Up and Down; Round and Round....

Before I start writing the main theme of today’s post I wanted to follow up on yesterday’s post.  Sometimes I post things here that aren’t necessarily easy to understand.  Though I write this blog for public consumption, there are definitely portions of it that read more like a diary.  As such without having to write page after page of back story, it isn’t necessarily possible to understand the context for which I am writing.  Much of yesterday’s blog post concerned the interaction between me and one specific person.  Therefore there’s a good chance no one else really got it.  Lastly, the comments I made about something happening in 11 days is an activity in which I am going to take part.  I have only shared the details of this activity with 4 people and I don’t intend to say much more about it until then.  It is something that is going to be really special to me.  I can’t contain myself when it comes to talking about it in a general sense but for now it is something I want to keep private.  I know that seems like a contradiction, but in one way I am having a hard time keeping my mouth shut and in another way I want to keep it all very contained and private.  Sorry for that seemingly contradictory feeling!  I will share everything about once it is complete.  Sorry!
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I often wonder what people think when they read my blog entries.  There are a few who are very direct and to the point and send me blunt, direct e-mails and pretty much tell me to go screw myself.  However, most of the comments sent directly to me in e-mail aren’t nasty.  Most of the comments sent directly to me express some form of compassion for what I am feeling.  A few have even expressed solitary with what I feel and have told me that my writings have helped clarify their own thinking and feelings.  Those e-mails are gratifying and give me a sense of peace for all that I put out there.

Recently there have been some definite swings in terms of the attitude I have displayed when writing.  Some days have been good and I have written in a positive, hopeful mood as I look towards the future.  Other days – like yesterday have been filled with less hopeful writing and a general tone of sadness, bitterness and anger. 

Before my life changed so drastically when Patty fell ill, my overall approach to life was typically upbeat, cheery, irreverent and happy.  One of my favorite expressions from back then was the simple saying “It is what is”.  I used that expression to shrug off the occasional disappointments and hardships of life.  Back then my life wasn’t particularly hard in my opinion.  Yeah – there had been some tragedy as both my parents died within a short time of each other and Patty and I had lost 5 babies – including one at six months to miscarriages.  I also had to work extremely hard at my job as I was normally on the road for 2/3 of the year or more.  But in general, life was pretty good, fun and happy.  Whenever bad stuff happened I tended to shrug it off and just say “it is what it is”. 

Even once Patty was sick I still managed to keep a pretty upbeat attitude.  There were some periods that were more trying than others.  But I generally kept things light, happy and somewhat fun.  When Patty was in the hospital for 14 months straight before she died I got to know all the nurses in the bone marrow transplant/oncology unit.  I came to find out that the nurses thought I was the most pleasant family member with whom they had to work.  I was pleased to hear that because I felt it reflected the true nature of who I was. 

After Patty died I still retained my light-hearted nature but I found more and more my feelings were subjected to swings of sadness, despair, bitterness and anger.  There was a lot of unfocused anger running through my psyche and it would frequently flair out as I had to deal with Zack’s anxiety issues.  Aside from the anger I found more and more that my moods were being driven by feelings of anxiety and desperation to which I could find no relief.  Using logic I could determine that my feelings were absolutely unreasonable, but yet my mental/emotional tools that I had to calm these feelings just weren’t working.

Ultimately the root cause of these feelings came down to the fact that I was still grief stricken at Patty’s death.  I understood that she was gone; I understood that she was never coming back, but yet the finality of her death and of the changes in my life left my soul filled with intense pain.  I was and still am for that matter, so angry about all that I have lost.  It wasn’t that I just lost my partner; it was that I had lost my whole future.  Prior to Patty’s death there was a plan, there were goals, there were dreams, there were ambitions together as a family and then they all evaporated.  I know for many people it may seem silly to the extent of what I feel I lost.  Many people go through the losses of their spouse, or they get divorced and it doesn’t affect them in the way it has affected me.  One of the reasons it had such an impact on me is that prior to this point my life had kind of run like clockwork.  I wasn’t anal retentive about planning things, but in my head I had this series of plans of how my life was going to run.  Patty and I had been together so long by the time she got sick that she was interwoven into every aspect of my day-to-day life and my future.  And then it was all gone!

