Spicy Dragons & Dinosaurs

The day after a sleepless night is always a bit wonky. I finally turned on a movie at about 4 this afternoon for Julia and took a 45 minute nap before I took Julia to her first riding class. I am fatalistic and weary today, scared witless like I was after everyone left after David died, liable to cry at the nudge of a stranger, anxious. I cannot shake my financial fears although rationally I know that I can survive a bad investment if indeed my investments are not the wisest. I cannot shake a feeling of doom, despair over not having work that I can go back to, scared that I am too old and unskilled to take on something new. Scared that I will never have close friends who live in close proximity and also terrified for Julia and her future.

I pick this up a bit later -- Had a long talk with an old friend who is also going through a transition time and she commiserated over some of my fears. Doesn't make them less scary but give me a bit of a foot hold in reality to hear that someone else, who is not a grieving maniac, can have the same feelings. I know, I know, I could probably find my litany of irrational fears in some widow instruction booklet.

I am going to stop. I have felt awful today. I got through the day, did a few useful tasks. Maybe that is the best I can hope for on days like this. Yes, indeed, another one foot in front of the other day.

One thing: I was reading the Cap Times on line today (local newspaper) and there was an article about an artist whose husband died in 2008. She was mounting her first show since his death and doing it with a friend. I found myself reading the story for clues, for directions, for some lesson that I could use, some trick that I could incorporate. When I finished reading it, I let out a sigh of relief, and I realized that I had been holding my breath as I read.

I seem to be relentless in my search for healing.

I knew that the coming of this anniversary would be hard. I did not know how. Although I have no intention of doing so, I could well understand getting really drunk. Really trying to run away from these oppressive, all-consuming feelings. Stories of long, long grievings begin to make so much more sense. Have I lacked such imagination that I could not understand them before this?

Apparently so.

I drift and wonder about all the great characters in fiction. Are those books so wonderful because when the circumstance arises you can pluck out a character and suddenly understand them on a more complex level? Of course, the first one that comes to mind this moment is the Uncle/father character in The Secret Garden. (Yes, Cheshire, you can laugh at that one. It is the musical version that I light upon.)