First principles are called that because that's where things start. I'm not feeling good and I'm lost in my life. I could go zooming off into space on a flying rug of emotions and I do - often - but, that's not terribly useful.

Know thyself said Jesus Christ and I agree with him. The reason is that I'm here, this is my life, I'm using up the space, and the clock is always ticking. I don't think Jesus meant that as pressure. I think he was saying it's a good idea to know ourselves because, lets face it, life is very personal and in your face. You can't take responsibility blindfolded.

I lost myself in Alzheimer's. I was swept away and overcome for a while. Not so that you would notice when I went to the nursing home, not even so that my closest friends were too concerned. I wasn't eating the furniture or tearing my hair out. I was however oblivious to what month it was and I truly was out there for some time.

I take this seriously. Which is to say I have no idea what I'm doing. That's the truth but it's always been the truth and nothing good ever came from letting that slow me down.

Who wishes me harm? No one. Why did they abandon me? Because normal people hate dementia and are generally terrible at being supportive whether you live in Atlanta or Zurich. What does that mean? Harbouring resentment afterwards is the evidence of the disease damage within you. Why? Their behaviour has absolutely nothing to do with you. We can interchange any of you with anyone else and it's exactly the same. What do I do with the outrage then? Yes, good question. Well I don't feel resentment. I just feel like I've been run over. No. That's just a different colour of the same thing. It's damage. It's unresolvable yet holds you. It's over yet it holds you. It's collateral damage and it's in you. They were trolls. Now open the frigging cell and walk out and fight to do that. It won't be the same or feel the same but you have bigger problems right now and our need to shut someone down or shut them out or more likely to let the truth rip in their face is all real but the only thing that outrage will ever do I can promise you is either blow things up or fester within you.

You are the only person who has not left this building. There's no one here.

They don't go away easily although some have truly gone and are empty nothings. Other's keep popping back up with seemingly endless supply of outrage/resentment/depression. The damage is real and so are my needs to mitigate that. I'm not really that interested in always hearing about the effects. I need strategies and tactics that help me let go of this damage to my outlook.

Ultimately why doesn't matter. I learn this or I carry it uselessly. Anything inbetween gets a lot of part marks.

I have to let go of what Alzheimer's did or I will remain within what is just a disease and is still doing all this damage.

"That evening I went for a walk.To walk for the sake of walking is something I seldom do. Inside my apartment I'd felt inexplicably anxious. I needed to confess my sin. I was once again having impure thoughts about saving the world. Or it was neither of these - I was afraid I was dreaming."
"In any case, I needed to talk to someone, and I was alone.
This is my habitual condition, by choice - or so I tell myself. Mere acquaintanceship leaves me unsatisfied, and few people are willing to accept the burdens and risks of friendship as I conceive of it".

ISHMAEL by Daniel Quinn.

The irony of reading this paragraph last night just after I had finished reading the posts about friendship in this thread was just too much for me not to share.

"What do I do with the outrage then? Yes, good question. Well I don't feel resentment. I just feel like I've been run over. No. That's just a different colour of the same thing. It's damage. It's unresolvable yet holds you. It's over yet it holds you. It's collateral damage and it's in you. They were trolls. Now open the frigging cell and walk out and fight to do that. It won't be the same or feel the same but you have bigger problems right now and our need to shut someone down or shut them out or more likely to let the truth rip in their face is all real but the only thing that outrage will ever do I can promise you is either blow things up or fester within you."

Wolf, I believe it will heal over and leave a scar. I don't think scars are ugly, but signs of having lived fully and having fought successfully.

This is a really good discussion about friends and friendships. My DH passed 2 weeks ago. The last 3 months were so horrific and he had to be moved 4 times which forced me to interact with 4 new sets of staff, interact with 3 different physicians, plus deal with Hospice which was yet another set of people. Right now I am actually enjoying the quiet and the fact that I can crawl into my cocoon and not come out until I am ready. I am by nature more introverted which made all the moves as described above all the more terrifying for me. I have not figured out what I intend to do now. All I know is I need to stay in my cocoon and heal before I can come out. Anyone that goes through this has endured a horrible emotional, physical and spiritual trauma and to regain one's footing needs intensive introspection and time. I have returned to daily journaling which seems to help and quiet prayer. One thing I have learned about friendships is that not all people are capable of a more intimate nonsexual friendship. Rejection is part of the game but I think that reframing these rejections makes it more manageable and also not taking these friendship rejections personal. I have a couple acquaintances who want to go to lunch with me. Neither one is going to be an intimate friend but I will go and just try to accept them as they are. I seldom see or talk to these people but that is okay. Neither one has been through what I have just gone through so I already know they will not really "get it" but I try to overlook that and accept it as it is. I feel as tho I have been let out of caregiver prison and now that I finally have freedom from it, it is rather terrifying. What to do now? I am just taking it very slow and one day at a time.