For a long time I managed to keep the swings between the positive moods and the depression, anxiety, bitterness and anger in relatively good check.  Yes – I would have times when I would feel depressed but so does everybody.  Now it seems my feelings swing back and forth between depression and a positive outlook almost every day. 

When I stop and analyze what is actually happening I realize that my moods aren’t necessarily swinging as much as I think.  When I write my blog entries I am pumping up my attitudes and moods and making them more pleasant.  In general the light, easy-go-lucky, happy attitude that I used to have has been replaced with a much darker, introspective version of me.  On a good day my normal mood is quiet, pensive and taciturn.  On a bad day – you just don’t want to be around me as I am sullen, morose and filled with a very dark mood.   I am not trying to be mean or nasty to anyone and for the most part I don’t think I am mean or nasty, I am just much quieter than I ever used to be.

My silence is caused by the fact that my brain is usually ten thousand miles away from what I am doing.  The focus of my thoughts most frequently is wrapped up in a sense of loss and melancholy.  There have been occasions when I have been at a party or at bar talking to someone and I am thinking to myself “If only this person that I am talking to knew the thoughts that were going through my head.”   It’s not that there are bad or mean thoughts running through my head, it is just that my thoughts have nothing to do with the person I am talking to.

There have been times in which this sense of loss and melancholy goes away.  I will be honest and admit that when I was with Shelly there were times in which those feelings would recede and I could start imagining a new future with her.  However, in most cases the thoughts of a future with her would rapidly vanish because of the discord between us.  In that case the differences between Shelly and I would cause us to argue and then it would just enhance my sense that I had lost so much.  Though I was very much in love with her, Shelly’s ability to soothe my soul and diminish that overall sense of loss wasn’t the best.  There were times when we could be very happy and I could leave that sense of loss behind.  However, because of who she was and who I was, being together often created a greater sense of loss because we disagreed about so much.

The woman who I briefly dated after Shelly, Chris had no impact on these internal feelings.  Though we got along really well and had lots of fun together the chemistry between us didn’t allow for her presence to lift me out of that sense of loss.  The two of us being together didn’t make the sense of loss, bitterness and melancholy worse, it just left me unaffected.  In my mind that is one of the primary reasons we stopped dating.  There was no feeling on my part that gave me a sense of urgency that I needed to see her as her presence didn’t affect me and lift me up from the dark place my soul is in.

On the exact side of the equation from Shelly and Chris was Brenda.  Her ability to impact my soul and lift me from the places of sadness and loss was profound.  When we were together, it was like we were in a bubble in which the 2 of us and our immediate surroundings existed, but the sense of loss and hurt was left behind.  With Brenda it may have been our shared experience of loss of a spouse and the resulting anxiety that made her able to lift me out of that place.  Brenda had a saying whenever the melancholy or anxiety was building in me that would make it all go away.  All she had to do was say “I’m right here” and it was like I would be transported to a different galaxy.  Even if I wasn’t with her, those words would blow away my anxiety and pain.  It was so effective because I knew she had been exactly where I was at one point.  It was wonderful to have that sense of connection with someone.  She really had an intrinsic understanding of pain, loss, anger and anxiety that would flow through me almost every second of every day.  It sucks we aren’t part of each other lives.  I really wanted to be with her, but it was my own fault that we aren’t together.  I suppose at some point I should write a blog entry about her and what she meant to me.  But that is for a later time.

There are several other things that I feel are driving the swings in my feelings.  The first is the relatively constant physical pain in which I find myself.  Though I have had 2 operations to solve my herniated disc, the pain is still there and I am starting to think it will be a permanent part of my life.  The mornings are the absolute worst.  When I get out of bed my right hip, butt and leg just scream in pain.  By the time I reach the kitchen, I have to sit down as the pain is so intense I am on the verge of screaming.  The pain fills my consciousness for almost 24 hours straight each day.  Even when I sleep and turn over in the night, the pain will be so bad that it will wake me up.  The only relief comes when I have enough pain killers and (unfortunately) alcohol in me.  I believe this pain has come to influence how and what I think about.  Often I find myself in despair because so much of what I want to do is now unfathomable because of the pain.

