More thoughts

Honestly, I don’t know where this blog is leading me. I do realize that I am not posting very much lately. There is a reason for this though. I try to live. I simply try to live, occupy every single minute of my day in a halfway successful attempt to stop these reoccurring thoughts from appearing again and again. This keeps me from thinking my own thoughts. I still think of Alexander, of course. My sister visited me last week in this country and we went for a hike by the sea. It was not the best day for a hike, in fact, we returned in a heavy drenching rain only to realize we had to wait to be picked up for another three hours and there was no café or the like to be found in that remote place. Anyway, especially in moments like these, plus when there is a close relative of mine, we talk about Alexander, remember and miss him together. It is hard to do since our initial goal was to merely enjoy the beauty of nature - which is even or especially visible when overcast. However, I also do realize the gift I have. It is not self-evident to have a family that is able to talk about how Alexander’s death has affected us. I am lucky to have the possibility of sharing my thoughts and feelings whenever I feel the need to do so. On the other hand, it gives me comfort to be there for them whenever they need me. I am thankful for having a great family.
But I am rambling. As you notice, whenever I give myself the time to think, to remember, to feel the pain it comes pouring out. For most of the day, however, I press it inside. And it works for me. Right now. So I am unable to say where this is all leading me. But I guess this is the story of grief.

Concerns about a friend

Today is our first wedding anniversary. I understand that this is slightly off topic but I still had to mention it. It is a very depressing day since I am spending it all by myself here abroad with the volcano ash cloud over Europe preventing Luke from coming to see me. Oh well, it gives me time to write. My only fear is that if this damn cloud continues to hang in there it might prevent me from traveling to see my family for Alexander’s anniversary in two weeks. Let’s pray it does not since I cannot imagine spending that day all by myself. Oh, I don’t dare to think about this prospect too much.
Something else has occupied my thoughts these last few days as well though. A very dear friend of mine told me on Thursday that she is having relationship issues. Without getting into detail, she is torn between two guys. Well, that would not trouble me too much as such. But this would be all too simple for her, too. She feels really attracted to one of them, him being her ex-boyfriend whom she was together with for lets say two years. He broke up with her last summer, it took her a long time to get over him but she managed. Now they are talking again and she is again seriously interested, him as well. So where is the problem? He treated her pretty badly during their relationship, which I mean in an emotional kind of way. I do believe he is bipolar. She feels she cannot trust him, cannot be sure he will be there for her when she needs him. She told me that over several phone calls they have had in the past few weeks he apologized for bad emotional abuses, arguments where he did do something wrong. This is new since he always claimed to have forgotten everything about the entire argument before. The reason for me getting so detailed on this here is that it reminds me so much of arguments with Alexander. It was so hard for me to make him see how deeply he had hurt me or someone else, and then, half a year later, seemingly out of the blue, he might apologize for that very event. There were many more similarities between the two guys. Honestly, I am scared for my friend. The most – from her point of view – touching thing he said is ‘What is the point of living if I know that I cannot change?’ For very obvious reasons a statement like that has all sorts of alarm bells ringing inside me. Plus, from a negative point of view, I do think that only with an enormous amount of luck you can really cure bipolar depression, not to say that I don’t think that you can completely. So I am worried about her. While I can say that for him it would be great to have her by his side, I hope that she will choose a life where she can rely on her partner more. Obviously, I am getting into advisory terrain here that I do not really like and I would never tell her my opinion as I have written it here. But these are my – in this respect very damaged and biased – thoughts. Try to stay away from this illness, if you have the option.

Difficulties in communication

Usually I am pretty close to my mum. Especially now, after Alexander’s death, our feelings were similar and we could easily talk about them. It felt good to share. Not today. When we talked today it was really difficult for me. Lately, I feel like I need to be there for my mum who seems to have the same feelings of guilt over and over again. I do have them too, don’t get me wrong, but to a different degree. I feel so much guilt in very many aspects regarding Alexander. But with her it is different. She seems to feel nothing but guilt and grief, and it seems like her thoughts are so extremely focusing on Alexander that it is difficult for me to tell her what is going on with my life apart from my own grief about him. When I do tell her she listens but it seems as if she is so preoccupied with her own feelings that she does still listen and feel with me but not as much as she did before. She is too focused on Alexander. I do not mean this as an accusation but it is still difficult for me. Especially when I feel different about certain aspects of Alexander’s death. I do not think that a hug just before he left our home the very last time would have changed any of what he did later. It would help my mum, of that I am certain. And it would have been nice to know that he could feel my mum’s love one last time instead of just whishing him a good hunt. But I do believe that at this point, nothing could have changed his opinion of what he did to himself later. At least nothing my mum could have done.
When I try to tell her that I feel like she listens to me but does not believe it. Now I do not want to make her believe everything I think since it is all a big speculation what Alexander really was thinking. But I wish she could see that there are other possibilities, that it must not have been her fault. I wish I could help her. And when I feel like she does not understand me I grow silent and it must seem awful to her. Still I don’t want to end our phone conversation on that ground so we keep on going, mainly my mum telling me how she feels and what she thinks. I just feel so incredibly helpless then. I failed already one time when I tried to help. How could this change now? So I continue to be fairly silent and just listen. But it hurts not being able to help her, and it hurts that she seems so caught up in her thoughts that she doesn’t really see me on the other line anymore.
Before we talked I felt fine, now I am caught myself in those thoughts again. I hope I will still be able to get some of my stuff done since I have an interview next week. It is important that I can get my thoughts together and concentrate. However, sometimes it is oh so difficult.