Myrtle, you do belong here and you're not even close to offending anyone. Besides, I've got your back, remember? Notice that BQD is also explaining her thoughts more just as I did.

It's like this on the positive side. We step forward into an idea and then the fact that most every other thing in our life is under seige, we doubt. So do I.

myrtle

I did not take you post as criticism, and if I had gotten out of bed and posted what I had read right after I had read it, so that it would have immediately followed the discussion on friendship, it would have all made more sense. I realized that when I posted this morning, but I couldn't back track, and I thought it was important enough to add to the thread. In the book I am reading, a man is being asked to reassess how he looks at the world, by stripping away his "truths" and looking at life from a completely different perspective, which I think is what Wolf is trying to do. Wolf is feeling his way in life without the truth of dementia hanging over it, and after spending so many years looking at life through the tinge of the dementia care giver, it takes a different perspective to look at life from a "normal" point of view.

Feel free to step in here, Wolf, before I get in over my head!

Myrtle, you do belong on this thread, a does anyone else who is going through this journey. At some point we will/have already have to/had to re-evaluate our lives.

Well...isn't that true for all of us??

Ladies and gentlemen, step right up! And watch Wolf bare his soul right down to..the..marrow! Actually I'm thinking of changing my name to Vic. Vic Carious. I'm not worried about showing how fickle my feelings are right now because I can see with my eyes closed and a bag over my head that everyone else here goes through roughly the same things.

As for Quinn and Ishmael let me get out the sharp knife and the mirror and I'll perform an appendectomy to Bach's fugue in a scene entitled feeling the fickle fugue of fate. I also think most people belong in the kiddie pool and I've seen dried up cow pies deeper than some relationships HOWEVER, I have to admit that these feelings suck large because the thing about being sure I'm superior in the depth of MY relationships as opposed to those of the hippos is that's hilarious. Wait. I'm guilty. Bonnie put that up and I looked at it and thought hey I feel like that and later (also known as now) I realize what a wanker I am.

The real truth is I haven't met everyone and I don't get out that much lately and even when I did my circle was a joke if I'm going to base my own judgement on the rest of humanity. You all stink! I, however, poop gold bars. It's not you, it's me says Ishmael. I'm so deep and, well...

Look good, play safe, learn nothing, die anyway. Sounds really tempting.

Bonnie, you don't need my help. You're on it. And it does take many strippings of truths to stumble on a new perspective. For example speaking of hippos. Did you know that hippos can run really fast underwater? They positively gallop down there. Look it up.

I've had a ride these last two days. I picked up a message yesterday morning that the recently widowed friend who ran screaming out of our house that she didn't want to hear about alzheimer's and never owned up to that, now wants to have a memorial gathering for Dianne next saturday. She had already invited all the others before asking me. I didn't know what to feel when I heard that message.

It's too raw for me and has only been 94 days now. I asked myself if I wanted to go to an intervention in the arms of friends and make this pain come out. I would be able to show them what wracking sobs look like. But to what point? I go back the next day and the next day and the next day right where I am, and releasing a swimming pool of pain is a drop in the ocean of what is in here.

This is the basketball team group and so I called the two friends who's relationship never changed either before or after Alzheimer's - I talked about it when I had to or when I wanted to and the rest of the time we were doing what we were doing and all three of us just got older together. I don't know how or why but those relationships actually got stronger.

I learned that they were planting a tree at the cemetary in Guelph the next town over and where most of them grew up, a tree dedicated to Dianne. They were going to tell me about it afterwards because they know how I feel. I will not allow any ceremonies and I will allow no one into the place that both of us built strictly for ourselves. I will probably never allow anyone to see my feelings if I can help it. My two friends know everything. No one else wanted in. That is enough.

I talked to five of them and I did the calling which is highly unsual of me. Those five calls took eight hours to get through because I'm well enough that I could feel that they love her and want to do something for her and that they care about me. I could feel that. I've been humbled badly by Alzheimer's and I'm very grateful to feel. I reached out and opened up and shared things and listened to how much losing Dianne hurt them and I helped them talk about it and see more of how I feel.