A secondary impact of the pain is the fact that I continue to take steroids to help address the problem.  Over the last month I have taken some large doses of steroids.  This drug has a significant outlook on how I see the world.  As the drug enters my blood stream every day, I can feel its impact begin immediately.  It is as though my blood is being set on fire and begins to boil.  I know this drug can drag me from one side of the emotional scale to the other in a very short order and I hate it. 




So where does all this leave me.  I am left in a position that I am tested every day.  The simple answer to what I face is to belly up to the bar at LoDo's or some other place once the work day is done.  But it doesn't work like that.  I have the responsibility of raising a son.  That responsibility will never go away.  So I wake up every morning and I face what I face and I deal with it.  Some days I deal with it a lot worse than other days.  Other days I deal with it like a super hero.  Wednesday are normally super-hero days because I have to deal with others pain.  These are the days that I volunteer at hospice and I see the people who are really in pain.  It kind of bring a sense of reality to your system.  Yeah - I feel sad and down and out, but guess what - it doesn't compare to what Mrs. XYZ in room 4 is facing because she knows she is going to be dead in a couple of days.  It kind of puts things in perspective. 

Well for a Wednesday evening I think that is all she wrote.  Zack is in bed and the dogs are waiting for me to come upstairs and snuggle with them.  So it is time to cut the evening short and go to bed.  Tomorrow is another is another day and there will be other battles to be fought.  But for now there is quiet and there is peace. And so with that I say good night!

Thanks and peace to all! ~J.

Back in the Box

I awake in the pitch blackness of night, the sudden jolt of a thought wrenching me from the soundness of sleep into the panic filled world of consciousness. The bedclothes hang on my sweat drenched body as my heart continues to heave with the feeling of panic, despair and sadness.

Like a cigarette addict I reach along my nightstand for something to try and calm me and to hold back the terror that fills my thoughts.  Instead of the tobacco sticks of death I find my phone and look at the time.  Still very early - 4:38AM but the worst thing is the screen of the phone is blank.  No one is there. No one has cared enough to leave even a simple message of greeting. How long has it been since the phone made a sound – a day, a week – I don’t know.  A single tear runs down from my left eye and stains my face as I put my phone down and let the darkness embrace me again. 

There won’t be any more sleep tonight.  Whether it is the steroids I am taking for my back or the horrors of the continuous loneliness I try and drift back asleep among the sweat covered ruins of my bed.  But it isn’t going to happen.

So I do what I have done for the last two weeks when the anticipation and optimism go away.  I pick the phone up and I read all the messages.  They go back almost two months.  For the first month they are filled with promise.  They are filled with words of tenderness and love.  There are the words “honey”, “baby”, “sweet”, “can’t wait to see you”.  They are repeated over and over again.  No, they never quite say it exactly but it is there - tenderness, caring and love.  So many times I didn't even have to start the conversation. So many mornings you were there with a message waiting for me.  And then the great change happens.  The change doesn’t even start subtly.  It is there as soon as the physical distance sets in.  At that point I put out the questions and no response ever comes.   Just a total and complete ignoring of my questions and words.  At that point I start to see that what I feel and who I am don’t matter.

The questions in my mind get worse – was it all imagined?  If there was always some one there in that other place, why did you attempt to care in the first place?  And the questions bounce around in my head and ring in the emptiness of my brain.  There will of course be no answers.  My reality is what is, and I will be let to stew in it while life goes on.  I am alone.  To be honest the being alone doesn't even hurt any more, it the fact that I asked and asked and asked.  I spelled it out so many times but you just won't say the words.  They were easy words to say, yet they never were said - for whatever reason I don't know.  Was it because it was hard for you to say the words and so I had to bear the hope and then the pain?  And so no words are ever said.  None.  It just fades away and instead of a warmth of remembering what was, there is nothing but cold silence and hurt.

Mainly there is just a ton of sadness in my heart.  But I do feel frustration too.  There was a time back in summer when everything was on the line – a fortune was at play.  I didn’t hesitate in my offer and you were ready to take me up on it.  In that time that you needed help I was ready to put it all on the line and have faith in you. Now that I ask for some faith in me to even have a conversation it can't be.  You have no faith in me because I made a mistake once and because of the words of someone who is mean and cruel.  It is like you are afraid of the words we might exchange - or is it because you are afraid of your feelings and you don't trust yourself to engage in that conversation.

