Rebuilding Holly, Part 2
Sometimes in life a dividing line appears. It cleaves a life in two. It becomes a chasm.
My husband died. He experienced sudden, severe chest pain, collapsed in the bathroom, and in one hour, he was gone. It was, nearly, a *poof*. He was carried out the front door of our house–the house he worked to make so beautiful, functional, and comfortable–just before midnight on January 1.
2020 was bad. 2021 kicked my ass.
So loss and grief it is. I’m sorry, but if you’re looking for something besides those topics at this point, you won’t find them. This is my life, and this is where my mind is at. Writing = healing. See you laters….
This is the first time I’ve ever lived alone. I’m determined to learn what I can from loneliness and from being alone. I’m shaking old mindsets and developing better ones. I might even become better at love in the end.
The good news is that my Qorporate struggles have changed in form. The end of 2019 brought the dismissal of some questionable leadership and the entire dismantling of my department. Corporations do this. (I’ve since learned–FACT!–that this sometimes results from actual chesslike games played with people’s lives, as if profits trump having a heart for humanity. The adult world of work is, indeed, nothing more than a grownup playground. All the characters are there, but their egos are much bigger. I know for a fact that my own position was a hair away from elimination this year, but I suspect I was saved by my recent status as a widow.) We tediously dismantled and examined our processes and systems to the tiniest detail, and as we attempted to put Humpty Dumpty together again, COVID hit. We went remote. I set up camp in my son’s old room.
The current leadership of the Qorp is pretty solid, but 2020’s Zoom mania (“hey, what a fun new toy!”) led to a near-steady schedule of meetings and little to no time for productive work. If you said “WHAAAAAT?!!” to that, you’re on the right track. It was frustrating. It was ridiculous. We talked about work a lot. The good thing is that I’m now much more involved and better informed than I was prior to the 2019 dismantling. We’re also heavy on “projects” now, which is fine if no one complains about the lack of work being done. (They do complain.) Meetings plus “projects” does not equal work. All in all, my workdays became much longer. My husband was happy to have me home, though, but he was determined that I should leave the Qorp in 2021, even if he took another job. He believed that my job was sucking my soul out of me, but in a whole new way.
And now here I am, alone.
I continue to spend my days in the back of the house. Ten-hour (and longer) workdays are the norm. I often haven’t had the time I should to deal head-on with my grief. Fortunately, the Zoom meetings and projects have slowed down from the impossible pace of 2020.
My dog is my only co-worker, and though she is utterly wonderful, she’s all I have. I’m determined to relocate to be near my children, but I want to move only once. That means I’m here until one of them reliably settles. (No pressure, kids!) I can live near one and budget to spend time with the other.
I can look down the hallway and relive my husband’s death. I usually keep the door closed. My department is unlikely to return to the office after more than a year of proving how well we can work from home. This is a very unhealthy situation.
To be continued….
rebuildingholly 