Health by Heidi

  "I'm so tired of being sad," I said dully, noticing that I was crying but not having the energy to care.  I was sitting on the couch in my therapist's office, staring at the wall. "What are you sad about?  What feels the biggest right now?" my therapist asked softly. I continued to stare at the wall.  Talking felt like too much.  I felt empty.  I sat quietly for a few moments, working up the strength to find words.  Finally, I took a breath.  "I feel sad about my mom.  I don't know why it's coming up so much now, but there it is," I said flatly.  I shifted my gaze to my therapist.  "I don't have the energy to grieve another thing." My therapist nodded.  "Our brains can only process so much.  You've been in triage for months, dealing with the most important thing at the time..."  She continued to talk, but my mind drifted. I thought back to June of last year, when we got the diagnosis that my mom had dementia.  ...

  I just broke down crying in the car on the way to Hamilton.  That hasn't happened in a while. I pushed "Send" and my text whooshed off to Denise and Lisa.  They both replied almost immediately with a similar version of the same question:  Why?  Did something happen or is it just everything? Life.  Life happened.  Shannon and I were just in Oregon for two weeks.  We attended his son, Clayton's, celebration of life and started tearing down the crushed remains of the house where Clayton had lived.  Shannon had lived with both of his sons in that same house for several years.  Lots of memories covered in soggy insulation, moldy drywall, and tree branches.  A house full of mementos now smashed to bits and loaded into 40-yard dumpsters.   We came home to Montana just in time for Shannon to fly back to Oregon for work.  There was no time to decompress, to settle, to process.  We jumped right back into life and charged...