Today will be a long hard struggle.  Once the clock strikes 5:00PM and my day job is done I’ll work overtime with my friend Mr. Sobieski to forget.  Now Mr. Sobieski doesn’t launch a thousand ships with his beauty, but he does an effective job of helping me forget for the time being.

So for now I’ll try and put the paint of normalcy back on my face.  I’ll think with great promise about that thing that I am going to do in 11 days.  Not quite sure if I can do it alone, but I guess I will have to.  I thought you would be there when I did this.  But I realize I will likely face this alone. 

I just wish you would have answered the questions.  They were put out there so many times and just left hanging.  I really don't understand it, because now there is a lot of heart ache and frustration.  Maybe I am being too analytical.  Time will tell I guess - perhaps I will yet hear from you again.  Perhaps not!

I look again at what could have been and realize that it’s going to be a long time before the optimism of what I wrote about yesterday can really take hold. It's going to be one day at a time I guess.

Have a great day everyone! ~ J.

Anticipation

Anticipation: (noun) 1.the act of anticipating or the state of being anticipated.  2. realization in advance; foretaste. 3. expectation or hope. 4. previous notion; slight previous impression. 5.intuition, foreknowledge, or prescience.

Anticipation is such a wonderful word!  It conveys so much about the excitement of some kind of future.  In some ways the anticipation of something can even better than the “something” itself.  When you sit down to a delicious dinner I think much of the enjoyment comes from the anticipation of the wonderful tasting meal.  Because once you start to eat that meal your enjoyment of it rapidly goes down as your stomach is filled. 

Why am I focused on anticipation today?  The answer to that is straightforward.  Now that Zack and I have completed our spring break vacation and life is returning back to the day-in day-out ordinary activities, it is our anticipation of our next trip and upcoming adventures that is driving me forward.  Please don’t get me wrong, I do definitely enjoy the here and now and I love to live in the moment.  However, my personality is forever driven by the promise of fun things and good things that are yet to come.  By looking at the future with a bright anticipatory view I think I can keep myself younger than I would if I were always looking into the past or just living in the here and now.

What is so wonderful about this very second is that I know there are some great things coming my way in the next few months.  A new kitchen with modern appliances, beautiful Brazilian Cherry hardwood floors and a new family room await me in about 8 weeks.  I can’t imagine the feeling of walking into those rooms when they have finally been completed.  It will be marvelous.

Attached are several architectural drawings depicting the new kitchen.  There is a complete CAD/CAM drawing for every aspect of the kitchen.  However, I could not scan these documents well as they are much bigger than my little HP scanner.  Though not complete these drawing give a feel for what the kitchen is going to look like.

(View from above looking down on the kitchen.)

(View looking toward the outside facing wall.  Where the sliding glass door is positioned that is currently a box window seat.)

(Looking from my family room into the kitchen. Sorry the image is a little messed up.  It was hard to scan these things.  These are only 3 of the drawings I have.  In totally the entire project involves almost 15 different images showing the kitchen, family room, butler's counter and center island from almost every angle.)

The great thing about the kitchen is that it is now in progress!  Orders for all the cabinets and the new hardwood floor have been placed.  The hardwood for the floor will probably be here either late next week or at the start of the following week.

As my back continues to heal and my legs return to their pre-injury strength I look forward to obtaining the top of the first mountain I climb this spring.  I don’t know if will be Mt. Falcon, Russell Ridge or any number of other peaks that I like to climb but it will be one of them!  The anticipation of that particular event makes my hands sweat and my muscles shake with anticipation.

There are so many things that this spring and summer will bring!  A first kiss with a (new or maybe an old one again - and no not that one!) girlfriend, seeing one of Zack’s report cards that has all A’s, the first time I run a 5K race again – there are just so many things that the near future will hold that I am giddy with the thoughts of them.

