Still fragile

I'm no longer obsessing about what was happening on each day a year ago, but the relief I felt on Thursday didn't translate to any real peace of mind, either. I'm intensely sad. Not all the time — I laugh, read, do my pushups, and putter in the garden as if nothing is wrong. But I'm closer to tears than I appear, and the moment I grow hungry or am uncertain about a comment or intended inflection or any number of other things, I collapse.

I love this photo. Something about the angle, with the piano,
makes it seem arty instead of just careless. And it includes
so many aspects of Sandy: music, gardening (seeds in the box),
cooking (cookbook under the box), books in the background.

It's a feeling of compounded failure. I failed to heal Sandy, and I've failed to get her back. Yeah, I know, the first was unlikely and the latter impossible. But tell that to my subconscious, which has high expectations, driven by the need to have her with me.

I'm finding the most comfort in small competencies. This is not the time to take on new challenges or navigate nuances, clearly. I do best when I identify discrete tasks — buy groceries, take the compost out, return books to the library, charge the iPad — and successfully perform them. I'd hoped I might be more confident once we'd passed the anniversary of Sandy's death, but no switch was flipped. The burden changed but wasn't lifted.

So this weekend, I'm working on bite-sized tasks, and still giving myself plenty of room to grieve. This week, I need to get back to work, but I'm fortunate enough to structure it myself, so I can focus on the parts of the book that I'm most certain about and leave challenging bits that I need to puzzle out for days that I'm stronger.

Grief goes on and on and on. A few minutes ago, I read an article that advised parents on how to help kids overcome homesickness at camp or other times they're away from home. One of the last quotes in the article was "We never stop missing the people we love." He got that right.