My Chakras are Messed Up

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When I quit my job after Dave died, it was for good reason. I had to move or stay isolated out in the middle of nowhere. Anyway, I didn't have it in me to continue to teach. It was too much for me to both teach and grieve.

Starting from scratch, job-wise, has been a test of my personality for sure. Having a steady job that I'd done for over a decade helped me feel settled and anchored in my life. It gave me an identity.

I've fought this lack of identity off and on in the last two years. A part of me gets that it could actually be seen as exciting that I'm starting over. I can technically do whatever I feel like doing (as long as I can continue to provide for myself). The rest of me longs for the security I used to feel. I thrive on security and routine.

And that's where I start to get in my own way. Instead of feeling okay with seeking out that which I love, doing that, and then seeing where it leads me, I fall back into the concept of "I need a job. Any job" and I begin to panic and then feel paralyzed and do nothing. I've put feelers out for a few part time jobs, but no leads yet and I'm vaguely relieved to not have to go through the interviewing and newbie routine at this time.

I've also played with going back to school over and over again since I resigned. Each time I hold one of these possibilities in my mind to see how they make me feel - I feel nothing but mild dread to numbness. Nothing in me says "YES". Is that fear talking or are all the options I've considered just wrong for me?

I saw an intuitive healer the other day. After she closed her eyes to connect to the divine for about a minute, she opened them and said "There is death all around you." Then she said "Someone died recently. Your mom?" After I corrected her and told her that yes, my mom died, but not recently, she went on to describe my chakras.

The crown chakra at the top of our head is supposed to be the place from which we connect to the divine. She said mine was like a storm, black, chaotic, crackling with lightning. She said "You cannot connect with anything bigger than you because you are in so much pain". She said my third eye chakra was "a flatline", meaning there was no way to get in touch with my intuition right now. Too much healing to do.

I don't have any actual experience with chakras. I can't see them or sense them. I have barely even read about them. I don't even yet know how I feel about intuitives or their powers but I was willing to give it a shot.

What I do know is that if I do have chakras, they probably do look or function as just she described them. I'm not able to connect to my intuition or a higher power because of the pain and grieving I'm still doing. So how the hell do I know what to do next with my life?

I understand that there is so much power in just doing. Taking the next step, even if you don't know what that actually is. That I could find a job, any job, if I tried and that I'm not trying that hard. I know that I'm getting in my own way when it comes to working, or at least believing that I can work again.

On the other hand, there may be a part of me that understands that my whole being - heart, soul, body, ALL of it - is under construction. And until the scaffolding is rebuilt (when will that be?!) I might have to think of THAT as my job. Beating myself up about not being back in the working world is intensifying my pain right now and I don't need that either.

I suppose what's really hardest for me is to feel purposeless and unproductive and to long for an identity again.

I feel like I'm taking the easy way out by not pushing myself to do something.

But I am doing something. I'm taking tiny steps. They're tiny because I'm just learning to walk again. When Dave was alive I could leap forward. Now I shuffle along, making progress too gradual to see in my daily life. There isn't a checklist I can work my way down to get me back to where I was before he died. It won't work that way. I'm not the same person.

I'm going to be okay and I'm going to find the right path, including in my career. I'm more than what I do for a living.

One day when I'm working full time again, who knows. Maybe I'll wish for this kind of freedom again.

Right now though I'm stuck and I feel like I'm blocking my own way. Though, maybe that's for good reason. Something in me knows I need a rest.

Conversation

 

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You should be grateful. You got to have love.
All the gratitude in the world wouldn't take away the pain. This pain. It doesn't go away. It doesn't get fixed by gratitude. It's because I was grateful that I feel this pain. It's because I loved that I feel this pain.

Don't worry. 
As though I can stop. As though I wouldn't have already stopped if this were a possibility. This new life is full of worry. Worry that doesn't listen to logic, or commands to stop. Worry that wraps my brain in a hot, vibrating blanket of buzzing bees, tormenting me.

Get out! Have fun! Live!
Every day I try. Every. Day. Living fully after losing him is the hardest thing I've ever done. I'm pulled back to the space inside a protective shell every time I think of him. His last moments, lying on that gurney, his last words, my last words, the way his beard felt against my cheek, the way his voice sounded, the way he looked at me and conveyed whole thoughts with his eyes.

You should organize a memorial celebration for him. Make something meaningful out of his death.
How? How can I organize anything? I can't organize my own thoughts.

You should get a job. Stay busy!
I am busy. Busy trying to reassemble a heart and soul that has been blown apart. Trying to navigate a new world. Trying to heal. If I worked at a job all day, I'd still be facing this pain. How do I function in a world that seems to move on without acknowledging what's missing? How do I put my pain aside? How do I find my motivation again?

How long is this going to last? After two years aren't you better?
It's not easier, I'm just getting more accustomed to carrying it around. I've mostly forgotten what it feels like to live without this weight on my chest, without constant exhaustion, and without anxiety and worrying.

