Work

A month ago, I was in the middle of a crisis. Not the kind that comes on suddenly, but the kind that results from a steady building of pressures, especially when many of them are out of a person's control.

I had work deadlines looming. I was dealing with several issues related to my mom. I was preparing for a family visit. I was trying to arrange to dispose of my second vehicle before a deadline came due. I was trying to figure out who to call about several issues that need taking care of around the house. I was trying to make financial and legal decisions stemming from my husband's death. 

I was becoming so overwhelmed by the things that had to be done that I became incapable of doing anything unless it was an actual crisis. It felt like my brain had frozen up -- like a computer hung up because too many programs are running for its capacity.

It was a scary feeling, one I've never had before, even during times of high stress. Even though I recognized what was happening, I couldn't find a way to change it.

The thing that finally saved me was that I had questions about my work which needed answered, and that meant I had to go into the office instead of working from home. Once I was there, I was able to concentrate just on working, and it gave my brain a rest from the loop it had been in.

I realized I felt more relaxed than I had been for weeks. I had re-discovered the power of work to get me out of my own head. I had discovered this right after my husband's death but it had slipped my mind again when my workload became less pressing.

The strange thing about this is that I would never have predicted it would happen to me. Work was always something that seemed like an additional stress, not a way to reduce stress.

And now I think I understand better my husband's laser-like focus on working throughout his illness, right up until a few weeks before he died. 

Work was a way for him to feel like his life still had some normalcy in it, instead of being completely consumed by illness, medication, and appointments.

Sometimes I felt shut out by his dedication to work. It felt like we had such limited time that we should be spending some of it together -- doing what, I don't know. There was nothing left unsaid, no visiting that we could do as it was during the shutdown portion of the pandemic, and he was not a person inclined to dramatic gestures. He wanted life to be the same as it had always been, and I understood that and tried to help make it happen, even as I realized more and more that life as we knew it was coming to an end.

It comforts me a little to realize that work is now doing for me what it did for him then. It feels like a new link to him and to our lives together, when so many connections have been broken. And I think he would approve.

Life goes on. 

A fawn sleeping in our back yard last summer.