Bargaining

For those who don't understand the psychological process of grief, I want to touch on the concept of bargaining. Its typically described as the act of offering to do/give/say something in return of your loved one. "I'll never fight with him again if only he would come back!" Got it? The lesser known side of bargaining involves the actual grieving. In the beginning, we barter with God or the world for the return of our loved one. Once some of the acceptance has set in and an amount of the shock has worn off, we begin to see that this isn't going to turn out like we wanted it to. We may begin to say things like "Fine, if I can't be married to him, I just want to be married again," or "my life will never feel good again, but please at least take away the crying part." We are bargaining with reality. We bargain with our own grief, because now its real (on a certain level). I'm still convinced there will always be a small shred of my subconscious that believes Steven is in hiding but can never come home (that's the denial). A concern among many of the grieving is that these feelings come suddenly and without any warning. Being aware of these ahead of time can help the mind prepare to accept these changes. The next step, I feel, is to actually feel it. Numbing your numb feelings of grief doesn't make much sense. We can't rid of the feelings, but we can begin to control them and understand them. We have no control over this life, but we can control how we react to it and manage it. We are tested not in joyous times but in times of despair, agony, and severe feelings of hopelessness. People don't care when we are happy. Anyone can be happy.  There's nothing special about our happiness to other people. However, when we get in to this grief stuff, that's when everyone starts paying attention and focusing on how you're grieving, why you're grieving, if you have a right to be grieving, and whether this matches their perception of what grief should look like. Grief is uncomfortable for others, but that doesn't have anything to do with us. They are uncomfortable because grief is such an intimate part of us. Think about it. What are some of the most taboo topics of discussion among good acquaintances (not best friends...)? Money/finances/debts, sexual relationships, and dysfunction (divorce, affairs, etc.). All very intimate details about our personal lives. Why? Because with these acquaintances we have a very cordial and loose relationship. "Hey! You still liking your job? Heard you guys are going on vacation! Ya, I'm still playing golf about every week." These aren't the people who call you on a daily basis to make sure you're ok. These are the people you run in to at Walmart and, in the case of grief, ask with a frown, "How are you doing?" We have two choices: 1. Make them extremely uncomfortable by discussing truly how you are feeling that day and what issues are bothering you (then they respond, 'oh, well I hope things get better for you!' and scoot off with their shopping cart to avoid further confrontation). 2. Simply say "I'm fine." (Fucked up, Insecure, Neurotic, and Emotional). Credit: Healing the Grieving Heart support group. Usually, I choose to make people uncomfortable by divulging intimate information about my grief. My hope is that they learn not to ask me if they don't want a lengthy, detailed, and awkward answer. Other times, I use "I'm fine." This is when people ask me how I'm doing but have other motives. They want to talk to me to get information from me or to validate their own insecurities by hearing about how 'bad' mine are. I'm not about to enable that mess, so I say, "I'm fine" with a smile and they are stuck without a way weasel in their question. Shutting them down in this way often results in a blank and obvious look of defeat on their  face. Sometimes even panic because their nosy plan didn't work, and I won. Beat that!

8mos

Today, I'm fine. Fucked up, insecure, neurotic, and emotional. Fine. And I don't want to be anything else right now. The beginning of the month just sucks. The 7th I would have been married 16 months. Today, the 9th, he's been gone 8 months. I say it all the time, but this scares the shit out of me. I keep trying to dig my heels in to the past, and its not working. Everything keeps changing, but I never wanted it to. 90% of my thoughts are based around this part of my life. I'm either thinking about grief, feeling grief, trying to contain my expression of grief, trying to figure out what has happened with my life, and wondering if I'll ever know the truth. Then, I spend time consoling myself and convincing myself that what I have now is all I'm ever gonna get. This is it. How do I go to a support group to talk about the death of my husband when I have little to nothing to share...because I DON'T KNOW. I don't have 1-5 year timeline story of illness, cancer, and hospice. Then, when I do share what I have, I'm perceived as 'closed off' or 'not ready to talk'. This is how I introduce myself:

"Hi, my name is Kerrie Habing, and my husband died on 8/9/13. We were married 8 months."
Usually followed with a collective 'awww' and the 'poor thing' facial expression.
What else do I say after that? I don't have a story that I can share. All I know is that he was there in the morning, and then he wasn't.

