As I struggle with Time Travel Part Three (I'm so sorry), I do relive May-June-July, that ninety day month, in 2010, as it's doppelganger in 2011, where three months blended into one, without my noticing that time was going by at an alarmingly fast rate, as I watched a way of life dissolve, last year relating to my father's diagnosis and my subsequent break-up; and then this year, watching my father approach his June death-date, my consciousness rebelling with the passing of every day. First, from the lead-up, but after, as I have heard so many people recount about grief--the fear of leaving that date behind. Those last moments, those memories, the tape-loop that gets stuck in my head pretty much each and every day, taking a new scene out and spinning it around, looking for a new angle.
I don't find one.
I then remember the re-birth I had in August, with my trip out east, and despite my panic (I have it now) I made the drive, I stayed awake, I drank it all in, and I conquered, at that time, my unbelievable fear of life.
I have it now, right now. I'm at the end of one period, something new is about to begin.
I have another trip planned, a driving excursion again, a reversal of the order I travelled in last year, later this month.
I will turn another year older this month, too, just as I did last August, marvelling at what my thirty-sixth year had brought me, the few highs, the very painful lows. The grief, the stillness.
The stillness being me, watching what was happening, in one of those types of times in life when you have even less control over things than you normally do.
I continue to stride to a healthier place, but I know I need to give myself time. My therapist says a good year will pass until I begin to get back to 'normal'. The old Irish proverb for grief is a year-and-a-day. As I once read--you need to get through every day of the year without the person, and then, finally, their first death-date anniversary, and that is when things start to settle, perhaps for their spirit too. I imagine that the first year of death is busy, eventful, with lots to learn, things we don't have an inkling of.
In anticipation of my trip and vacation, of which I am already longing for, my exhaustion beginning to take on new dimensions, I took down my suitcase from the storage area above my closet today. I just tripped over it in the dark of my bedroom as I went to set my clock radio to get up for work tomorrow. I liked tripping over it--it was a nice reminder.
I had my nails done today too, properly, indulgently, at a spa with two close friends, and as I sat there, I did feel 'normal' even as the girl who did my nails bent over my feet, my eyes darting at the tatoo she sported on the upper part of her back--a sunny yellow star, "Dad" written in the center, and then a set of dates, bracketing, as I did the math, a fairly brief life. I looked at the girl with my new, lost-parent eyes and reminded myself to honour my feelings, and the feelings of those around me, even ones I do not know.
You really can't always know how haunted people are.
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