Keys, curtains and a screwdriver

Yesterday, posts about grief started popping up on my Facebook page again. I didn’t look at most of them but one caught my eye, as it felt especially relevant to my week. It said: “Having to emotionally prepare for every day and task is perfectly normal in grief. The lived reality of grief is full of so many reminders and grief land mines that the non-grieving wouldn't even think of. The effort to simply join the world is Herculean and interacting with humans is often exhausting. Everyday tasks and decisions are overwhelming. Every last little thing is emotionally loaded and taxing and requires more energy than you have.” (Refuge in Grief, Megan Devine.) I actually found this very reassuring, as it seems to sum my life up at the moment. 

I’ll let Jester (the personification of my grief) tell the story…

Well, the other morning, I had a bit of fun. As you know, my author is having some work done in the house, so I let her start her day at 5.30am (I’m kind like that). She made the most of it though and by 8.30am she had taken down all the curtains at the front of the house, cleaned all the curtain hooks and rails, and had the curtains bundled up ready for the dry cleaner. The builders arrived and she unlocked the back gate for them. One of them then wanted to look into the loft, so she went to the garage to get out her step ladder. This is where I started to poke my oar in a little, she couldn’t find the keys! She knew she’d used them to unlock the back gate, but could she find them!  She checked her pockets and looked in all the usual places, retracing her steps several times. She was starting to get desperate, so she even looked around the garden to see if she had dropped them outside. Normally, this kind of thing wouldn’t bother her too much, but I let the panic set in, “what if I can’t find them, the back door is unlocked, the back gate is unlocked, I can’t get into the garage, this wouldn’t have happened if B was here, this is ridiculous, don’t panic, they must be somewhere, etc., etc…”. That’s what I do. I can stop her thinking rationally and make her very stressed in situations that previously she would have coped with. I started to rise up inside her, and she only just fought the tears away. Anyway, after about thirty minutes or so, she found them, in her back pocket! Of course, she didn’t look there as she “never puts anything in there”. She was very relieved but still feeling upset so, sensibly, she decided to take the curtains to the dry cleaners. She’s learnt that doing simple activities like this can help put a damper on me. I can be cruel sometimes, though! The dry cleaner needed to know her name for the receipt, but had trouble spelling her surname. After several false starts, he turned the screen around to face her so she could see where he had gone wrong and spell it for him again. Well, she did this, and there it was, B’s name popped up on the computer screen! So, I managed to push myself up another notch. I must say, she held herself together, but she wasn’t prepared for me in that situation and it did put her off kilter for the rest of the morning. That’s what I am like. I can play with her in the most innocuous, and unexpected, situations.  Suddenly, I just hit her in the stomach again and I can make her whole morning just change.

And repeat…

The following morning, my author was taking down net curtains and rails. She was doing quite well, having taken down the majority of the rails when she mislaid the screwdriver. After I had let her have a look around, retracing her steps several times, these are the thoughts I planted in her brain “That’s it, I’m definitely going mad! What have you done with it, there aren’t that many places it can be. You can’t be doing this again, what’s the matter with you? You had it a few minutes ago. You are truly going mad… but at least I know that’s a normal part of grief. Okay, don’t panic, it’s only a screw driver, but it’s B’s screwdriver, I can’t lose it. This is ridiculous, it’s just a screwdriver. B wouldn’t have done this… don’t be stupid, of course he would have, he mislaid things far more than me. Where is it though, it must be here. No, it’s not in my back pocket… I am going mad. Calm down, it’s only a b….y screwdriver, etc., etc.” That’s another thing, she didn’t use to swear very much, but I can make her do it now. I guess I just push her to her limits, but she gets there much more quickly than she used to. Just to say, once she’d calmed down, she found it on the arm of the settee, but I can overwhelm her quite quickly. Clearly, I affect her senses as well, tee hee! She did manage a smile afterwards.

Just to take a step back, I just have to explain something here. My author had decided that the net curtains weren’t going to go back up. She had tried to persuade B previously that perhaps they didn’t need them, but he had always wanted them. Well, I just had to whisper her to her, “perhaps you should keep them. B wanted them, he liked them, perhaps he was right…” That’s why she needed to unscrew the fittings, in case she decides to put them up again. So, the nets went into the washing machine. It doesn’t take much…

My skill is that I am able to touch everything. She was mindlessly washing the curtain hooks, so I decided to just flip her back to the Committal Service at the crematorium. I don’t need a reason. I’ve done that a few times recently, just sent her back to a particular point in time but one that isn’t easy to remember. It’s mystifying her as to why I’m doing this, as she thought she was moving forwards not backwards, but I’m just letting her know that I’m not done with her yet and that she’s got a way to go until carrying me gets somewhat easier.