Grief Part 5: A Mounting Mountain Of Mental Clutter

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It has taken me a while to get around to my next entry, which for various reasons I put off.  As I mentioned in part one of this series, I have never written about Roman’s death and betrayal at length, so now that I am getting into the thick of it, the sequence is harder to muddle through.  Plus, being that my attention span is like that of a flea, my powers of concentration these days are miles removed from super.  Now, when I feel overwhelmed by anything in the day to day, my mind sort of just idles non-productively.  And when I do manage to be productive, the amount of effort it takes is completely exhausting.

My focus halts from thoughts, thick with fog.  It is a pattern of emotional survival, which followed my string of distressing occurrences.  Increasingly however, I have learned to accept that this inattention is not going away.  I am fairly certain that my once busy bee, task-oriented, type-A personality design has been replaced by this new way of being.  And nowadays, the more I try to find said inner busy bee and deal with life in a manner similar to ‘pre-trauma me’ - the sleepier, slower, and more depressed, frustrated, and disheveled I become.  Consequently, I am learning to go with the flow - as it now flows, and do the best I can with what I have.  Although, for that reason, I am now less efficient than before with task completion of any kind – be it an activity of interest or not.  And unfortunately, this new state of being does not bode well with my chosen, high stakes occupation - but that is a topic for another day...

Discussing the time surrounding Roman’s funeral is something I generally avoid because it was a painfully cluttered experience.  Nonetheless, I think of it often.  Memories of it are often triggered by various catalysts that I come across when I least expect it.  Memories come to me in snapshots.  Some of my mental photos are crisp and others are blurry.  But they all bring with them overwhelming remembrance of my feelings at the time.

Planning for Roman’s funeral invited sadness to settle in me deeper than I had ever known before.  Yet conversely, each time I began to sink into the depths of sorrow over his death, questions surrounding Roman’s infidelity yanked me angrily back in the opposite direction; just short of acknowledging the sadness I truly felt - but did not want to give credit to.  What’s more, knowing that I would never have the chance to hear the truth from him directly, completely flooded my senses.  My range of thoughts and feelings were vast and incompatible, so nothing quelled either continuum of the chaos at that time.

Now I recognize though, that my sorrow was valid.  So too was my anger, resentment, disconnect, and confusion.  Reconciling such ugly responses simultaneously, to the extent that they demanded, is not easy; not even on a good day.  It is no surprise that I tossed those reactions into a figurative storage locker when they surfaced.  No surprise either that overpowering responses that have since ensued from triggers in my day to day life, have also been added atop of the mounting heap.

As new trials emerged in the years since Roman's death, I have done my best to get through them.  But since my reserves have been diminished by trauma, I mostly responded by opening the door a tiny bit to toss the new crap inside before any of the old mess could roll out.  Consequently, as with any space that is continuously jammed with clutter, it eventually gets full.  I suppose it has been fear of being toppled to death by contents now piled to the ceiling that has kept me from opening the door to dig in and get organized.  But the time has come to address the core of this mental mess, and move forward in sequence, rather than snapshots, with the next part of my story.

***

I hardly slept a wink as the night of November 6^th turned into the morning of the 7^th.  Wrenching dreams of explaining his death to Roman occupied the moments of sleep I did get.  My dreams were so distressing that I often woke myself up to escape them…only to be reminded that they were not just a dream.  Waking life was equally as troubling.  And in a vicious cycle, these dreams continued for months after Roman’s death.  On one occasion, I reacted with such violence in my sleep that I woke myself as I scratched deeply into my stomach.  To this day, I still have a scar from the unconscious force I used.

In between attempts at sleep, I desperately called Roman’s voicemail repeatedly that night, just to hear his voice a few more times.  Then with the arrival of morning on November 7^th came the next of my dreaded widow duties - to break the news to Roman’s employer.

The caller ID must have popped up on their end when I made the call, because the woman who picked up responded with a casual, “Hey Roman,” instead of a customary business place greeting.

I hesitated awkwardly before saying, “Hi…uh, actually, I’m Roman’s wife, Sunny…Can I please speak to a manager?”

“Yeah, sure…hang on a second” she said casually.  Clearly, she had no idea why I was calling.

The conversation that ensued with the human resources manager is hazy in my memory but I do recall her crying as she listened.  Further, I remember forcing myself to remain calm so that I could remain focused on the task at hand.  Likewise, I recall consciously being surprised that she seemed so nice, because in the past Roman never had anything positive to say about her.

Although, that said, it is not like every negative impression Roman reported of others held water with me, since he rarely spoke kindly of anyone other than his mom, brother Stu, and sister, Christina.  Even so, I had never spoken to her before, so I had nothing else to form an impression around, other than Roman’s sharp put-downs.

Nonetheless, her shock at the words coming from my mouth reignited my own shock also, so the conversation now resides in my memory as a blur even though it lasted some 20 minutes.  Similarly, my recollection of the call to my own workplace that morning is equally fuzzy.  But not the warm kind of fuzzy…more like the staticy TV screen variety.  Still, I vividly remember breaking down into tears after both conversations, as if I had been stoically holding my breath to swim through a series of tiresome laps, and was now free to rush to the surface gasping for air.

After I got off the phone that morning, I experienced the first of many instances where I felt profoundly saddened for Roman that his lasting legacy would include his often poor treatment of others.  Later I will expand upon my thoughts regarding his legacy, but for now, suffice it to say that Roman did many good things in his life, yet they were humble and were generally not done before an adoring audience, or for the direct benefit of other people.  And unfortunately, as far as legacies go, they depend on an audience of sorts to keep the person’s memory alive.  But in life Roman did not have many of the quality connections needed for that sort of convention in death.  For that reason, it made the job of planning his memorial that much more difficult, isolating, heartbreaking, and exhausting for me.

I wanted to be true to myself with regard to my ambivalence over his infidelity, without bashing him or announcing the juicy details to guests in attendance at the service, who were none the wiser about the state of our marriage.  Likewise, I wanted to honor Roman's life and share the sweet side of him that I had once known privately.  It was a side of him few people saw.  Therefore, I believed with sincerity that Roman deserved to have others walk away from his funeral with a greater understanding of the life he left behind and with a complete picture of his often hidden good natured generosity and kindness.

In the end, I think I delivered what I set out to do, but as I mentioned in another post, doing so put me through the wringer, and came at a high personal cost.  Hence, this mounting mound of mental clutter that I am now working on dusting off, writing about, and clearing out.

   The Beatles - I'm So Tired

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