Today came the reaction which I have lived in all day. Today was raw and the long road ahead looked so hard and so lonely again. The damn breaking does no good because that water will torrent with no visible end and I already know that parts of me want to lay down and go to sleep and let this tragedy end. I did't want life without her.

I came one day to suicide's door and I heard it calling and calling and that would be scary except I made a friend right there which was the knowledge inside I was never going to go out that way. We raised our thumbs to each other and I left. I'm on that road still.

There comes a point when we're not struggling to understand anymore, when all the questions are answered, when all the planning is done, and now you are on the journey to find what you believe. The undiscovered country of an entirely new life. Full of fears and unknowns and certain death. And full of mysteries and stories such as the one about the tree planted in the cemetary in love and honour for Dianne the Celt who came for a visit and stayed for a thousand years.

-2

The problem with bundling things the experience has done to us into the reaction to their loss is that we interpret unhealthy emotional issues as a reaction to grief and that is not true. The second problem is that grief is both powerful and poorly understood. We must go through it and we do not know how long because it's personal to each of us. It can last for years.
What no one addresses is that it's almost certain that entering grief with deep emotional problems must almost necessarily affect the grief itself. It surely compounds it. And if the emotional problems remain accepted how do they obscure our end to our period of grief?

And the problem with seperating them is that whatever we do about our emotions, we are almost certain not to feel any healing because we are also grieving. How can you tell you're out of depression in the middle of bereavement?
As I've said, I blame society's stone age mentality which changes mostly where it must and seldom where it should. People in wheelchairs have done well these last twenty years. People with Alzheimer's not so much. We need emotional help.
The biggest change I am going through these days (day 96), is that I can see a bit like a mist beginning to lift that I'm not anywhere near what I would consider a normal me or to use better words - what I would consider a healthy me.
That is the millstone that seperates wheat from chaff. What is unhealthy is what the experiences I went through did to me. Those are actual, real world problems which I call clinical because if a qualified doctor diagnoses that you have depression or anxiety then you either have to accept there is an actual emotional problem.
I can't help myself with depression without simultaneously stepping on grieving and after three months I understand that grieving is a real thing with it's own reality. There is a new elephant in the room there is zero doubt and it's different from anything else I've been through.

My thoughts are to accept grieving as an important necessary thing. That means I'm not going to be happy and dancing anytime soon. Moments yes. Nothing is black and white. But I don't expect to solve my feelings while grieving and I do accept that it will run it's course when it does. I want to accept everything in time and I do things to help myself there which is usually remembering things and then thinking about them in ways that try to take an overall ownership of what I believe. One step at a time.
But I have all kinds of other problems I have to face trying to move gradually to being a healthy person again. One of the huge steps here was to see myself more and have my own thoughts about what I was seeing myself doing and not doing.
I've started walking and this year I'm pushing. Thirty minute power walks pushing every step. I've done it every day since I started six days ago and it has HURT. It's not the shortness of breath so much from smoking and not moving my body all winter. It's real pain in my knees, in my calf, in my thighs. My walks end with a 34 step set of stairs to climb to get up into my court. I expect nothing except to be running up those stairs before summer's end. When I do, grieving will have company which is one undeniable triumph.

There are many battles and those 'battles' are learning to enjoy life again without worrying too much about how I feel now and then how I feel now. I want to learn to enjoy going swimming again which is available to me. I want many things. And the fact that I'm so bloody exhausted from the last decade doesn't change that I get to feel that I'm working on it which is something to do while my grief for Dianne does what it does.

....

I sat in the den last night watching the NBA playoffs. So many of them are hurt with injuries but they fight to win. The couple across the street came over yesterday and brought some pie and talked about how I was. They noticed I had started walking. My TV room faces the court and when I sit there I can see across the parkette and often notice them in their kitchen way over there. I suddenly was them looking at me and I noticed I had my head in the side of the wing chair and had been sighing. In that instant I saw another example of how unhealthy I am. Of how 'not me' most of what I do in a day is.

That's what I live though. That's the truth of my state. And if I don't care about that then who will? If I don't have empathy for my own plight who will? I will. I will help myself come out of the darkness and I will comfort myself that right now, that is the truth of my life.

