Grief Toasters and Organizational Clutter

    Nearly ten months before I lost my husband unexpectedly, I lost my mom unexpectedly. I have no idea how I will truly recover from either loss. I am learning you don't exactly *recover* from losing some of the most important people in your life, but instead you just sort of get better at carrying the good memories and the sad feelings with you. Always. 

    Losing my mom was devastating and caught us completely off guard. We knew she had been sick. She'd had a medical emergency months before which resulted in needing multiple blood transfusions. They told her she had a fatty liver. They even charted that they told her she had a fatty liver. They also charted that she, in fact, had advanced cirrhosis of the liver. Nothing about her lifestyle would have ever caused anyone to come to that conclusion. We were informed of her actual condition hours before she died, seven months after they had diagnosed it themselves. We knew she was sick. We kept trying to get her into the doctor, but they kept rescheduling her appointments or doing them via video call. 

    There is a LOT more to that story, but I'm just going to sum it up with this clip:

I'm convinced that IS their technical name.

    So, we finally get her in to see a doctor, the doctor takes one look at her and sends her to the ER. They run a bunch of tests and decide to keep her overnight. We are called the next morning and are informed of her actual condition. And they told us as if we should have already known. And then she is dead by that evening. Just. Like. That. I need to get to my point. I'm starting to feel agitated again. 

    SO...I remember leaving the hospital with David. I remember having to stop at some shitty little gas station mini mart that was still open to try to buy something that my youngest needed. But I don't remember if I slept that night. Or how I slept that night. I was in complete shock. I must have slept at some point, because I remember waking up that next morning and, a few minutes later, remembering that my mom was dead. I felt like I was suddenly bowled over by this wave of confusion, disbelief, and shock with no sense of control or even an understanding of which way was up. David was next to me and the first thing I said to him that morning was, "I need to buy a new toaster." I don't remember exactly why I was so concerned about a toaster at that moment. Sure, our toaster was cheap and old. It seemed to have a direct line of communication with our smoke detector no matter how well we cleaned it. I had probably been bitching about that thing for months already. My best guess is that, with all the things I was feeling, all the control I did not feel like I had, I knew a toaster was something that I could control. While I was faced with a lot of terrible things, I didn't have to live with a shitty toaster anymore. 

    I finally ended up ordering a toaster on Amazon. It had a giant window in it so you could see the bread change color as it toasted. That seemed AMAZING to me. I was excited to get to watch my toast get toasted in real time. I think that excitement lasted for approximately two pieces of toast. And while it's still a pretty good toaster after nearly two years, it takes up way too much counter space and I still think of losing my mom when I look at it. Methinks it might be time to replace my grief toaster. 

    Since I lost David a little over 13 months ago, I have learned a lot about "widow's brain" and some of my temporary limitations. A substantial amount of fog has already lifted and I am already so much better than I was just six months ago. In what I can only assume is an attempt to straighten things out in my head and my life, I have started to buy storage bins and baskets in what I consider to be unreasonable amounts. I mean, it's really only unreasonable to me because I have not been able to use most of them yet. I have plans though. Big plans. I just have to be able to remember them. I should probably also admit that I have just purchased my third planner for this year. Planners can be very helpful in helping keep things straight, but aren't quite so effective if you forget they exist and fail to open them. Ask me how I know that. 

    More and more each day, I am learning that getting one's shit together after losing a spouse is a marathon, not a sprint. Actually, it's more like running a series of marathons with one shoe missing and no clear parameters.

Am I still going the right way? Am I even in the race anymore? Why does everything hurt? And where did all these plastic baskets come from?

Change of Plans

    I received a planner as a gift from David this past Christmas. It was actually one of the items on my wish list. After 20 years of marriage, we were finally learning how to buy gifts for each other without beating ourselves up about it. The holidays are stressful enough, amiright?

    The day after Christmas, I stayed up late into the night filling out an entire years' worth of things including softball tournaments, birthdays, appointments, etc. This particular planner even has a place for weekly, monthly, and quarterly goals, time management, gratitude, mind maps, etc. It basically had all the bells and whistles that could appease the overwhelmed neurodivergent hot mess that typically am, at least for awhile anyway. I was going to start my year off RIGHT. 2023 was going to be the year I completed my master's degree and began working, as well as the start of the senior year of high school for our youngest daughter. I knew I needed to be more proactive and organized if I didn't want to end up feeling like I was drowning in the details. 

    Four days after Christmas, David passed away unexpectedly and the world just sort of stopped. Time was suddenly a social construct I couldn't care less about. The planner was in my purse, ready to help me navigate the new year, but I couldn't even bring myself to look at it. In fact, that planner's very existence made me angry. Three days after I filled that planner out with all the hope and excitement for the year to come, none of it seemed to matter anymore. The person who filled out that planner no longer existed and there was no way in the world I felt like I could relate to her. That woman seriously had no clue. 

    For months, that freaking planner has been sitting on a little side table in my dining room practically taunting me by reminding me of all I've lost. All the plans that will never be.

    In that time, I managed to finish my research project and complete my degree. That was brutal. Forcing myself to focus on something that intense while grieving only made me more scatter-brained and more easily frustrated, with brain fog that was sometimes so thick I couldn't even make a grocery list. Have you ever tried to teach a toddler long-division? That has to be what it was like for my professor to support me through all that. The Zoom calls ended up being more like therapy sessions than anything. 

    And there sat that planner, where I could always see it but barely stand to. 

    I filled out piles of paperwork (some with help, especially on the days were I could barely write my own name and birth date without making a mistake), and I started to accept that I could take charge of my life and what it will look like moving forward. 

    But that damn planner remained untouched.

    I then turned around and bought myself another planner, but this one was for one day at a time. That seemed to be more realistic for my foggy, salty, widow's brain as it was. This one even helped me track my meals and water consumption! (And fitness and errands and gratitude..... but let's not get too carried away, K?) 

        A few weeks ago, with more than half of the calendar year behind me, I finally opened up the damn planner and decided to try to use it again. A lot has happened...and not happened...in those months that I have tried to pretend they didn't exist, that the damn planner itself didn't exist. I guess I am coming to terms with the fact that some birthdays, anniversaries, and other plans will not have the same meaning or ever bring the same joy that they once had. And while it will never be *okay*, it will always be. I can't change that. And if I begin to utilize these planners effectively, they can help me take control of all the parts of my life I still have left. 

    Maybe it's time for me to go back to basics and give myself little congratulatory pats on the back in the form of brightly colored stickers and writing down the things I do accomplish. Some days those little wins might look like making phone calls I have been dreading or brushing my teeth and putting on real pants. Other days, getting out of bed requires so much effort that a parade should probably be thrown in my honor. (No, don't do that. I actually despise parades. Sitting on a curb or on a fold chair, watching people walk or ride by? I don't get it.) My capabilities and attention span are about as consistent as Oklahoma weather, but ya gotta start somewhere, right? 

    Plans can change, people can die, and life as we know it can feel like it completely implodes. But I'm still here. Life, for the most part, still feels very much like an abandoned beach in January.... foggy, salty, and empty. But I feel like some of the fog has lifted a little and I need to begin to try to look around at the wreckage and see what I have left to work with. I may not have a lot of days where I feel accomplished, be it in my career (that has yet to begin) or personal hygiene. But I'll be damned if I don't give myself some credit when I do. 

    Not to brag, but I plan on brushing my teeth later...