Just because bad things have happened to you, doesn't mean more bad things will happen. 
Do you remember learning about probability in school? If you roll a die 10 times, and you roll a 1 every single time, on the 11th roll there's still the exact same chance of rolling a one again. All the ones that came before don't predispose the die to finally land on another number. I think this applies to the universe too because I don't believe there is mercy in fate. I don't think someone is keeping score for me and saying "Okay, she's had enough. Let's let her live in peace for a while". It also means, though, that there's the same chance for good to happen, too. I just no longer think that I have earned a free ride from here on out. I fight the fear of the other shoe dropping every day. I cling to what's left like it will soon be taken from me too. When I leave my house for the day, there's a part of me wondering if it will still be there for me when I get home. I know this doesn't serve me. I know this makes it harder for me to enjoy the present. I don't want to think this way and I fight it. But it is there anyway.

He'd want you to be happy.
But he's not here and he's not living this life. I'd want him to be happy too, if I'd left first, but now that I'm living it, I can see how hard it is to be happy when you're heart has been torn out of your body, jaggedly reassembled and shoved back in to your chest where it flutters half-hardheartedly.

I'm doing this and I'm strong and it's hard for me to admit just how hard it is. But it is. It is the hardest thing I've ever done and I'm so very tired. There is nothing more I want or need than to be cradled like a baby and sung to, and tucked into bed and reassured. I've worked so hard to be independent and strong and positive and it's left me tired to my bones. And it's STILL up to me, as an adult without parents of my own, to perform the self-love and self-care I need when I really don't have the energy to do that all the time.

Care for me, cradle me, love me, give me a rest from doing this on my own, I beg.

But, the reality is, the people I beg this of are gone from this earth and even if they were here, I'd still have to face my demons alone. With help, but still essentially alone. We all do.  I suppose it's making me stronger than I can imagine is possible, even though I feel so weak all the time. I suppose one day I'll be able to see what a warrior I was. Am.

Now I'm just so damn tired.

Wandering or Lost?

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I was talking to my therapist about the ways I've been moving slowly toward starting an honest-to-god dog-walking business and while I was telling her, I noted the flat, bored tone in my voice and I knew she'd take notice too. And she did.

She wanted to know what it was that was keeping me from feeling excited about it all and I thought and thought and thought. All I could dredge up was "I have no idea".

I tried to think of an example of something I was excited about, that lit me up and I couldn't think of anything at the time. I figured (and so did she) that maybe the dog walking thing just wasn't really what I wanted to do.

She asked me if I liked walking dogs.
I do.
She asked me if there was anything I didn't like about it.
Not really.

I still couldn't access any excitement. For that venture or any other.
And I wondered, what DOES make me really excited? What really lights me up?

My lifelong passion has been animals. They light me up.
I love to sing in a choir.
I can draw and paint and feel very much in "the zone" when I'm doing it.
I love to read.

But as a purpose? A reason for living? True drive and passion for a project of some sort? Nothing feels quite right. Nothing really gets me jumping out of bed in the morning ready to tackle a goal.
Did that die with Dave? Will it come back? Do I just wait around for some sort of inspiration?
Why don't I even know what it is I really want to do?

I feel restless and frustrated.
There isn't much I really want to do.
Except to feel the way I used to, when he was alive. Like I had direction.

I'm not suicidal or even deeply depressed. It's getting easier to be alone, overall. I'm sleeping and eating okay and laugh easily again, despite bouts of grief.  I even enjoy quiet nights at home with take out and a movie when I used to dread them. There are many things I'm doing and trying as I learn about myself as a single person. I'm slowly meeting new people and spending time with old friends. I have fun travel plans in the works. I don't feel hopeless, I just feel passionless. Purposeless.

But I think part of it is that I compare too much. I compare myself to people who seem to have satisfying occupations and find myself lacking. I tell myself stories that I'm lacking because I don't trot off to a formal job each day all filled with industry and good work ethic. Or because I'm not going to school to get another degree.

I'm not contributing or busy or industrious enough somehow, and I feel aimless.

There's that story-telling again. The stories I tell myself are almost always wrong or at least misled. I am contributing, it's just not in the way I used to. I used to KILL myself to perform as close to perfectly as I could at my job. Did that make me a better person? Did having that kind of (slightly nutty) drive make me worthy? More worthy than I am now?

I can also understand logically that I'm still healing and that all my energy is going toward that kind of growth so I don't have much left over for a great work ethic and a "go get-em" attitude.
Understanding all of that doesn't completely stop the feelings I've been having though. I still wonder when the hell the purpose will come back and what that purpose will be. I still wonder if my brain will come back online again and if it will always be altered by this trauma. I still wonder if I'll be able to support myself long-term. I still wonder if I'm ever going to feel grounded and certain again.

I know though, that the one certainty is that we can't see around the bend. We can just take the next step we think is right. As I look back on this time, I'm sure I will see how much I grew and how much I actually accomplished and how every little "next right step" took me in the direction I needed to go.

It's just hard to ignore the feeling that I'm missing some integral part of me now. It's like I lost my internal compass and now I'm just aimless, wandering, lost. Again though, the things I tell myself! I'm not "lost".