It's hard to get off the computer. This will sound really stupid, but one thing that is helping me get my mind and emotions moving forward…instead of hanging out on Amazon doing too much online shopping…is opening up the deck of cards that's been in the drawer forever…and playing Solitaire. I'm not a card-playing person in the least, but I'm finding that just as my grandfather used to do before WWII, sitting at the table just playing endless games of Solitaire is relaxing and mind-freeing. ( I don't think the computer game would work the same way. The computer makes you jumpy and nervous after a while, I think.)

And then of course there is the daily walk…one hour, rain or shine. Wolf, I would be careful about "pushing" too hard. If it is too strenuous, you might be tempted to skip a walk because you're tired or sore…and lose consistency. It's taken me eight months, and I've had to finally get serious about keeping the calorie count down to around 1200, but I've lost ten lbs. as of this morning. And my hair has gotten long enough to just barely get my French braid back in. (After just chopping it super-short while caring for Larry--no time or energy for hairstyles.) So I'm starting to get myself back again after the long nightmare…and I'm starting to see what "Myself" means these days. It isn't the same as before--I think I used to see life as a competition. I was always trying to accomplish things, get ahead, set and meet goals…now I couldn't care less about any of that. At this point in my life, I don't have anything left to prove…Alzheimers chewed us up and spit us out…and now I just want a peaceful happy life, having the nicest days possible…whether alone or not... and then waking up the next morning and doing it all over again. In truth, any day without Alzheimers is a good day.

George and Gourdchipper--I really believe that the walking is going to help him a lot. (Sorry, Wolf, I know I'm talking about you "behind your back." And for myself, I was still barely functional at the three-month point. Also, like many here, including Wolf probably, we express ourselves freely and at length on this website…saying things and agonizing in a way that would not be socially acceptable in the "normal" world. I think we need the venting…and venting…and venting. It seems to me that this whole bereavement thing is a one-step-forward, two-steps-back kind of thing. I'll start to be OK for a while…I think…and then it will hit me again like a freight train.

So Wolf, keep us updated on what you're doing besides moping on the computer for hours on end. (Just like I do, too..errrg.)

Alzheimer's spouses are very unlikely to be experiencing normal grief. They are likely to be experiencing a bundle of real world effects carried over which are equally unlikely to be worked on while grieving. That clearly takes years for some people and that is worth understanding. It was for me and that's what I posted.

I can't help that people see what they want to see. You have to ask yourself how I'm doing three months afterwards and how you did three months afterwards because I'm not worried about that comparison.

I explained at the start of this thread that the backbone was the journal of what I went through and welcoming other stories hasn't really happened. Not a problem. There are people who have trouble with conceptualization and articulation. Thus the resident thread where I did exactly this about placement, the lodge thread where I did exactly this to help people through the holidays, the never give up thread which I don't maintain anymore, the old man thread, and this journey out thread which ends in a predictable way if you just stop and look. I've never been stuck by Alzheimer's. Instead I have extra cycles. Alzheimer's hasn't even stopped my humour. What is it people are missing?

In three months and in six months I'm going to continue to move along through the experience I've moved through all along where I've already said my journey ends here. When that happens I will know I tried to give back as I could.

Lately I've noticed that my husband sometimes does not know what to do with food. Yesterday the unit nurse told me that he does not need help with some meals but he is starting to need a lot of help with others. So tonight I stayed with him at supper and was shocked when he docilely allowed me to spoon-feed him every bite, as though he were an infant. I avoided panicking and instead decided that from now on, I’ll visit at supper time so I can help him to eat.

When I got home from my visit, I found a voice mail message from a relative congratulating me on our wedding anniversary. I had completely forgotten. Just 24 years ago, we loaded our bicycles onto a rack on my car and drove to Portland, Maine, to board the ferry to Nova Scotia for our honeymoon. We were so happy then and we laughed so much. The juxtaposition of that memory with my husband's inability to feed himself was sickening.

As one who is prone to over-think things, I fight that tendency by taking action, getting out into the world, looking for the practical solution, and dealing with new losses in a matter-of-fact way, without unnecessary dramatics. But that does not always work. Come to think of it, maybe it never works, for there is no control group to allow for a comparison. And even if it does work, it does not mean I do not have some very, very dark thoughts.

That is a great poem…but with all respect to W.H.Auden, I would say that life does not last forever…but love does.

Thanks for posting this.

bqd, You are using numerology to predict the date of your husband's death. The kindest description of numerology is "pseudoscience." This dementia experience is bad enough on its own, without relying on a random numerical formula to predict the death of the afflicted person. Most people whose spouses are in the later stages of dementia have very little to look forward to in their marriages. But that's because of the progress of the disease, not because of a numerical calculation.

