I sometimes feel as though my blog posts are repetitive and without value.  It seems the same emotions swirl about my head making random, intermittent appearances like random colored socks in a white load  in a laundromat washing machine – now you see it, now you don’t.

The white clothing is representative of my zombie-like mood, going through the motions of life without excitement or color.  Then the ever-swirling waters of grief will suddenly churn up an arbitrary emotion, bringing it temporarily to the forefront to be focused upon before being caught in the current and forced back down and around until the next random moment.

Energy comes in spurts and I’ve learned to get things done while it’s there, because there’s no telling how long it will stay around, or what will drive it away.  Last week, I dragged a box from Ikea up the stairs with the intention of putting together a small storage unit for my son.  I opened the box, realized I needed more tools than just the typically included Allen wrench, walked away and left it there.

Motivation for much of anything seems to have fallen to the wayside. There is much that I do simply out of a sense of obligation, not any real desire.  The beginning of each week, I look toward the following weekend thinking this will be the weekend I actually do something.  It could be thoughts of going to the movies by myself, deep cleaning my kitchen, organizing my garage, or spending an afternoon at the beach.  Yet, each Saturday morning dawns with the realization that it won’t be the day that I actually follow through with much of anything.  It just all seems so pointless, so why bother?

In the midst of all this “blah”, there will be the occasional chance emotion that suddenly pops out to play.  It could be utter sadness that comes to the surface, causing me to break into tears (or near tears) almost anywhere at any time for any reason.  It’s difficult to prepare for that.  Scratch that… there is no way to prepare for that.  Next, it could be anger, which I find making an appearance more often.  I’m angry that I’m left to do life on my own.  I’m angry that my husband broke his promise to never leave me.  I’m angry that on top of all that, I’ve been judged and misjudged so harshly of late and have had to cut certain people from my life as a result.

Or perhaps this time, loneliness pops to the surface, which is perhaps the strangest emotion of all to deal with, because so often I choose to be alone.  I don’t want to see people or talk to people or deal with people – I simply want to wallow in my grief.  Alone.

But alone and lonely aren’t exactly the same thing, are they?  I’ve never been one to stress over being by myself.  As a child, I was on my own quite a bit, usually playing in the woods, and developed a fairly vivid imagination as a result.  A giant rock was my kitchen table, with large leaves as plates and acorns and pine needs as dinner.  A family of fairies (or gnomes or normal-sized people with me as a giant) lived in the rocks behind the small waterfall.  It never occurred to me that being alone was a bad thing, and I still feel that way.  But loneliness doesn’t care – you can be in the middle of a crowded room and lonely.  Loneliness likes to taunt you and make you believe that you aren’t worthy of being loved, that the person who loved you most in the world is now gone, and that the entire emotional situation is permanent.

 

Although I have been trying to focus on the positives wherever possible, heartache just hovers over everything, and even the “highs” aren’t so very high, or long-lived.  Everything still has a shadow cast over it and the colors are muted, the music hushed, and the joy is subdued.  (Can joy be subdued, or is it no longer joy at that point?  These are the thoughts over which I’ve come to obsess.  They mean absolutely nothing, and yet I turn them over and over in my mind trying to make sense of them.)

So for now, I’ll watch my life on spin, wait on those random socks to show up, all while longing for the end of the cycle, hoping that when all is said and done, my emotional laundry is still worth wearing…

© 2016 Many Faces of Cheri G All Rights Reserved