On The Dark Side, Oh yeah……It’s Hard To Be Pretty in Pain

These two songs are on my playlist and the titles pretty much explain what been happening with me lately.  Credits to John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band (soundtrack for Eddie & the Cruisers II) and Diane Birch respectively. Although the actual lyrics aren’t about me, the feelings certainly are. I’ve discovered over the years that if you listen for the message, whether it’s in a song or somebody’s words, it’s the reactions and the feeling or message behind the words that strikes me.  The experience doesn’t always resonate, but the message does.

I’ve spent considerable time since my last blog, sitting on the dark side of my life's traumas lately, occasionally working on trying to pull myself out, but not really wanting to get out yet.  It’s not all that comfortable there and I’m not big on pain of any kind, physical or emotional and usually try really hard to climb out of it and move on.  I don’t like myself, my thoughts and even some of my actions on the dark side and it’s hard to be pretty in pain.

I’ve been spending my days taking care of business, visiting my husband in memory care and spending time with my support circle of friends.  Doing all the right things, carrying on as I know I need to.  When someone asks how I’m doing, I just say “up and down, a bit of a roller coaster.”  Everyone understands I’ve had a lot of loss and trauma lately and expresses their sympathy and support.  But, when I’m home alone in the evening, the weight of it all comes crashing down, bringing the chronic depression and anxiety with it.  Definitely not pretty.

It’s not about being alone in my home. I’m kind of enjoying living by myself, especially after the last three years taking care of my husband 24 x 7 along with all my physical problems (spine fusion, broken foot, waiting on another surgery for my hip).  I don’t begrudge the time and energy spent trying to keep us together, but I’ve worn myself out physically, mentally and emotionally.  I’ve been grieving the loss of my husband to Alzheimer’s the entire time, culminating with moving him into Memory Care.  Since he’s been gone, I have been slowly going through our things, deciding what to keep, give away, sell or throw away and moving my things into the dressers now freed up from his things.  Although it does feel good to arrange things for my life now, it’s very painful to put away what our life was together over the last 40 years.  Another step in losing the love of my life to this horrible disease.

I’m starting to come out of the darkness now, although I’m sure it’s still waiting for me to return.  So, I’m writing about it and getting back to the things I’ve been putting off because the pain and depression wore me down, I just didn’t feel like doing any more than I had to.  So, although I spent more time in the darkness than I liked, I guess it was critical for me to sit with it for a while before pulling myself out and going on with life.  Both the pain and the joy of life is necessary to work through the trauma.  I can’t pretend the pain doesn’t exist, I need to acknowledge it, sit with it, then move on.  If I don’t, it festers and starts leaking out all over the place, affecting every part of my life.  During this time, I reflected on the traumatic events, my decisions and actions and how I was going to move forward.  No matter what happens in my life, I am the only one who can move me forward and that’s what I’m accountable for.  Life happens and it’s not all good.  But, as my mom often says…”keep putting one foot in front of the other”…and deal with it.  So we move on.

The darkness is painful, but there is a lot of good in my life and I just want to keep experiencing life.  It’s not about avoiding the pain, put dealing with it, put it in its place and keep moving on to experience the joy of living my life.

Love and peace.

Chick