Ebb and Flow

I finding out that grief is a constant state of Ebb and Flow of various feelings and mental health. My feelings swing from happy to sad, to feeling a-part-of to loneliness. My mental health swings from reality to denial, from illusion to dis-illusion. There seems to be no predictable pattern to it to anticipate what will come next.

My main concern is not to create wreckage of the present by hurting others around me. I find myself looking for Carol in other people to the point of projection everything I want onto that person. I am grateful I can find the ability to dis-illusion myself enough to see what I am doing and try to prevent bad things from happening.

Denial is also very powerful. It wasn't until last Friday that I was able to take the book she was reading at night and her reading glasses off the night stand by the bed and put them in the dresser. I would look at them everyday. Somehow I kept thinking she is still coming home. She will want to finish her book and will need her glasses. I look around the house and I'm surrounded by things like that. I have kept her purse by the door where she always kept it because I want her to be able to find it. Her clothes are still in the closet and dressers. The shampoo and conditioner is still in the shower. Her medication is still in the frig. I could add to the list ad infinitum.

I finally put her purse in the office under her desk. That's progress right?