This is how everyone else introduces themselves:

"Hi my name is ______. My husband died _____  and fought (insert illness/disease) for __ years. Before he died, we had his funeral all planned out. He wrote his eulogy and we picked the casket and pallbearers together. My whole life was dedicated to taking care of him. Especially toward the end. I did everything for him, and it consumed my life. I was there when he took his last breath. We knew it was coming." etc.....

I'm not minimizing their feelings or suggesting that they don't have a right to grieve deeply. I'm simply saying that I don't relate. I don't have a group of people that can talk about what I've been through and understand the feelings that I have. Its so unique. I can tell people the frustration, anger, and pain of driving around the county for 6 hours trying to find him, but they don't understand it. I can tell people how I'm 24 years old, married at 22, and buried my husband at 23, but its not something that they can understand. Support, yes. Understand, no. I can explain that we never got to have kids and how painful that thought is to me, but they only see my youth and the opportunity of the future. I can't talk about hospice, cancer, heart disease, or alzheimers. I need to process the shock, helplessness, disbelief, sudden split second  that completely rerouted my entire carefully laid out plans for my future. The rest of my life was robbed from me, and I didn't do anything wrong.

"Alleluia! Holy shit! Where's the tylenol?"

Its Just Cotton

I'm a little freaked out, because my dreams are getting increasingly vivid. Possibly better spiritual connection and freedom on the other side. Less confusion, and more focus on healing. Not only can I vividly see and remember my dreams (which isn't all that odd for me), I can touch and smell and feel emotion in these dreams. When I wake up, I remember all of those details. It makes me very scared when I think that eventually I could forget about how the most treasured and important things in my life felt. I guess that fixes that problem!

#sleepdeprived

It makes my blood boil when I hear or see someone say "yes, we've had our ups and downs" when referring to their relationship. Do they think it makes them sound special? Or strong for overcoming the 'ups and downs'? Seriously? What the hell do you think a relationship/marriage is? I may not have decades of experience, but I have enough to know that that is what a relationship consists of. Marriage is the only scenario when hating someone is fun, expected, and accepted by society. Having no ups and downs is abnormal. Stating the 'ups and downs' phrase is just about as logical as stating "we both have two feet in our relationship." I'm also irritated because I think people make these kinds of irritating, nonsensical statements just to hear themselves talk. Since they weren't getting enough attention, they decided to post it all over facebook so people would say "awwww you're so cute!" "awww you guys make such a good couple" "I hope I have a relationship like yours someday!" "He's so good to you!" For me, being married was so awesome because it was the best feeling in the world, and I didn't have to share it or worry about anyone else messing it up (well...until the end). I didn't have to share it! If you need that kind of validation, you might want to reevaluate where you really are in life.

Another pet peeve: "Due to the fact of we didn't have any milk." "Due to the fact of she didn't know how to tie her shoe." That doesn't make sense, and you aren't using it right. I'm not a grammar nazi. I end sentences with prepositions, I never know the proper conjugation of "lay", sometimes I write in fragments, and I speak in redneck slang in scenarios where I should be using proper grammar. But if you sound like a moron and still think you are on the same level as me, I get a little irritated.

Young and Scared and Happy

Today just isn't going to be my happy motivated day. I'm starting to have shitty sleep again, and I really thought I had that problem licked. I hate taking steps backward. Its weird, though, because when I wake up I'm looking around the room like I'm looking at/for something. I'm always looking next to my bed and at the foot of my bed. Every single time. I don't have the feeling that I'm looking for Steven or forgetting for a split second that he's gone. I'm past that. It almost seems like I'm waking up for a reason. 90% of the time, its between 2am and 3am. I don't think this is so much my inability to sleep, because I have meds for that. Just another thing that doesn't make sense to me. What else is new? Why do I have to be so determined? I could have easily called in to work and be home in bed right now. I could easily be crying under my covers and isolating myself if I weren't so damn persistent. A good thing, really. But doing that means I'm giving in to the powerful grips of grief, and I won't do it. I'm scared, and I'm unsure, but it just seems like 'the next right thing'.

