There are going to be some themes that will carry between multiple blog posts. This is one of them.
I’m a different person.
My emotions are heighten. Any given time, any given day. They’re high.
Before, if you measured my emotions on a yard stick, they’d probably be around the foot mark. Toward the middle. My emotions could heighten but I’d still have a good two feet before I was ready to lose it.
It’s not like that anymore.
Especially on harder days.
I cry easily.
Get frustrated easier.
Sometimes I think, “Do they not know what’s going on in my head?”
They don’t.
No one does. And it’s not an expectation I really have.
I try and take more breaths before I react. Try to have more patience than I’m really feeling. Try to keep my crap together until I get to my van.
I don’t love this new part of me. But I’m hoping time will bring more self control.
Rory Ann Moore Foundation 
It is interesting what grief, due to a passing, makes you think and do in attempting to come to grips with the fact that normal will never again be normal.
Throughout my life I never grew face hair. I remember when I was 18 years old I went to my father to ask him to teach me how to shave and he said
“I would have never thought that I would need to teach my married son with a child how to shave”.
I guess I just did things out of order dad. I love you.
As an adult I regularly shaved twice, normally three times a day. My grandkids come by their OCD and ADHD honestly…
A couple of years ago I was working on an IT implementation with EY. It was a global deployment and they had people from various parts of the world and time zones working on the project based on their normal work day in the country in which they lived.
For instance if SQL expertise was required for the deployment they would have a SQL expert from India put in their 8 hours, then that person would leave and someone from Germany would take over, after 8 hours a representative from USA and then in turn someone from Argentina.
This continued for over 48 straight hours. I was the representative from the company I worked for tasked with staying on the implementation until completed.
At the end of the 48+ hours I had the beginnings of a beard, so I thought I am way to tired to shave so I will just see if I can stand having a beard.
It was okay. I think after 40 years Selina liked having a new look husband (and I could compete with her boyfriends this way) so I kept it. I love you Selina.
Selina would remind me to keep it trimmed as it grew out.
I considered shaving it for Rory’s funeral but Selina urged me not to (see reasons above) so I did not shave.
After Thanksgiving I decided not to trim it until I have passed the first of things without Rory; Christmas, New Year, Rory’s Birthday, Easter, Halloween, etc. and after we pass the first year distress, and forced to face the new, year two distress, I would re-examine.
I have no idea why I don’t want to trim my beard, I just feel it somehow helps me remember and respect her memory through that decision. It is stupid. I guess it is my version of a loin cloth and ashes. Those who know me can thank me later for saving you from the loin cloth…
It will never be a beard worthy of ZZ Top, but it helps me continue to realize that things will never again be the same, that I have been forced into a new normal, and there is nothing okay about that.
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I’m going through my own type of grieving process that is entirely different from your own, but very real for me. I can relate to every.single.emotion you’ve mentioned in your posts to this point. I’m usually such a cool cucumber….but everything is different now. My therapist admonishes me to exercise some grace with myself and give myself space to grieve. Take all the space you need.
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Grief is a powerful emotion and there are so many different ways and reasons to grieve. I don’t think I fully understood it until now. So much love to you, Tanya, as you navigate the new you.
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