A New Path
Photo by Tegan Mierle on Unsplash
As the shock dissipates and dust starts to settle, I am realizing my personal recovery and healing from this experience is in its early stages as I try to make peace with losing Brynn and our life together.
Since my last post I made over 3 months ago, I have had very little motivation to write anything or exercise much creativity that is part of my being. I still somewhat struggle with lack of focus and tend to walk around a bit without much purpose in any specific direction; although, I have been improving given how busy I am at work that forces me to exercise a different part of my brain. However, the biggest obstacle to writing was that I was not ready to be honest. Honesty about what I was going through with the mental health struggles and depression ever since Brynn’s passing. The day-to-day is hard. There is a constant void in my life that I am not sure how to fill, and throughout the past 4 months, I am not too sure I was looking to fill. I’ve been holding on to our life by not changing anything in the house, including keeping all of Brynn’s possessions still in its place. There was a comfort I felt initially, but I am starting to realize that my behavior is me bargaining with this reality that may result in Brynn coming back home one day. When people ask me about grief, I describe it as a battle between my mind and heart. I can intellectualize everything that had happen, including talking about the nature of my feelings and where I am in life. But I had a hard time preventing myself thinking that we are physically still connected, and either she is going to come back to me from an extended trip, or I am going to go to her on a more permanent one.
Part of the problem is that I’ve developed certain behaviors that are unhealthy, nor allowing me to reconcile this reality while redefining my love for Brynn, which will inevitably allow me to move forward with my life. Suffering has become a choice I’ve been making to keep showing my love toward her in a dysfunctional way. I am realizing the damage I’ve been doing to myself through these behaviors that extends to even feeling guilty if I enjoy a moment. I know Brynn did not want this for me, and I must keep reminding myself that she wanted nothing but seeing me happy. Because what she loved was my zest for life, playfulness and curiosity about the world. How do I rediscover the very foundation of who I am? How do I prevent the chemical changes that your brain goes through in an extended depressive state, while also avoiding the slippery slope that’s anti-depressants? These topics are not fun to disclose in a blog, but I have been working through these complicated emotions that come with grief. Recently I asked one of Brynn’s close friend if she had ever communicated how she was feeling about her life and battle with cancer that she was not disclosing to me. She said the only thing Brynn told her was that she worried about what would happen to me if she did not make it. I don’t want to disappoint her by validating those concerns.
One of the hardest parts of my recovery process is no longer being in harmony, not just with my age group as people are getting married, having children and celebrating life, but also with myself. I’ve never really experienced chronic depression or anxiety throughout my not so young life outside of this experience. I’ve also never been a person with a dogmatic view or goal about the destination of the path I was on as I believed in being open to change in direction if I came across a junction that looked worth taking. But I’ve always been aware and harmonized to my immediate steps as I walked on the path regardless the road being a smooth or bumpy one. Brynn and I had also reached a harmony with each other through our collective hopes, dreams and goals, but also with our day-to-day lives. Marriage, as I’m discovering, is about the unique details of your life together. What I remember and long for are not the big moments such as our wedding, a particular celebration or a vacation, but the routine you create with your loved one; the inside jokes; the playfulness; negotiations, and behavioral patterns that annoys you to no end, but you come to end up loving and missing the most.
Brynn used to yell at me for bunching up the chord of her hair dryer after use – yes, I dry my hair. She would tell me that it was $250, which I would yell back asking why she spent $250 on a hair dryer?!? We would laugh at this ridiculous exchange that would happen frequently. These experiences become the very fabric of a relationship that one does not truly appreciate until it’s gone. They are also the memories that make me skip a beat as I am trying to walk down the path with no clear vision of direction. The adjustment I need to do to reorient my life to this reality is not mentally easy, nor emotionally something that perhaps I was ready to do given the commitment I had to her recovery and us as a unit.
I did not just lose Brynn, but also a big part of where I wanted to take our life together on the path we were on. I am realizing that I've been dogmatically going down that same path, but now slowly accepting that I am going to have to eventually take one of the junctions that come along the way to a new one, discover new things, experiences and set new goals. But more so, re-harmonize myself as a continue down my path.
-Troy