grief and "moving on"
Oct. 25th, 2013 02:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunrabI am pretty much through with my annual fall fit of the weepies - the one where every time I think "The leaves are so beautiful" a little voice in my head tacks on, "but Steve's not here." The little voice isn't quite as loud as last year, or as constant and frequent as the first couple years, but it's not gone completely, either, and I don't know that it'll ever go away completely. It doesn't hit me like a ton of bricks so that I double over trying to catch my breath; it just takes a little chunk of time to enjoy things away from me. That's what "getting better" consists of.
I hate the phrase "moving on." It sounds so dismissive. Moving forward is slightly better - it doesn't call up the same image of a college professor looking over his glasses at a student who has just asked something off-topic and wants to argue about it, and the professor says "Moving on..." to change the subject back to where it should be. That kind of dismissive. I don't like the feeling of that one, as though I should be grown up enough or smart enough to not feel grief any more. That's not the way it works. How it works is, one learns to cut off the thoughts that paralyze one, that keep one from doing anything - but I don't stop thinking about him. What does happen is that I learn to do other things as well, and to let thoughts of current activities and current friends come to the fore whenever thoughts of the past threaten to derail me. One doesn't "get over it," one simply learns how not to be overcome by it. Probably some people learn to shut up about it better than I do, but I'm pretty sure those people still feel it, they're just better at catering to the rest of you's wish not to have to think about it any more.
I mean, in a lot of senses, I have "moved on" - not "gotten over it," never "gotten over it," but constructed a new life where I'm not somehow hoping Steve will come back, not still living as if I were half of KellyAndSteve with the other half just missing. Look at the condo - I don't think Steve would have ever chosen a place like this. It's mine, chosen for my current needs, and it Does Not Matter that it's not what Steve would have approved of. I have mementos of Steve scattered around, of course, and there's some of his stuff I'll never get rid of - but I also have furniture I've purchased just for here, and for my needs. And there are still things that I come across that I turn around and sell or donate as soon as I find them. I sold the Thorens turntable the other day - I never did learn how to use it, and was quite happy when Steve bought a newer turntable that an ordinary human could figure out. Sold it to a collector - he really wanted the Rabco tone arm, but didn't mind at all that it came on the Thorens. We had a nice chat about the Washington music scene and all the manufacturers of high-end equipment who have some connection to the Baltimore/Washington area. And we chatted about Dave Bromberg, whose name Steve would not even have recognized, let alone whose music he would have heard. I hadn't even realized I still had the Thorens - I thought the Thorens box was full of other stuff and was quite surprised when I got to it in the stack, opened it, and there was the turntable! No idea whether it was working or not - suspect not, so I sold it for $200, pretty much its value just as random parts; if I were sure it was working and that all the belts were good and that the cartridge in the tone arm was still any good, I would have been able to ask near $1000 for it. Not bad for a 40-year old turntable; it really is a collector's item. I gave the buyer Steve's full name, and the name and number of High Fidelity in Austin, where Steve bought it, in case he wants more information - I'm pretty sure the owner of HF will still recognize Steve's name, and be able to provide him with more info if he needs it - the exact date of purchase, the date of manufacture of that particular serial number, stuff like that.
So, not hanging onto everything, and not doing only things that Steve would have approved of, and not trying to live exactly like we did together. And I have a boyfriend, and he's not exactly like Steve, and most of the time I am good at not even comparing him to Steve. It's a different relationship, and I am not trying to make it exactly the same. He makes me happy, and he cooks meals for me, and he doesn't pick the green peas out of casseroles and push them to one side like a 6 year old, as Steve did, and he has a slight book problem - I have discovered that I need someone with a book problem, because if someone doesn't have slightly too many books for the bookcases they have, then what the heck would we talk about once we've gotten acquainted, and how the heck would he understand my book problem? One guy I went out with a couple times, I picked him up at his house for our second date, and his living room had no bookcases and no books at all, not even one on the coffee table. That was that for that guy. So, L has enough books to make me feel comfortable, and reading the same book and picking it apart is one of our forms of entertainment. And he doesn't play a musical instruments, but hey, the music world needs audiences, too - somebody's gotta sit in those seats out there in the house! Yes, I miss having someone to go to rehearsal with every Tuesday night for a quarter of a century, but holding out for that one thing in a relationship would mean I don't get a lot of other things.
And yeah, there's some ways this can never be the same - for one thing, when I decided I was going to marry Steve, one of my big reasons was that I figured I would still be enjoying his jokes across the dinner table 40 years later, and now I don't have 40 years, so there's no way I can hope to enjoy L's sense of humor 40 years from now. And we both have chronic illnesses and diet restrictions, so we're never going to be able to pig out on an entire pizza followed by an entire 5-scoop, 5-topping ice cream sundae, the way 30-somethings in good health could. I do feel some sadness that this relationship can't offer those moments, and once in a while I need to slap my head to remind me to focus on what it does offer, not what it can't offer, and to remind myself that the reason those things can't happen is due to my being 30+ years older and sicker, not due to some intrinsic way in which L is inferior to Steve. (If you're reading this - you know I want you for who you are, 'Tater!)
So - is that enough "moving on"? Do you think I should be feeling no grief at all anymore, just faint soft memories of the happy times? Bullshit. If everyone else is tired of hearing anything about Steve by now, say so, but don't tell me I shouldn't be thinking of him any more.
I was reading The Book of Woe, about the making of the DSM-5. One of the things they did was remove the "bereavement exclusion" from the definition of depression, so that anyone who acts depressed for more than a couple of weeks due to grief is now considered to have a medical condition that can be and should be fixed. This is pretty much ignoring all of recorded history about how humans handle loss and grieving. And the book - which disapproves strongly of the DSM-5 - includes a quote about that from a doctor and medical anthropologist who lost his wife: "I still feel sadness at times and harbour the sense that a part of me is gone forever... I am still caring for our memories. Is there anything wrong (or pathological) with that?"