I've also been more afraid lately. Not in the sense that there's a monster under my bed or because I hear a creek in the night. Its an overall 'holy shit I'm doing this by myself'. Like walking a tight rope and I looked down. Part of that is from quitting smoking. I feel like I have no crutch. I haven't replaced that comfort with anything else since I quit. That's a good thing, but its a piece that's gone. I don't regret quitting, and I feel exponentially better. But I don't have that brief 4 minute period throughout the day that previously provided somewhat of relief from the stress. Ugh.

I dreamed of Steven last night. They aren't really dreams anymore. More like communications. It hasn't happened in awhile, because I think both of us were so confused and conflicted that communication wasn't flowing well. Now its better. I dreamed he was laying in bed and he had the anchor tattoo that I've pictured in my head for a few months now. He got it right over his heart, and he kept telling me to keep my hand on it. Guess his extremely dramatic fear of needles didn't cross over with him?? Cool.

And, I forgot my jug of water at home.

Who's wearing the mask?

Really, I don't care about a plane that has mysteriously disappeared from existence two weeks ago. Do you really buy that? Technology exists that can read your license plate from a satellite. And they can't find a Boeing 777. My question is this. What's going on behind it? Why is our focus diverted to this missing plane and wailing loved ones of missing passengers? Its playing on our emotions, our ego, and our natural curiosity. Its happening because they know it works.

1. Emotions: We want to help! There are people on that plane who have children, wives, and mothers to come home to. We feel terrible for these people on the other side of the world because they don't know what happened to their loved ones. Hmmm. That sounds kind of familiar. I'm not saying I don't feel bad for the innocent people on board. They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

2. Ego: Each country is saying "I want to be the one to find the plane so my country is the one who comes out on top as the knight in shining armor." "Finding the plane will boost my numbers among the other nations." Would come in handy for Obama and Russia right now, right? Who is going to be the big dog?

3. Curiosity: When we are told something is important by someone of authority, we believe it to be so. Our brain rationalizes 'they know way more than I do about this stuff. Something really must be wrong if several countries are freaking out about it!' That's how Obama got elected...please tell me you're aware of that.

Make sense? I'm not saying the plane didn't really disappear or that a large number of passengers are unaccounted for. I'm not saying that at all. My point is that this is happening for a reason beyond an extremist pilot executing a suicide mission. Sure, its happened. But when tension with the government began to get pretty thick, suddenly this fiasco randomly occurs that draws our attention elsewhere. Hmm. Its hard to figure out who's wearing the mask when we haven't even seen their true identity to begin with.

Lyrical Surprise

Eric Church, "A Man Who Was Gonna Die Young"

I like fast cars, and shop grease
chased a lot of crazy things
left behind my share of broken pieces
this morning I turned 36, and you just remember half of it
you wonder how you out-lived Hank and Jesus 


I put the rage in a river, the roll in a thunder
but you kept me from goin' under,
when that current got too heavy
I always thought I'd be a heap of metal
in a cloud of smoke, foot stuck to the pedal
Sold for parts like a junkyard rusted-out Chevy
Fear, I've had none
what the hell made you want to love
a man, who was gonna die young


In the mirror, I saw my surprise
when those gray hairs like to hide, on my head
didn't think he'd live past thirty
If I make it thirty more, it's the brown that you'll be looking for
as you run your fingers through, say "slow down, honey" 


I put the rage in a river, the roll in a thunder
but you kept me from goin' under,
when that current got too heavy
I always thought I'd be a heap of metal
in a cloud of smoke, foot stuck to the pedal
Sold for parts like a junkyard rusted-out Chevy
Fear, I've had none
what the hell made you want to love
a man, who was gonna die young


Call it intuition, or call it crazy
just thought by now I'd be pushing up daisies
but I'd gladly stick around if we're together
So baby when you bow your head tonight
could you tell the Lord I've changed my mind?
And with you I'd like to live, well...

This song made my jaw drop. I stared at my computer for a good ten minutes reading this over and over thinking, "No way...there's no way." Then again, this is also the same artist that sings "Lightning", "Like Jesus Does", and "Love Your Love The Most". Guess that was my sign for today. Holy shit.