Please do not do this to yourself. You are in the middle of a very stressful time -- the placement of your husband. You have succeeded admirably in finding a good place for him to live and in enlisting the support of your children. Build on that accomplishment and try to reject ideas that just drag you down.

P.S. I just realized that since you and your husband vowed to love each other for 495 years, you were saying that your love would endure after both of your deaths. So how does Alzheimer's change any of that? Your love is still going to last for 495 years, no matter what either of you dies from.

After getting my haircut yesterday morning and going to the bakery, I saw the lady across the court waving and coming over. She wanted me to know she was sorry about Dianne. When I asked her how she was doing, she said she was hanging on. Her husband has just been diagnosed with alzheimer's. He's 85 and she's just over 70. They were the first to have us over for dinner a week after we moved in when Dianne was off somewhat but I thought it was a depression from retiring.

We talked about it all for a while and I told her about this site and I told her not to call me - unless she was really stuck. She already has my phone number on her fridge because her husband has muscular dystrophy and I offered the same thing back in 2006. She was an intensive care nurse and still volunteers once a week. She understands what I offered and knows that when she gets into a situation or to the end of her rope - I will actually come and help her.

I don't know how I would have reacted to someone saying don't call me unless you're desperate. No one offered to help me. That doesn't prey on my mind the way it did for years and I'm willing to put my paw out to get hurt. But only where I choose. This flurry of activity in the shallow end with people realizing they don't have to ignore Dianne anymore to survive doesn't impress me. I've had a number explain to me that people need an outlet to grieve. Not to ever visit her, not to ask how she is, not to acknowledge what she had - but so it's easier for them to grieve now. I don't call it the kiddie pool for nothing which just identifies where I won't be spending time and doesn't actually mean anything except social ideas that don't work for me.

The negatives are destructive when the person is fragile. I'm not much different from my friend who had mental health issues and pushed everyone away because he couldn't cope. I told my other friend (those two went to public school together) that I had apologized to him once I understood from my own tribulations that of course he pushed everyone away - I was still just as guilty of not helping as anyone around me was with Alzheimer's. After saying exactly that the other friend spat out that he pushed him away. He was clearly still angry that he'd reached out and got pushed away. I don't believe that in life overthinking is the problem. In fact, I do believe it's the opposite that is the problem where just having thoughts isn't thinking.

I'm not moving this year. I'm going to explore where I am and I think this is going to do for a while. I went to a number of places today including the gardening centre in a small nearby village where I bought a trunkload of flowers. Tomorrow I'm going to turn over the gardens and clean the pots and put them in. By next week I want to get my season pass and have gone swimming for the first of many times.

I have only two jobs that I can see. Figure myself out so the answers stand on solid ground, and learn to enjoy the time I've been given. We used to be hippies for a while there and we both liked that period. We used to have a sailboat up on Georgian Bay we took all sorts of places. We both liked that a lot too. I'm not planning to spend my future growing my hair out and listening to The Grateful Dead anymore than I'm planning to hang around sailboats so I can hear the halliards clinking. I'm not doing that about Dianne either. Wolf & Dianne were 1969-2015.

She's on my dresser and plastered all over the fridge. She crosses my mind numerous times a day but I don't think about her. Instead I'm covering the AD years with gravel and I'm going to plant some trees on it and I'm pretty much going to ignore it's details if not it's fact. I think this is about it's due: we got Alzheimer's which slowly killed her. Our feelings about that are that we both have our middle fingers up.

Almost all of her things are gone. I found another packet of letters from previous admirers and threw them out. I'm keeping a few dozen things in the different closets and the house is littered with 'us' anyways which is just fine.

I've talked about my sister and how she hasn't gotten over mom and I have. Maybe there are different types in this too. I know that my friend's mental issues are because he can't accept the business things that happened. He had five offers for positions as I remember and could easily have jumped sideways. Instead his fixation robbed him of ten years and has affected this last ten years too. I said recently I have to bring him along because I'm going to get past my past while he may never fully let that go.

It's almost as though some last barrier inside doesn't believe it happened because he doesn't want to see that and so still struggles inside. I suspect that moving on and getting over stuff may be a tendancy where some do and where some struggle. I hope that's not true.

