Friday, February 14, 2014

Dance Class

The first Valentines Day without my husband was torture. Everything that existed in the universe felt like a personal attack. The cheap-looking bears holding heart-shaped balloons on a stick at CVS, the conversation heart candies, the kissing and giggling couples around every corner. It all felt like one, giant personal attack on me and my loss.

The second Valentines Day was a little bit softer, but not much. I tried to busy myself and pretend the day wasn't happening, but that didn't work, because last year I had to work on that day, and I teach at a college. So it seemed as if everywhere I turned, guys were presenting their girlfriends with flowers and gifts and hugs and love; as the sad widow professor darkened the hallways with her every heavy step. I wanted to sit in my car and sob, which I did, after my last class finally ended.

This year, we are stuck in yet another major snowstorm in NY, so I didn't have to work, and here I sit, alone in the caccoon of my apartment, safe from the world of other humans, hiding behind my keyboard. The comedian in me was planning on filming a funny Valentines Day - themed video for my You Tube channel today, in order to help combat depression with humor - but the stupid weather may stop that from happening. So here I am. Should I venture out into the land of people? I don't know. Part of me wants to rebel against my own sadness, but the other part just doesn't much feel like having other people's love shoved in my face in the form of red velvet cupcakes and Whitmann's chocolates.

Grief changes all the time. But the changes don't always feel easier, especially when you are inside of them. Just because the pain gets different, doesn't mean the pain gets better. It just gets different. And the longer you have been dealing with the loss of "your person", the more familiar you become with all of the many changes. So instead of "what the hell is THIS that I'm feeling?", it becomes "Oh, right. THIS again? I remember this. I know this. Let me sit inside of this for awhile, until it becomes something else." 

This year, Valentines Day carries a pain with it, but it's a familiar pain. I know this dance. I've done these steps. My legs are tired and my feet burn from doing them, because nobody asked me if I liked this choreography or even if I wanted to dance at all. So I do the steps like a robot, phoning them in and getting them over with. I know how this one goes. I hate this song and dance, but I know it, and I know that I have no choice but to listen to it, until it stops. Is this the extended remix version? Why won't it stop??? 

It won't stop, because for us, it never stops. There is always something. Always. The emotions of grief lurk in every single corner. The extreme sadness of Valentines Day, isn't even about Valentines Day. Not really. Not entirely. It matters not whether you celebrated the day with your person. What matters is that you had a person, and with that person, you had rhythms and music and steps. Days like Valentines Day are brutal mirrors into what is no longer there. The music has stopped, and now you hear new music. Or no music. Maybe you hear nothing at all. But none of that matters. Nobody cares what you hear or don't hear. Nobody cares that you don't like the steps and you hate this song and you don't want to do this anymore. Nobody cares that you signed up for this dance class by mistake, or didn't sign up for it at all. Nobody cares that you can't walk and you need to sit down, as they walk on by with their love roses and candy hearts and comforting cards. They don't care, or they don't notice, because they are in love and therefore, in the midst of their own sweet dance.

People are dancing all around you, and love is in the air. But your person is gone, and they can no longer dance with you, yet you are forced to dance anyway, not knowing or wanting to know the steps to this horrible song. Keep dancing, they say. Let the pain in your heart and your feet and your eyelids, carry you forward into that next step - until the music finally changes, and that next step becomes something else.

13 comments:

  1. Thank you for putting in words how I feel today. I'd just learned the steps and was doing okay but today definitely feels like the music has changed and its a whole new dance

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  2. So much of what you've written here rings exactly true for me. Today is my fourth Valentine's Day without my husband. He usually wrote me a poem on this day and, being an amateur singer, often used music as his metaphor. Like you, he sometimes wrote of a dance, of shared rhythms, but also (being a singer) of a duet.

    Our music stopped suddenly - he was killed in an accident - and I am finding that the pain doesn't stop, but that it does indeed change and become familiar.

    I've gotten better at handling it, I suppose. Yesterday I bought myself two bunches of red tulips tipped with yellow because I know my husband knew I loved flowers and would have wanted me to have something to lift my spirits. It helps a little.

    Thank you for your insightful post - that helped, too.

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    1. Anon, my husband and I also shared a love of music, which was a big reason I used the music metaphors in this piece. He played guitar and owned 8 of them, and Im a singer. We often did duets, and in our wedding program , it said "Marriage is like a duet. When one sings, the other claps." He promised in his vows to always applaud for me. THanks so much for reading and relating ...

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  3. All I can focus on today is that my person is gone...missing him like crazy even after 4 years. Not sure this grief will ever end.

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  4. I love your writing Kelly, it just speaks to me in my situation. I am 15 months into this journey and like you my husband died suddenly. The first couple of months I don't even remember much of it, and then the real grief settled into my life. I am glad that I have found this website, so that I don't feel like I am going crazy.

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    1. Always glad to hear when something I write speaks to someone else, so thank you for that. Yeah, the sudden death is so shocking for SO long. I think it took me a whole year to just stop saying "what the F just happened??? Is he actually gone?" You are definitely not crazy. Just going through traumatic and sudden loss, which can make you feel crazy because theres no logic to someone being here one second, and then literally gone the next. It will never make any sense to me. Never.

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  5. You put in words what is in my heart...thanks Kelley...beautiful.

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  6. I am just less than a year into this new song. Today was the last of the firsts. I can manage the loneliness through the week by keeping busier than I should be. It is the Friday evenings and the Saturdays that seem to be weeks long. I didn't work today to avoid all of what is happening out there...Hard day, but would have been harder being with anyone today.

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    1. Deb....you are so right..the weekends are the worst...it is then the singles and those with a special someone go their separate ways.

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  7. This is my first Valentine without my love, you would think when you are in your sevetys you would anticipate death, I should be thankful that I had 54 years of marriage with him, but it doesn't make it hurt any less. I guess you never can say I expect this to happen, it was just so quick, a fast sickness and then he was gone. I still feel his presence everwhere, just unable to feel his touch. This website at least lets you express yourselve and know that you are not alone.

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  8. This is my first Valentine's Day without my husband. On December 19th he was diagnosed with metastatic, pancreatic cancer and he died on January 22nd. We had 35 days to say goodbye but many of those days were lost to pain and drugs. I am left breathless by the speed at which I have lost him. I know that I am at the beginning of this journey of loss. Your comments both frighten and reassure me and I am so thankful to have found this site.

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    1. Hi Anon, the grief in the beginning IS very frightening. Once you start to "get used to" the feelings, its not so terrifying anymore. Im so glad you found this site too. Hang in there. xoxo....

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  9. Kelley is so right about the beginning being terrifying...and it does "even" out some so you can breath a little easier....it is nature's way to help with surviving this tragic loss and life change...reaching out to others like this website will move you thru this unwanted journey...hang in there and breathe.

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