My reason for all the thoughts along these lines is the fact that I am really starting to get extremely excited for summer vacation to Iceland!  This will be one of the biggest adventures that we have lived to date.  I have done some adventurous traveling in the past but this one is definitely unique.  My most adventurous trip that I feel I have done to date was the first time I went to Europe.  Back then I really didn’t know that much about international traveling.  My trip to Europe was for work and I had to add it to the tail end of a trip that I took to India.  The adventurous part of the trip was that I arrived in Frankfurt, Germany on a Friday morning after an overnight trip from Bangalore.  I had no reservations, no real plan except that I knew I had to be in Krakow, Poland by Monday afternoon for work.  When I talked to the people I worked with in Poland they all strenuously objected to what I planned to do as they said it could be really long and I have to go through some areas of high crime.  I didn’t care as it was something I really wanted to do.  My plan was to make my way across central and eastern Europe by train and arrive on time in Krakow.  I didn’t speak the languages, I only had a rudimentary knowledge idea of the trains I would take and I had very few cold weather clothes as I had just been in India for 3 weeks.  I was making this trip during the first week of February and I did indeed encounter some cold and snowy weather.  The end result of this story is that it was fun as hell, intimidating as hell, enlightening, scenic and all around wonderful.

My thoughts on how to approach our trip to Iceland are much the same.  Our goal is to circumvent the entire island on the “Ring Road” that runs around it.  I have talked about this “Ring Road’ in prior blog posts so I won’t describe it again.  Before we leave I want to understand as many of the interesting sights we can see.  Depending upon what I read we may not have any kind of reservations for lodging we might just take whatever we find if we find anything.  Given the size of many of the towns we will go through I am sure if there is no lodging available we could knock on someone’s door and ask to sleep in their house or even their garage or barn.  Having a travel experience like that is amazing as it teaches you about the people and how they live.  Hopefully we will be able to structure our trip so that we can have some of those experiences. 

The bigger point for all of what I am writing is that I have come to notice when I have things to look forward to my emotions and state of being are much calmer, happier and content.  When all I see in front of me is the day-to-day drudgery of work, more work and yet even more work my mind will be numbed by it all and I will become depressed, anxious and unhappy.  Even though we just got back from one vacation, getting the next one planned is very important to me.

Today when Zack went back to school it marked the beginning of his 4th quarter as a seventh grader.  Though it seems like the school year just started, in a little over 60 days this school year will be complete.  Given Zack’s age, this summer will be interesting as there are fewer and fewer camps that he can go to.  This means he will be around the neighborhood much more this summer than in previous years.  It will be very interesting to see how the summer plays out.  So far the only 100% certain thing on our calendar is our trip to Iceland.  I have an opportunity to do Bicycle Tour Colorado (BTC) again this year as my college roommate Allen is coming out here to ride it again.  I am not sure that I can do the BCT this year as I don’t want to burn Zack out on biking riding doing the tour.  I am thoroughly convinced he could do the ride as he has certainly conquered some substantial mountain passes on his bike before.  But I think he would get sick and tired of the 50+ mile per day rides.

We will send several weeks living in our condo in the mountain I am sure and there is a distinct possibility we are going to head back east for several weeks too.  I am less certain of that last item as having Zack and me around might drive my family crazy.  The good thing about my job is that as long as I have electricity to run my laptop and a cell phone connection to reach the Internet I can work.  We are also hoping to have a bunch of visitors over the summer.  Nancy’s next door neighbors from her town back in Pennsylvania, Millie and Bob will be coming out to visit with Nancy and see the sights.  There is usually nothing I can get Nancy for Christmas, Mother’s Day or her birthday, so bringing Mille and Bob out is the best present I can get her.  It has been years since I have seen some close friends from back east, so my hope is to use some frequent flyer miles and fly them out here too.  If we can make both of those things happen we will definitely have a fun summer.  There will be many other things going on this summer that to which we look forward and anticipate – including what I am going to discuss next.

I am horrible with keeping secrets.  One of those other things that I mentioned above will be one of the very first things to happen.  This activity is planned to take place 12 days from now.  I really want to spell it all out, but I have promised myself that this is something significant to me and hence I can’t share it until it is done.  It’s going to take a couple of weeks from the time it starts until it is done, but when I do spell it out here it going to be pretty amazing.  (You never know I could just be pandering to all of your interests to keep you checking back here on the blog for the next several weeks!  I won’t do that, it is just something very significant to me that I want to share with you all once it is done.)  Start looking for the specific details starting on April 14.

That’s about it for this evening.  I hope everyone has a great week ahead.  And as always thanks so much for reading all this slop that I put out onto the Internet!  Without you all reading it, there really won't be much point in doing this.

Thanks and peace to all! ~ J.