Who's in your address book?

Being friends with someone (ok, me) who is grieving is not for the weary, impatient, or judgmental.

Some things I’ve noticed about myself in these months following Dalton’s death:

1) My moods are absurdly unpredictable. At any given time, you might find me nostalgic, indifferent, optimistic, terrified, resolute, flighty, sociable, socially inept, charming, obnoxious, selfless, self-centered, gloomy, perky, angry, pacified, lonely, loved, intent, scattered, etc. In fact, it feels and must often appear that I am suffering from multiple personality disorder. Were it not for the fact that the therapist assures me this is all quite normal, one of the personalities (the rational, cautious one) might consider having me admitted.

2) My memory still isn’t functioning properly. I seem to be doing better remembering numbers and facts, but I regularly stumble when asked “What did you do yesterday?” Conversations don’t stick, especially my side of them. I can’t remember to feed the dog or put gas in the car or pick up the dry cleaning.

3) I go through much of life in a fog. I am functional. I can see what is right in front of me. But, get more than a few minutes behind or ahead of where I am and it’s all a blur.

4) I need constant reassurance. Annoying, but true.

5) My sleep habits continue to be erratic. Some nights, you will wake me up if you call at 8pm. Other nights, I will wake you up when I need to talk to someone at 1am.

6) I want desperately to find some magic pill that will help me start over but ultimately know it doesn’t exist.

7) I often feel like I am getting worse instead of better.

I was on the youngwidow.org bulletin boards again this morning. Sigh. So pitiful. One of the recurring themes is how friends seem to disappear or withdraw as time goes on. The saying goes “grief rewrites your address book.” And my favorite quote on the subject is “I completely understand. My thing is, who would even want to hang out with me. At this point, I am no fun to be around - I wish I didn't have to hang out with me!”

Anyways, I really appreciate how many of my friends seem to be hanging in there with me. I know that so far, I have been really lucky on that front. It does help to ease some of the lonliness.