Ironic

One of life's greatest ironies is that the person that I need/want the most through all of my current life's mess is Adam.   The person that anyone needs through a death of their spouse IS his or her spouse.  He or she is the only one that could possibly give the proper comfort, understanding, and depth of emotional connection (among other things).  It makes me AN.GRY. and SAD.  I can't believe how much he'd be of help to my sanity if he were around and I were undergoing a crisis of similar magnitude.  Yet he's not.  Repeat.  AN.GRY.  Really Ironic.  Alanis Morrissette needs to re-write her song, because this is the ultimate in irony.

I keep wondering--bracing--myself for when the whole "depression" part of the grief cycle will really come to play for me.  I know that it's unavoidable.  I had a couple of well meaning friends ask me if I'm on antidepressants.  I assume the reason they felt ok in asking me something so personal is because I can put on a happy face and fake smiles the majority of any public appearances I make out of my home.  Um, no--for the record--I'm not.  For multiple reasons.  Numero uno being that I don't believe in them generally.  I think they have their place for certain people who are truly chemically imbalanced and are unable to complete their ADLs (activities of daily living), not simply for situational depression.  But (and Adam REALLY REALLY REALLY had this opinion), for the general population, they aren't needed and have become much overused...similar to antibiotics.  I think people turn to drugs often a bit too quickly instead of using normal, everyday ways to relieving pain, anxiety, or sickness.  Adam rolled his eyes at the amount of antidepressant use, or of people saying, "Depression is in my family history, it's in my genes and that's why I'm on antidepressants."  YES.  WE ALL get depressed at various points in life.  REALLY depressed, actually.  But that doesn't mean drugs are the answer for EVERYONE.  Clinical depression is different than everyday frustration-sadness-depression.  There is a differentiation.

I think it's interesting that a little service, fresh air, hot bath, meditation, prayer, scripture study, and laughter is such a cure, such a relief to many experiencing trials.  I think practically anyone could sit and moan about all the various ailments--physical, spiritual, emotional and otherwise--that they endure on a daily basis.  Everyone could.  Everyone has difficult things to deal with, and while it sounds simplistic for me to say, that is just part of life!

This being said, I had a very hard day.  Weekends are truly the worst for me right now, I loathe them.  Ironic that the majority of the world can't wait for Friday night!  It was one of those days where I'm irritated with everyone happy that I came in contact with, for no good reason really.  Frustrated with my children.  Wanting to curl up in a ball and sleep.  Do I think this requires drugs or constituted a diagnosis of "clinical depression?"  No.  Do I rule out my needing rx drugs if my ADLS start to be compromised?  No--I'll take 'em if needbe.  But it is my firm belief that when I look outside myself, when I pray for others, when I focus on the blessings that I receive, it snaps me out of my funk--sometimes it's only a brief snap, but any snap is fine.  I often wonder how I'll deal with "this" depression for this giant trial, over time.  I guess time will tell.

A part of me just wishes I could find someone to fill the hole in my heart that Adam left, the feeling that the cannonball hole in my abdomen could be fixed with some spackle or something.  But I don't know what this means to me.  I have trust issues with men in the first place and I don't know that I will ever really trust someone with my boys.  There are only a handfull of people I trust with my boys (who aren't family) and they're mostly married (rightly so).  I haven't decided if I want to be "that girl" who hangs out with all my married friends forever, if they'll accept me (us) as we are even though we have my husband missing, or if I'm willing to date and start from scratch again....yet be willing to attempt to trust another man as being a father figure to my boys eventually.  It might just be easier to be "that girl" instead.  I don't know.  I wish there were at least one easy button in all this.  Just ONE.  Sadly, this will probably be one of my biggest super-un-easy things to figure out.  Glad that it's my decision though, that no one else gets to make it, and that I don't care whether others screw up their noses about my decision.  All mine.

I just hate all the ironies.  If only Adam were here to discuss all this.  I just wish he could respond in our one-way conversations.  It's very iritating and ironic.  I wish he could tell me what he's thinking, what he wants for us for while he's gone, how he thinks we'd be happiest in the midst of having him absent, what we need to do to obtain that happiness and fulfilled life.  Oh the irony.