Here are 20 similies. I'm looking for something and came across these:

1. “. . . she tried to get rid of the kitten which had scrambled up her back and stuck like a burr just out of reach.” — Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott

2. “Time has not stood still. It has washed over me, washed me away, as if I’m nothing more than a woman of sand, left by a careless child too near the water.” — The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood

3. “Her romantic mind was like the tiny boxes, one within the other, that come from the puzzling East . . .” — Peter Pan, by J. M. Barrie.

4. “. . . and snow lay here and there in patches in the hollow of the banks, like a lady’s gloves forgotten.” — Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor, by R. D. Blackmore

5. “I would have given anything for the power to soothe her frail soul, tormenting itself in its invincible ignorance like a small bird beating about the cruel wires of a cage.” — Lord Jim, by Joseph Conrad

6. “In the eastern sky there was a yellow patch like a rug laid for the feet of the coming sun . . .” — The Red Badge of Courage, by Stephen Crane

7. “. . . when I laid down the paper, I was aware of a flash — rush — flow — I do not know what to call it — no word I can find is satisfactorily descriptive — in which I seemed to see that bedroom passing through my room, like a picture impossibly painted on a running river. — To Be Taken with a Grain of Salt, by Charles Dickens

8. “. . . utterly absorbed by the curious experience that still clung to him like a garment.” — Magnificent Obsession, by Lloyd C. Douglas

9. “She entered with ungainly struggle like some huge awkward chicken, torn, squawking, out of its coop.” — The Adventure of the Three Gables, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

10. “He looks like right after the maul hits the steer and it no longer alive and don’t yet know that it is dead.” — As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner

11. “Past him, ten feet from his front wheels, flung the Seattle Express like a flying volcano.” — Arrowsmith, by Sinclair Lewis

12. “Her father had inherited that temper; and at times, like antelope fleeing before fire on the slope, his people fled from his red rages.” — Riders of the Purple Sage, by Zane Grey

13. “The very mystery of him excited her curiosity like a door that had neither lock nor key.” — Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell

14. “Elderly American ladies leaning on their canes listed toward me like towers of Pisa.” — Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov

15. “Camperdown, Copenhagen, Trafalgar — these names thunder in memory like the booming of great guns.” — Mutiny on the Bounty, by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall

16. “It was Françoise, motionless and erect, framed in the small doorway of the corridor like the statue of a saint in its niche.” — Swann’s Way, by Marcel Proust

17. “The water made a sound like kittens lapping.” — The Yearling, by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

18. “Kate inched over her own thoughts like a measuring worm.” — East of Eden, by John Steinbeck

19. “He swung a great scimitar, before which Spaniards went down like wheat to the reaper’s sickle.” — The Sea-Hawk, by Rafael Sabatini

20. “. . . impressions poured in upon her of those two men, and to follow her thought was like following a voice which speaks too quickly to be taken down by one’s pencil . . .” — To the Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf

Sounds about right to me. Hang in there, Wolf. You are not alone in this.

Elizabeth, the practical question is can we find something that works for us in some useful way? There are many issues about afterwards but one aspect is finding out useful things that work to solve or help in some particular thing.

One example I can think of is changing my bedroom lamp to a lower intensity bulb (60w to 40w) and bringing it closer to where my head is. It makes it easier for me to read which I often like to do for a while before falling asleep. A bigger one about sleeping was letting myself fall asleep with the light on. I found that often I would read, shut the light off, lay back down, and for whatever reason then stay awake. Now I don't mind waking up with the magazine stuck to my face or all wrinkled up because I learned to relax about the light on and when I drift off - I fall asleep.

A different thing is that I'm halfway through putting the flowers in. I only put them in the front of the house. I wouldn't water the back ones properly I don't think so I don't deal with that right now. I don't like doing it. I'm not really interested. I did it the first years because Dianne did and I tried to keep that up. It was just as hard this year. The thing is that once they're in, I come out and water them. I weed them. I watch them. And it ends up being a good experience. What I learned there was to make myself go through getting them and putting them in because even though I don't fuss over them - I end up being involved.

