As you may or may not know, my brother passed away 2 months ago after a brief, intense battle with melanoma. I have posted here before about my anxiety, depression, and grief. The people on this site have been extraordinarily kind and understanding– a big ((HUG)) to all of you! I know that my personal journey isn't over– the void in my life and the hole in my heart will last forever. But I can look back now and see some ways in which I have grown and matured in the last year. I have come to understand some things I didn't understand before. For example…
As you may or may not know, my brother passed away 2 months ago after a brief, intense battle with melanoma. I have posted here before about my anxiety, depression, and grief. The people on this site have been extraordinarily kind and understanding– a big ((HUG)) to all of you! I know that my personal journey isn't over– the void in my life and the hole in my heart will last forever. But I can look back now and see some ways in which I have grown and matured in the last year. I have come to understand some things I didn't understand before. For example…
I looked around my home office the other day and realized that it looks like somebody exploded a bomb in it. Then I looked around at the rest of the house and realized that all the other rooms were almost as bad. "Oh my!" I thought, "How could I let things get this way?!!" Then, like a flashbulb going off, I suddenly realized that I am finally coming out of my stress/grief fog. My house didn't suddenly get messy– it has been building up for months. But I have been so stressed and so grief-stricken that I either didn't notice or didn't care. Why bother noticing something that I don't have the energy or the desire to fix?
Over the last 2 weeks I have found myself getting back to normal. I'm taking fewer naps. Doing less gardening and more income-producing freelancing. I'm getting dressed in the morning and actually looking FORWARD to getting to work! I'm scrubbing toilets and washing floors rather than listening to talking books and playing computer games all day.
It's very disconcerting to realize now in hindsight how very bad off I was emotionally. Or maybe I wasn't really "bad off". Maybe I just had to rearrange my priorities for the last 10 months and now my priorities are getting back to normal. At any rate, I am feeling much better and feeling good about getting some important things done. I think I'm going to be OK on my own for now.
And here, all my faithful companions and supporters, have one more big ((HUG)) from me!! As fellow melanoma sufferer Peter "The Ogler" Ogle said, "Living is hard, but life is good. We are all blessed to be a part of God’s great creation."
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