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I am kind of relieved to hear that others have lost their concentration, too; I can't seem to finish any projects,and cut out dresses for my granddaughters and the pieces are in plastic bags.
Note to self: sew them because the girls WILL outgrow them.
I moved to Florida. Home of the big, big yellow sun. I created a pattern to meld sleeves and a full back to my bathing suit pattern because I am worried about burning in those places I can't reach w/ suntan lotion.
But I haven't even tried to figure out what box the serger is in. I have lost faith in myself that I can accomplish anything.
We could start a sewing thread w/ weekly updates and pictures and motivate each other.
Kathryn is right. We have to process this loss. And for me because I was so alone… and so intent on clearing things out, that I found out the clear out actually helped me process. And when it got too much, all of a sudden I had a burning need to do something weird. I spent a week going through recipes and cutting them down and then trying them in order to make a single biscuit. If that isn’t insanity, well then how about one serving of chocolate pudding.
To me that’s grief brain — grief brain’s saying you need to take a break, this will keep you busy. Who in their right mind needs to make A biscuit? Single serve of pudding is actually quite handy.
I didn’t have what it took to allow me to make a quilt. I signed up for a block of the month and I got the kits, and I cut one out and I put it away and it’s all in a container ready for me to make when I’m ready. I just can’t handle that yet. But I am making a crochet baby blanket for my neighbor. I could literally pick that up work on it for 15 minutes and put it down no concentration whatsoever. Works.
Some craft things work for me, some don’t right now. I’ll get back to it.
You hit the nail on the head!
What is odd to me is that for whatever reason, especially at the first, I was unable to concentrate. I mean, I couldn't read, couldn't watch a movie, nothing. I couldn't keep my mind on anything for that long.
I remember decorating the house for Christmas three months after my husband died, and I know that stuff didn't look good - and I didn't care. It was like I just sort of threw Christmas stuff around. I hated it, hated Christmas, hated my life, hated living in that house, but I also knew that my husband loved when I decorated for Christmas so there was that. And life goes on.
I mean, now I'm better and can actually read or watch a movie but that weirdness lingered for several months. I'm also sleeping better, THANK GOD. That was really driving me batty.
My husband, until the pandemic, worked long back-breaking hours. Then he was furloughed. He was home! He was safe and well. He was all mine 24/7! I got to get up every day and say, "This is the best pandemic ever!" We talked, we did the deed like teenagers, he agreed to retire. WE MADE PLANS. We were happy, excited. Our whole lives were ahead of us. He started to not feel well in December. He was gone in February.
I don't think that I have gotten to that 'acceptance' part, yet. While my brain knows that he is gone, the rest of me needs him to walk in the front door.
I probably need to get over the driving thing. I always had a driver, who took me to job sites. At home my husband drove
(the check engine light is for people who have never pumped their own gas and don't know how to put on gas caps. OMG, I thought I broke the car!).
Hearing your stories on here has been the most help so far.
I am trying to muddle through life but it seems like really long odds on chance of survival with the better half of me gone.
You are not half a person. You are a whole person. I just have to say that and hope you believe it. "Your better half" is not gone. Your husband, a whole other person, is gone. So that leaves you alone, yes, but it leaves a whole other person alone. So what we need to do is reforge our lives, rebuild our independent lives.
Yes. I'd like to see your swimsuit reconstruction ideas. There is a sewing thread in the Hobbies and Recreation section.
When I am handed a plate of big grief I've learned that it is helpful to remember what purpose grief has in my life. And for me it is to clean out the wound of loss so that it can heal well.
It always makes me feel so helpless, hopeless and lost. Even though I'm no stranger to the process each new grief again feels like uncharted territory. So one of the things I do to give myself a greater sense of control and ownership is to consciously put it on my list of things to do. I am choosing to do it now so I don't have to do it later.
It's a little mind trick that makes me feel more goal-oriented on those days when I feel it will never end or don't know where it is leading. "It's my responsibility to myself and my loved ones to heal." Like that.
I don't know how well that works for others and I also know it depends on what stage of grief I am experiencing on any particular day how well it works for me. But in general that approach to grief gives me more positivity.
A girlfriend who lost her husband last fall called last week. She was all dressed to go to a baby shower down the street, present in hand, opened the door and the first tear fell. She said she closed the door set the present on the table and told herself that no, it was time to do some grief work right now.
It goes without saying that we can get caught in an unhealthy cycle of mindless grieving that is habit-forming but I complimented her for being in touch with her feelings and willing to set daily life aside to do the important work of cleaning out the residue of loss when it comes to visit.
That "weirdness." For me it's like there's a parallel world right next to this one. When my mother died I slipped through the wall into that other world.
Everything looked the same, the same people were there but there was this strange barrier between them, living their unchanged lives, and me, living a life in which suddenly everything was colored by loss.
I was sitting on a bench outside the care center and a visiting relative was railing on about his complaints and I was thinking, "Is that all you've got?" What a wide gulf had opened between me and the world at that moment.
And to the acceptance part - and really needing your husband to walk through that door - I get that. Did moving help? It helped me because my husband had never walked through that particular door. And I was able to put most of the things I'd saved from his life (a few clothes and shoes, his watches, his computer, the sign in book from the funeral, that sort of thing) in the closet in the guest room, so I can (and do) go in there if I want the reminders of him but I am not surrounded by them.
Also, I sold nearly all his tools and his big tool chest. I didn't take anything to this house that I am not going to use one day. So that was a lot of "his" things. Including the hot tub. That was something he loved, but I just went along with. I sold it to a good friend of his so it's in a good place that he'd like.
Meanwhile my good friend whose husband died a week after mine, is still living in the house they shared, and she will probably stay there. She and I are doing well, I believe, though our grief journeys have been different. Anyway, she only recently began accepting that her husband wasn't coming home. For whatever reason, I didn't have a big issue with the acceptance of that reality but she did, and I do believe that her journey has resulted in her doing as well as I am (and I do feel like I'm doing pretty good) though it has been a different journey. Anyway, I took my wedding band off about four months after my husband died. She kept hers on till a couple of weeks ago. I think we have to get to the point where we feel that we're no longer married. She felt married, I didn't, after four months or so. I was over at her house the other day and noticed that she has a lot of photos of her with her husband framed and all over the house. I don't - BUT I do have a screen on my fridge and I have a lot of photos of him, along with other family members, vacations, etc. uploaded and they all rotate out. And I have some framed pictures in my closet where I get dressed but that's it - the others are in that guest room closet or otherwise packed away. But my friend and I are both doing well, I believe. For whatever reason, she still derives a lot of comfort from being reminded of him and of their marriage. I pretty quickly realized that I do NOT derive comfort from those reminders - they make me sad. So different bites for different likes.
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