Lost and wandering are two different things, right?  I'm wandering around as I learn about myself, this new self. I'll find my way. I am finding my way, I'm just too close to see the big picture.

So much easier said than felt, though, huh?

trying

I am going to start by apologizing that my post for today is so late. I'll admit that I am frazzled and busy. I can also tell you that I tried to post last night but after an unexplained computer shut-down, I was sceptical that my article had posted. So at 5 AM, I checked. No post. No post and I had to get up to get the kids ready for school and get myself ready for work. I felt like crying. Actually, I felt like swearing and crying. So I did. Started the day with tears and obscenities.
This is the reality for me lately. Over-stretched and trying to get as many things done as I can. Attempting to patch up things needing repair. Hoping to provide all my kid's need and desire. Trying to live as "everyone else" does....
But I am failing. I feel overwhelmed and on the verge of tears much of the time. I am living moment to moment and stumbling through life hoping that in the years after my kiddos finish their youth, they can say they had fun, happy, love-filled childhoods. But I truly don't feel like it is working.
My kids used to be homeschooled. I was a stay-at-home mom. We lived on organic and home-grown food. We did crafts and played in the mud. They had two parents to love and provide for them. They had someone to spell off the frazzled and tired parent.
Now, they attend public school. I often work hours after school and on weekends. At times, my kids have prepackaged food in their lunches. I no longer spend hours in the backyard with kids and chickens chasing each other through the mud as I can just imagine the laundry these types of activities will burden me with. At the end of the day/weekend/morning, I am beyond frustration and am a crabby/crazy/erratic parent. A lone parent.
I am now known by my children from my cries of "I am TRYING!!!! I only have TWO hands!"
I feel guilty and tired. I am wondering if this is just the life of parents in general? Or is this exhausting situation that does not seem to let up or alleviate in anyway a symptom of living/parenting/grieving after the death of a spouse?
Again, I apologize for the late post. I am sorry that I have let those of you who rely on a voice through this path to be here when you need it. Please....bear with me.

Security

Photo from here

Last week, I fell.

Emotionally.

Too many stressors on top of an already stressful life.
…and then the person who keeps work flowing my way resigned.

and I panicked.

Because she is the only person in admin who gets it.

But I met with her, and while she isn’t able to give me more long-term certainty, she moved mountains to keep me employed for most of next term.

….and instantly, my spirits lifted.

I’m happy that I am employed until December, but I’m scared that my emotional health swings so wildly around having job security.

In the past, I’ve never had job security.

I’ve only ever had contract work.

But it’s been OK because a) I’ve never been out of work, and b) I’ve always had Greg there earning an income to provide for us if I couldn’t.

Now, I need that security.
Please.

They just don't get it...

I make no secret of the fact that I want a permanent teaching gig at the kids’ school.

I changed career a couple of years ago so that I could spend more time with my kids, and my aim has always been to work in a primary school, preferably the same one that the kids attend.

But those jobs are hard to come by.

So I took a position teaching maths and science at a high school just out of the local area. I’d done exactly one day on trial and the day I started my official new job there was the day Greg died.

The flashbacks to that day are etched into my mind: the text book I had to use using car crash analogies to teach speed and acceleration; the kids who were beautiful; the exact line on the concrete I was standing on when the principal came to find me and tell me that I needed to drive home Very Carefully now...

There was no way I could go back to that school.

A few days after Greg's funeral, a very kind person at my children’s primary school could see my problem and offered me a part-time, temporary position at their school to “help me get back into the swing of things”.

I am still doing this job almost 18 months later. (Two weeks shy of 18 months to be exact: Greg died 18 months ago today).

Partly because it suits me, partly because this particular person at school recognised my value and is doing everything in her power to keep me employed there.
She gets it.

At a recent meeting, my current boss asked the department to keep me: he knows I’m valuable and this is why he wants to keep me. It has nothing to do with my marital status.
He doesn't really get it.

I asked the department to keep me, explaining very clearly both my worth as a teacher (topped my year, highest possible ranking, maths-science background which is sadly lacking from most teacher’s repertoires); and the fact that my husband is buried in a nearby cemetery and nothing will move me or the kids away from him and our support network.

...and within a week of the meeting with departmental officers, I had the offer of a permanent position....

....at the other end of the State.

2000 km away.

O.o

I asked the departmental officer whether there was a footnote on my file explaining my compelling reasons not to do country service [i]and she said:

“Yes, but we thought you might like a permanent job and a change of scenery”

I’ve not yet quite got my feet under me properly, the kids are fragile and cling to everything familiar and the department thinks I might enjoy a major life change????

They just don’t get it at all.

.

.

.

(Thankfully, my psychologist DOES get it and has written a strongly worded letter saying that the kids and I need to stay put for the foreseeable future).

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[i] All teachers in Queensland are required to work in regional areas for at least part of their working life. I maintain that I have already done this (for another government department) and know that it would kill me to go away from my home again.