I'll be visiting Austin next week. And going to the quilt show in Houston!
I hate the phrase "moving on." It sounds so dismissive. Moving forward is slightly better - it doesn't call up the same image of a college professor looking over his glasses at a student who has just asked something off-topic and wants to argue about it, and the professor says "Moving on..." to change the subject back to where it should be. That kind of dismissive. I don't like the feeling of that one, as though I should be grown up enough or smart enough to not feel grief any more. That's not the way it works. How it works is, one learns to cut off the thoughts that paralyze one, that keep one from doing anything - but I don't stop thinking about him. What does happen is that I learn to do other things as well, and to let thoughts of current activities and current friends come to the fore whenever thoughts of the past threaten to derail me. One doesn't "get over it," one simply learns how not to be overcome by it. Probably some people learn to shut up about it better than I do, but I'm pretty sure those people still feel it, they're just better at catering to the rest of you's wish not to have to think about it any more.
I mean, in a lot of senses, I have "moved on" - not "gotten over it," never "gotten over it," but constructed a new life where I'm not somehow hoping Steve will come back, not still living as if I were half of KellyAndSteve with the other half just missing. Look at the condo - I don't think Steve would have ever chosen a place like this. It's mine, chosen for my current needs, and it Does Not Matter that it's not what Steve would have approved of. I have mementos of Steve scattered around, of course, and there's some of his stuff I'll never get rid of - but I also have furniture I've purchased just for here, and for my needs. And there are still things that I come across that I turn around and sell or donate as soon as I find them. I sold the Thorens turntable the other day - I never did learn how to use it, and was quite happy when Steve bought a newer turntable that an ordinary human could figure out. Sold it to a collector - he really wanted the Rabco tone arm, but didn't mind at all that it came on the Thorens. We had a nice chat about the Washington music scene and all the manufacturers of high-end equipment who have some connection to the Baltimore/Washington area. And we chatted about Dave Bromberg, whose name Steve would not even have recognized, let alone whose music he would have heard. I hadn't even realized I still had the Thorens - I thought the Thorens box was full of other stuff and was quite surprised when I got to it in the stack, opened it, and there was the turntable! No idea whether it was working or not - suspect not, so I sold it for $200, pretty much its value just as random parts; if I were sure it was working and that all the belts were good and that the cartridge in the tone arm was still any good, I would have been able to ask near $1000 for it. Not bad for a 40-year old turntable; it really is a collector's item. I gave the buyer Steve's full name, and the name and number of High Fidelity in Austin, where Steve bought it, in case he wants more information - I'm pretty sure the owner of HF will still recognize Steve's name, and be able to provide him with more info if he needs it - the exact date of purchase, the date of manufacture of that particular serial number, stuff like that.
So, not hanging onto everything, and not doing only things that Steve would have approved of, and not trying to live exactly like we did together. And I have a boyfriend, and he's not exactly like Steve, and most of the time I am good at not even comparing him to Steve. It's a different relationship, and I am not trying to make it exactly the same. He makes me happy, and he cooks meals for me, and he doesn't pick the green peas out of casseroles and push them to one side like a 6 year old, as Steve did, and he has a slight book problem - I have discovered that I need someone with a book problem, because if someone doesn't have slightly too many books for the bookcases they have, then what the heck would we talk about once we've gotten acquainted, and how the heck would he understand my book problem? One guy I went out with a couple times, I picked him up at his house for our second date, and his living room had no bookcases and no books at all, not even one on the coffee table. That was that for that guy. So, L has enough books to make me feel comfortable, and reading the same book and picking it apart is one of our forms of entertainment. And he doesn't play a musical instruments, but hey, the music world needs audiences, too - somebody's gotta sit in those seats out there in the house! Yes, I miss having someone to go to rehearsal with every Tuesday night for a quarter of a century, but holding out for that one thing in a relationship would mean I don't get a lot of other things.
And yeah, there's some ways this can never be the same - for one thing, when I decided I was going to marry Steve, one of my big reasons was that I figured I would still be enjoying his jokes across the dinner table 40 years later, and now I don't have 40 years, so there's no way I can hope to enjoy L's sense of humor 40 years from now. And we both have chronic illnesses and diet restrictions, so we're never going to be able to pig out on an entire pizza followed by an entire 5-scoop, 5-topping ice cream sundae, the way 30-somethings in good health could. I do feel some sadness that this relationship can't offer those moments, and once in a while I need to slap my head to remind me to focus on what it does offer, not what it can't offer, and to remind myself that the reason those things can't happen is due to my being 30+ years older and sicker, not due to some intrinsic way in which L is inferior to Steve. (If you're reading this - you know I want you for who you are, 'Tater!)
So - is that enough "moving on"? Do you think I should be feeling no grief at all anymore, just faint soft memories of the happy times? Bullshit. If everyone else is tired of hearing anything about Steve by now, say so, but don't tell me I shouldn't be thinking of him any more.
I was reading The Book of Woe, about the making of the DSM-5. One of the things they did was remove the "bereavement exclusion" from the definition of depression, so that anyone who acts depressed for more than a couple of weeks due to grief is now considered to have a medical condition that can be and should be fixed. This is pretty much ignoring all of recorded history about how humans handle loss and grieving. And the book - which disapproves strongly of the DSM-5 - includes a quote about that from a doctor and medical anthropologist who lost his wife: "I still feel sadness at times and harbour the sense that a part of me is gone forever... I am still caring for our memories. Is there anything wrong (or pathological) with that?"
I'll be visiting Austin next week. And going to the quilt show in Houston!
