this is the way it is from now on. Chock full of stress and anxiety over things of little importance to me.
Back to the overwhelm. I know full well that this year isn’t going to be a banner year full of amazingly good things. I’d settle for a tolerable year. I honestly am not expecting even that. I expect this mess of a life to continue on in its typical fashion. Here’s the thing; my goal is not to merely endure it like last year. I am charged with walking in boldly with my head held high. I saw the wave head on; I wasn’t staring at the ground. I will let the overwhelm swirl about & do whatever it does. I am going to focus on the beauty & the people in my life. I’m not convinced the overwhelm is dying down anytime soon. I hear year 7 of widowhood is decent. Nobody says that about year 2. I can’t just get caught up in the swirling overwhelm. I’ve done it. I don’t like it. I’m going to try this approach & see if I like it better. If I don’t, then it’s on to another. “Can’t be any worse than what I have already been through.” That’s my new motto. I tell myself this when things get overwhelming. It is rather empowering.
So forward I step, just to see what’s there. I am not confident it will be better but certain it will be different.