The Never Ending Cycle

I havn't blogged much lately, not because I don't have anything to say. Come On! When has THAT ever happened? But I have reached a point where I honestly feel that most things I think and feel at this point are so repetitive and whiney, that it doesn't do any good to voice it aloud anymore.

I remember our therapists explaining to me the grief cycle and it's upward spiraling motion, which I'm pretty positive I've mentioned in a previous post. The concept is to visualize a tornado's shape. The emotions I experience in grief start out moving around the bottom portion, always bringing me around to the same emotions over and over, with not much time in between. As you work through the grief process, you metaphorically work your way up the tornado. Still moving in a cyclical motion, but with more time in between each emotion's expression. I will continue to experience each emotion, but the goal and the ideal is to eventually have more and more time in between each difficult emotion.

I don't feel like I'm making any progress in any of these areas. I've been told by the therapist to give it time...I'm still so much on the front end of this process...only five and a half months in. At a minimum, he said, I should prepare myself for at least 2 years. That, was ANYTHING but encouraging. I don't think I can survive in this world of mine, filled with anxiety and depression, for that long. I walk around with an actual feeling of tightening in my upper chest and throat, and am on the verge of tears most of the time. This doesn't feel survivable. I've cycled back to the emotion of exhaustion. I thought I could blame Eva's horrible sleeping habits on my extremely wasted state, but I think it's more than that. It is hopeful, knowing that I experienced this several times before, that it eventually goes away for a while.

My therapist assures me constantly that even though I don't feel it's possible, that one day I will feel happiness again. The very idea sounds ludicrous to me. I've tried to imagine myself feeling happiness again, and honestly the only way it seems remotely possible would be to forget Naki completely. How can I remember him and not feel incomplete? I worry that in order to find happiness it would require me forgetting him. Then one day when I die, after completing my life here, will I even have a need for him? The only way to have happiness is with him. So if I find happiness without him, then will I still feel the need for him in my life? If my life has to move on without him, I've done the math. That's very few years with him and many many without him. I will have lived most of my life without him with me. How horrible to think about. I've also thought about the happiness aspect from his point of view. So many people tell me that those who've died are so happy being relieved from their earthly sorrows and strifes. They are happy. Does that mean that he has any need for us anymore to feel happy? If any of this is happiness, then I don't want it.

Many people have told me that they are confident that Naki is concerned with the details of our lives. If that is true, then why don't I feel him near? Why don't I feel him, in ANY way? This feels like the worst break up. Actually, I never had a break up before. Naki was the only person I actually seriously dated, and we all know how that went. Why does him dying seem like such a desertion on his part, when I know he would never desert us? How can I possibly feel frustration towards him when none of this was his doing? Oh, how this frustrates me! I HAVE to work through these emotions, because I do believe that I will eventually see him again. I just don't know how I'll deal with all of the different emotions that I'm feeling towards him with all of this, logical or not. I guess that's one thing to feel positive about...lots of years ahead of me to work through all of these convoluted emotions.

I feel like I'm living the biggest guilt trip of my life. What I want brings sorrow for the girls, and I could never live with bringing them more sorrow. Thus, my guilt propels me to keep moving one foot in front of the other. Not a very positive motivator. But, I tell myself at least it's keeping me moving, somehow.

Seeing pictures of Naki provokes the strangest emotions within me. For the longest time I couldn't put words to it. Even though I knew he was gone, seeing him made it feel like he wasn't. Sometimes looking at his face is a strange experience because it feels like I am looking at myself. We are one. Since I'm still here, he must still be here. And since he's gone, I am too. It's complicated and difficult to explain.

I feel bad for Ginny. She has to live with me, and sees me emotionally naked and exposed. It must be so draining for her. I'm the eternal taker and she's the eternal giver in our relationship these days. But she never makes me feel badly for it. If anything, she just works harder to try and relieve anything for me that she can, never getting her own self replenished along the way. If I grow up to be anything like her, I'll be an amazing woman.