Not doing as well as I thought

 It's been a busy few days.

On Thursday I had the first actual grief counselling session.  Since it was the first session, I figured the first thing to do was to outline what had happened, starting with Gloria's medical history, mostly over the past seven years, but also with references farther back.  In the past month I've outlined this to at least a dozen people, for the most part without any emotional reaction.  This time, I had no sooner started, than I started crying, and I cried most of the way through the hour-long session.

Obviously, I'm not doing as well, emotionally, as might be supposed from my general level of functionality.

I rather suspected that this might be the case.  When I married Gloria, I knew nothing about emotions.  And all I really know, even now, is that I'm pretty much an emotional wreck.

It's interesting that I broke down crying in the counselling session.  Perhaps it's because I don't know this person.  This is a professional; she has, undoubtedly, had lots of people break down crying in grief counselling sessions; I don't have to impress her; in a sense this is a "safe place."  (Even though it's over the phone, and there's no "place" involved.)  She *is* a professional: she "validated" my breakdown, saying that crying (and lack of sleep) are the two most common grief reactions.  This is normal.

And, as I said, not completely unexpected.  I mostly don't get through a day, yet, without at least one time crying.  (Yesterday I sent to dinner with a friend, and L wanted to use that time to get rid of Gloria's clothes, and I knew that, and went through the clothes myself to make *sure* I was good with them going, but it was *still* a wrench when I got home and they were gone.  And I cried.  And I'm crying now writing this.)  But, also, interesting that it was so immediate and protracted.  I'm not done yet (well, I didn't expect to be done quite yet), but also I've obviously got more stored up (bottled up?) than I realized.  I've already booked another appointment with this grief counsellor, and I'm also booked for a session with a "grief circle" group counselling situation over Zoom this coming week.  (As the ancient Chinese curse has it, may you live in interesting times.)  I figure I can use all the help I can get.

(I took some pictures of the sunrise out of the solarium window the morning before the day Gloria died.  [Not ultimate, not antepenultimate, but penultimate, I guess.]  It was quite a pink sunrise, but Gloria wouldn't open her eyes.  I have the pictures on my phone, and I emailed them to myself so I could save them on to the main desktop computer, but, even though I have now done that, I found it surprisingly hard to make myself delete the emails, even though they were now redundant.)

At the same time, "life" seems to be ramping up in the busy-ness department.  On Friday I had an appointment with my doctor.  And my banker.  And a haircut.  All in North Van.  The doctor and I mostly talked about sleep.  Gloria had some sleeping pills, which I *didn't* turn back in to the pharmacist.  The doctor wanted me to try them.  I have; three times now; and they don't seem to help.  All they seem to do is leave a bad taste in my mouth.  (Literally.)  Gloria was also on antidepressants, which I also didn't turn back in at the pharmacy.  (Not quite sure why, although I suspect that I suspected that the doctor might have wanted to try me on them for depression at some point.)  At any rate, this particular antidepressant is apparently also good for sleeping problems, and the doctor wants me to try them for a couple of weeks.  I've tried them for a couple of days, now, and, while I still haven't had an eight hour (or more) night, they do seem promising in staving off the four hour nights.  (Gloria also had some valium-like stuff, and I turned that back in at the pharmacy, and now I'm wishing I hadn't, but the doctor is just as glad I did.)

The appointment with the banker wasn't as satisfactory.  Even though this should be pretty standard they are going to be taking weeks about it, and my banker wasn't really sure what was going to happen, and so I've had to start up a number of new accounts "just in case" they are needed at some point, and I had to dump some accrued interest in order to ensure I had more cash flow room, and it's possible some of the banking people have made basic mistakes (years past) that are going to cost me significant money now, and these are the people who I am trusting with all my money?

And yesterday I also searched out and walked to the nearest LifeLabs to find out how long it would take, and booked an appointment for Tuesday because I've got another appointment with the doctor in a month and she wants some bloodwork, and on Wednesday there's the grief circle as well as a security seminar, and Thursday I have to do the (yucky) prep for Friday's colonoscopy, and also a friend is running a "listening circle" that I've been meaning to check in on, and Friday is the colonoscopy and L has to get me to North Van by 7:15 AM (because I'm not allowed to drive myself after it), and Saturday is Jeannette's memorial and I want to be there particularly since Alex was waiting for her to die at LGH while I was still not knowing that I was waiting for Gloria to die at LGH and I was running around trying to find out which ward they had moved Jeannette to *today* (and never did) and they are having Jeannette's service at WVBC like Gloria and so I want to see how that starts up on their Website so I will try and take a laptop and sit in the narthex and see if I can get on their wifi and watch what kind of instructions we need to give the people who want to watch Gloria's memorial service at the end of February, and I want to know if it is different than their Sunday service streaming because they have only just started this so I am going to see how the Sunday service starts later on this morning ...