A friend asked me how I was doing, getting back into my life. What a good question! My initial answer was "oh, fine, a little slow, but fine." When I think of it, however, I've got more to say. What WAS my life before mid-December? I look back and can barely see it. I can list the things I did, but it doesn't feel real. Did I actually have a daily routine that I enjoyed? It seems like another person's life. A nice life. What I don't understand is why I don't want it back.
So, my routine. Maybe if I write it down, it will seem real, and I will want it back. I was really into yoga, daily, in fact, and feeling good--my depression was managed, I was eating healthy, sleeping fairly well (for an insomniac). Huh. And now, back in "my life" none of that seems possible. Or even interesting. I say I want it, but then the moment arrives, and it seems foreign, and impossible. Must be the grief. It doesn't want me back in my life yet. My father would want me to be back in my life. And so I'm torn.
I feel isolated from my local friends, because they weren't there. It wasn't their fault, I don't blame them, but there's a difference now. I think it's because I'm different and they are the same. I miss the friends who were in Connecticut with me, who folded me into their lives, who let me stay with them and who cared for me.
Of course there's Karl, who's been with me all the way. He's the bridge between lives. I cling to him. I watch gentle movies, and QVC. Yoga seems a far away lifetime ago. I know it would help, getting me back into my life. It's just that my life feels so different now, without the cancer, without my father, without the fear and anxiety...wait a minute. Was I just *busy* before to distract myself from the reality? Perhaps the "before" was just like an old fashioned movie set---you know, a town that looks like a town but is only a bunch of one dimensional things that are propped up...
And this, today, is the reality. I believe this is true. This morning, I realize, as I've skipped yoga, that I have to re-define my life. I am sure I'll get back into many of the elements that were there before, but I'm not putting a time limit on it. I think I want to reconnect with my local friends. That's up to me, I think, to do as I'm ready. I'm no good at segues. My tendency is to isolate, to protect myself from harm. What's out there now for me for which I need protection? Am I at the place where I may not need that anymore? Hmm. I don't have much to hide behind now, or hide from. I hope I'm that flower, that sits as a bud, soaking up sun and rain, just about to bloom.
Karl and I are going out on a date tonight, down to the cities to see Gilberto Gil, one of our favorite Brazilian musicians. We'll have dinner, see the gig, and then stay in a hotel. Maybe I will bloom tonight!
Be well.
About Me
- Catherine
- In this blog I have created a haven, a place I allow my deepest emotions to go and sit. I can write easily about what I’ve accomplished. This biography I can recite in my sleep. But I’ve always written poetry and in diaries since I was a teenager. I continued to write poetry in my journals, and not until 2006 did I show them to anyone. I generally write every day, at the present in memoir form. I haven’t written poetry since my mother died in January, 2007. I didn’t write at all between her death and the death of my father three years later in January, 2010. On my father’s birthday in March, 2010, I began this blog, to honor my father and to help me grieve. But I also desperately needed to write, and this stream of conscious style emerged. I needed to find my organic voice.
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