Weepy weekend

It's been a weepy weekend.  I suppose that it started on Thursday.  Thursday morning was, and, on an ongoing basis is, a sort of a weird prayer meeting at one church.  I have not attended their Sunday services yet: I think I have mentioned the difficulty in doing church shopping in a place where all the churches meet, simultaneously, at 10:30 AM Sunday morning, and that's it, so you can only do one church a week.  Somewhat ironically, this church resulted from a split/breakaway, from another.  I am doing the sound board at the original church and the Christmas play at the breakaway.  At the time that I got involved in both churches, I had absolutely no idea of the relationship between them.  They were just the first two churches that asked me for help with specific tasks.

So, anyway, prayer meeting.  One of the people attending, at two different times, talked about things that reminded me of Gloria.  So, both times I cried.  Anyway, that's understandable: something reminded me of Gloria, and I cried.  But, maybe that set me up for subsequent grief bursts?  I don't know.

Later, Thursday afternoon, I had a disappointing experience with one of the midweek church events.  And then, in a group which had been, in a sense, prescribed to me, I got dumped on from a great height.  So that wasn't terrific.  It didn't precipitate any grief bursts, possibly because I was working out the anger at the time.  However, the emotional involvement of those experiences might have contributed to the weepy weekend.

Friday I had my counseling group.  This is not a group where I am receiving counseling, it's where I am doing the counseling.  It's not heavy duty counseling: it's a walk and talk situation, with a few guys, and basically I'm just there to listen, and lend a sympathetic ear.  Occasionally, when they say something that relates to my experience with Gloria, I might throw in that, just to keep the pump primed and keep them talking.  So that, at least, relates to grief, and may have contributed to later raw emotion.  Again, I don't know.  Otherwise Friday was uneventful: I had to wait around my place for someone to come and install shower doors, and, because of that, and because I didn't have any other events to go to, I was somewhat oddly productive, and have managed then, and subsequently over the weekend, to get most of the remaining unpacking done, and some cleanup around my place.  There was also a virtual meeting, with the Vancouver Security Special Interest Group (SecSIG), which may have served to remind me that I am alone here in Port Alberni with none of my friends.  But then again, after Gloria died, I lost most of my friends anyway, because pretty much all of them are absolutely terrified that I am going to talk about Gloria, or death, or grief, all of which are taboo subjects in our society.

So, Saturday I started having minor grief bursts.  But I had rather a lot of them.  And then, in the early afternoon, we were practicing the Christmas play, and I had rather a strong one.  And then some more subsequently.  And then Sunday, I had a couple more, and, while I was at the church setting up the sound board, and getting ready for the service, I had a really big one.  And all of a sudden realized that I was really, intensely, absolutely, desperately, lonely.  I have no friends.  I have no friends in Port Alberni.  Oh, I've met some nice people.  Of course, I never really had all that many friends anyways, and so it's not as if there are fewer friends here in Port Alberni then there were in North Vancouver, or Vancouver, or even Delta.  And, as I say, almost all the friends that I did have are absolutely terrified that I'm going to talk about Gloria, death, grief, etc, etc, and, if they are that terrified, and I can't talk to them, who needs them anyways?  I've lost Gloria, and that was the only person I wanted to talk to anyway.  Gloria was always my favorite person to talk to.  Gloria was my best friend.  So it's not exactly Port Alberni's fault.

Yes, I have been on many changes, and yes it's unbelievable, to me.  I thought I had written up something about this and posted it on the blog, but, looking back through the blog, I can't find it so I guess I haven't.  I think I've dictated something out, and haven't tidied it up, and edited it, and posted it, to the effect that it's very weird the way you feel during grief.  On the one hand I am Gloria's husband, and I am Gloria's caregiver, and that is my life, and, simultaneously, Gloria is dead, I have no job, I am in the wrong place, and my new life, which is not a rebuilding of my own life, but a completely new life, because it is so completely different, has all kinds of activities in it, and is just completely weird in comparison to my previous life with Gloria.  One of the things I did post on the blog was a screenshot of my phone showing my calendar, completely chock-a-block full, under the subject line "I've only been in town for five minutes."  On the one hand I am a grieving widower, with a dead wife, and displaced from my home.  On the other hand, I am an active volunteer with the local emergency support services, the local hospice society, on the board of the literacy society, the Privacy Officer for my strata, and volunteering at a number of churches, while church shopping.  Go and grieve in peace?  I don't have any bloody peace!

One of the things that all of the grief counselors, and grief books, tell you is that no, you are not crazy, everyone who is bereaved goes through this.  Or, alternatively, yes, you are crazy, but everybody goes a little crazy, and eventually you work it out.  What they don't specifically state is that the craziness is very much of the schizoid variety.  You are simultaneously living two lives: one the life that you had before, which is finished, but which you still remember, and for which you had all your plans and schedules and everything else, and the other, completely new, completely different life that you are actually living now.

Grief is weird.