Spinning Out of Reality

I fell out of reality when Gage died. Time was meaningless. Things that used to be so important dropped from my concern. Worries about my big work projects flew from my mind like leaves in the wind. I forgot to eat and constant nausea settled in. I hovered in a state of exhaustion, never fully awake and yet never really rested. Basic self-care alluded me, making my loved ones kindly remind me when to eat, shower or change my clothes.

Before my husband died, I hummed along at a fast clip, just like everyone else around me. The shared realty of normal life held me tight. The world I lived in didn’t really have time for loss. The concept that such a massive change could knock someone’s world off its axis was incomprehensible. Case in point, my company offered me the standard bereavement time of three days to address the sudden death of my husband.

Even when I started handling daily tasks, jumping back into work, and trying to raise our kids, I never could slip back into that normal flow in which nearly everyone around me could operate. It was as if I stood still as other rushed around me, unaware of the darkness and hurt I carried. Unaware of the effort it took me to keep up with some of the basic things I used to do without thinking before he died. 

My whole purpose in life was shaken. The significance of loss took a front seat in nearly everything I did. I begun to understand that my world permanently shifted away from everyone else. I was out of sync with the people spinning around me.

This led me to a lonely place outside of the world where everyone kept living. How was I going to navigate the unknown and unplanned without him and with the fear that came from knowing the worst could happen because it did? What mattered most to me changed. There were not many in my life who could see that shift. When I was strong enough, I began to reset the basic truths that led me. This further cemented my trajectory away from my old reality, even as I fought to hold on to it.

It took me a long time and a lot of work to realize this new path and rhythm was beautiful and rich mostly because of what I learned through loss when my old reality broke. I came to accept that I now lived in an undercurrent that many have never seen. However, over time I’ve met others who live in this flow too. Everyone needs connection, especially when you’ve lost important people in your life. Especially when you’ve lost your person.

I finally know that I am not meant to jump back onto the world I lived in when Gage was alive. I have shifted so far from that reality, that I can’t force myself to fit there anymore. I’m meant to build a new one that has room for all the things I can see now. All of us have to navigate the unknown because the future is not a solid state. We project our reality based on our truths and understandings even as new lessons come to us and constantly shift our perspective. Lessons from Gage’s death are still coming to me. Knowing that I will never return to my old way of life plays the most significant role in the way I live now.

Spinning out of reality actually showed me possibilities that I never new existed. Somewhere, I know that Gage is smiling because I won’t try to return to a place that was holding me back.