Another thing is the TV. I talked about that. I had to make myself watch at the beginning and a lot of things made me react. I often shut it off. It literally was only that I knew I was in a battle to reclaim this that I went through watching the Alzheimer's commercials, the retirement of happy couples commercials, the deeply romantic moments, the shared moments we both loved, and learned to sit in front of the box again. It was the second part that has made television one of my friends because somewhere before dinner time I will turn it on and scan through the channels to see what's on. What that means is that I find a science show I want to see is on at 7 and The Goodbye Girl is on at 8 and I turn the TV off knowing I want to watch those tonight. Other nights I don't see anything so don't watch and on lonely nights I might put on the antiques roadshow or american pickers or a baseball game and go upstairs doing other things while the now radio show keeps me company. As I type this Mr Roberts is on and right now Jimmy Cagney is having a meltdown. Television gets mixed responses but it is a goldmine of input and interaction when used in ways that suit us. Japan had a big earthquake. They just had a volcano explode a few days ago. Greece might just meet the early June requirements and not break up with the EU. Our NBA team might be getting it's own D league team. And the Light Rail Transit being put in which has the city in a traffic mess, is behind schedule. I wouldn't know any of this, it gives me things to think about, it gives me things to see, and input is important for people.

You talked about going on one hour walks. Why? What do you look for in that? How can you tell what that's doing?

For me another area is cooking for one. I've learned a lot about that both good and bad. The thing is I need a relationship with eating so I'm stuck with learning how. One answer was having a range of things in the house that keep and have an equal range of how long they take and how much work they are (my motivation moves around which I bet is a common problem).

Anyway, I just remembered I have to put the leftover stew/goulash I made into the fridge.

Don't forget I was working all those years…I would come home and start cooking…there was a look-through from the kitchen to the family room, so I could cook and read my book while kind of glancing at what he was watching. My post up above made it sound like I just zoned in front of the TV all the time…no…no way.

I read an interesting one sentence prayer in my Griefshare book last week. Sorry, but I don't remember who wrote it. It has just stayed with me...Lord, please don't let me allow myself to die while I am still living. I am still seeking God's will for me at this stage in my life. I want something positive to come from this journey. It cannot be all for nothing! I cannot be around other dementia patients right now. Just the look in their eyes sends me reeling. Too soon for that! But I am determined to find a way to minister to others that are in the grips of their own struggles. I have a heart for caregivers now that I was just so ignorant of before. Hospice was a God send for us. I am considering volunteering in that arena perhaps. Just don't any of you throw in the towel and give up. We must muster on and make sure that our loved one's torturous demise was not in vein. We are left behind to help others along the same journey. We have the experience and can empathize. Perhaps we can even make a real positive difference in someone else's life. The good Lord knows, I sure would have appreciated a real physical body here to help me out occasionally! All you guys were a wealth of information and great companions. We know how secluded, alone and desperate the situation gets. There has to be a way to pay it forward once we are released from our 24/7 obligation of never ending care giving. Or maybe it is just the nurse in me...perhaps this is what I need to do and it is just mumbo jumbo to the rest of you? I wish you all well...especially those of you still in the trenches. I promise you...you are in my prayers continually! I have not forgotten any of you just because I am clawing my way back to " the other side" of caregiving.
Edited just to say that I just read the same one line prayer on someone else's fb post. Apparently it is more popular than I realized.

Interesting post. I was thinking about putting something on the Widows/Widowers thread today, but maybe I will just write it here. At the nine and one-third month point, I am finding that I'm enjoying the moments a lot more. I miss him dreadfully, and yet I find that more and more I can look back with a grin and be so grateful for the good times…for having had the marriage that everybody wants and most people don't get. It gives me a happy feeling to think about it. I am at least standing and looking at the "shrine" that is my bedroom and at least considering that if I took all those pictures off the dresser…and maybe left just one nice portrait of him there…that I would have a lot more room for my stuff. The flag could go in the living room near his military medals.Yeah, I'm talking about "my" stuff. Not "our" stuff. And I find myself calling the bedroom "my" room instead of "our" room. What a novel concept.

And I'm doing a lot of thinking about the future. I'm trying to see if what were more or less hobbies and interests in the past can truly become more major parts of my life now that Larry and my nursing career are both gone. Playing music and working on my writing projects are coming easier…I'm not just forcing myself to do it through the pain, depression, etc., etc. I'm starting to see a good, workable, genuine path forward.

It's true that once in a while there is a "grieving" day, or a "vegetative" day--a day where I'm very tired for no reason and just want to sort of retreat from everything…sit on the porch and play solitaire... where I really have trouble getting in gear…but it's not nearly as bad or as often as several months ago. I'm like Wolf in that I'm not expecting anything much out of myself this year. I'm just going to kind of go with the flow in this grieving year 9/2/14 until 9/2/15 and then see where I'm at.

I guess what I would have posted on Widows/Widowers would have been to say that the fog and clouds are still there, but they are gradually dissipating and blowing away.

I had to chuckle (sorry, just couldn't help it) when you spoke about losing things. For a while there, that was happening to me, too. I would put something down and then didn't have a clue where I had left it. My glasses, my car keys, the book I was reading…it was because I really was only thinking about Larry…my mind was always focused on him, even when I was seemingly doing something else. Fortunately the "loser" phase didn't last too long. I still think about him all the time, but seem to be able to hold onto my possessions while doing it.

In terms of thinking up what we should do with our new, post-Alzheimers life…here is a quote that I like that I actually copied down and keep in my prayerbook. It is actually from a blogger on frugal living…but it resonated with me, for some reason.

"Life is not a contest to see who can accomplish the most. It is simply a series of days where your goal is to wake up, have a great time, and go to bed even happier than when you woke up."

Now for me, that is a profound quote, because I tend to define myself by my accomplishments…or I did. Post-Alzheimers, I just don't think that way anymore. I'm more just trying to enjoy the days (hours, moments, whatever), go with the flow as we said above, and just "be." Moments of happiness, random acts of kindness, going a little Zen and enjoying nature…I am pretty sure that I'll recapture some purpose and direction at some point, but right now…well, I'm still in recovery mode, I guess.

I would never be able to say how much of my doing this was my own fears knowing her death would hit me hard or how much was bravado and pep talk. I've found in life that the tiresome work of seperating all the threads is almost directly proportional to the general lack of interest in those answers.

It reminds me of a joke. A frustrated driver has been circling the block for 20 minutes trying to find a parking spot. They turn to prayer: "please God help me find a parking spot because I really need to deliver this report". Suddenly a car pulls out from it's parking spot just ahead. "Never mind!", the driver whoops, "I just found one!"

Grieving - not exactly like a crabby and bitter relative moving in but not altogether different either. Not exactly like a team of retarded horses trying to trample you but not altogether different from that either. Not exactly like being chased by a troll with a cattle prod but...well, you know the rest.

I should get a big discount off grieving because this grieving has already been used; but no, I have to pay retail because this grieving isn't that grieving apparently. I've noticed that whatever the arguments are, somehow I carry all the luggage. And I can promise you that the second I get an arm free, I'm going to complain.

Throughout recorded history and from archeological evidence, grieving for lost loved ones has been one of the most powerful drivers of human behaviour.

One of the key things to understand about the mountain of global evidence for that is that at every moment for thousands of years it has always been modern times. Just as we do not think of ourselves as someone's future history or our ideas about reality as archaic - all people in all times and all places saw their thoughts as the same modern thought which we do today. That will be true of the many generations to come as well.

Our modern thought is tomorrow's old ideas. All people were property at one time of the tribe, then the 'king' wasn't, then some barons weren't, then white guys weren't, then women weren't, and someday perhaps no person will be property. On every day in every place what was being done was the proper thing and the latest thinking even though we can all see the latest thinking changing in our own lifetimes.

Two things that are common everywhere that talks about grieving are that it is a very powerful experience and that what we experience is personal and ranges widely which is why there is no rigidity in the advise these days.

Ultimately, that means that while grieving generally has always been understood to be a powerful part of our experience equal in some ways to child births - our grieving specifically has never been understood because it may as well be unique.

One part of the reason that's true is because each person's grief happens in each person's personality and beliefs and fears and strengths and current circumstances. For my part I'm coming to understand that my own grief is more powerful than Al Zheimer ever was and why that is. I did it for her which I accepted as purpose I believed in. This is different. For one thing the entire thing is inside me.

I continue to believe that our dementia experiences and other life experiences building up to the moment grieving triggers are obliterated but did not go anywhere. It turns my stomach to try to make myself keep those issues visible while I'm learning how powerful bereavement truly is. If I don't though then my major anxiety attack in the last months when Dianne went in and out of palliative care which I can prove still affects me today - will be swept under the rug and obscured by this large, new, and proven powerful thing.

As a result of my new respect for what bereavement is like for me I have to help myself with an interim and more immediate goal. While I continue to try and figure out what a life for myself would look like and continue to try to help myself get over what dementia did to me - I'm seriously going to have to figure out now how to live with this enormous, new condition.

I don't have a new life. In order I have: a new state (grieving), existing issues (years of dementia caregiving affects), and a new life (as undeveloped as a newborn).