Crazy Lady Remembers Music From Another Room...

The past few months have been chaotic. That's putting it mildly. I have been living in survival mode. Apparently it got spiked again 2 years ago and hasn't really let go until recently when I recently went back to my psychiatrist feeling depleted and just completely burned out. Some would say that is normal for a woman my age. And yet it wasn't. 

In order to protect those in my family I am going to sound EXTRA crazy for a moment.  In 2022 my dog (not a dog)  was suicidal and had to be hospitalized to keep them safe. I wasn't able to keep them safe at home. My dog was composing a plan in their mind.  I visited them everyday and prayed for them every night. When they came out of the hospital they started an IOP program where they went four days a week for 8 weeks.  Once the program was over they were doing tons better.   Then a few months ago they really weren't.  They did not need to be hospitalized again, but they did start another IOP program. This one a little farther away. Which made driving to and from tricky given all the construction in our area. Not only was I picking up my dog from their regular schedule, I was spending an extra four hours in the car every day.  I would do anything for my dog. I would move mountains. But It was definitely hard to find the balance between, work schedules, school schedules, therapy schedules, and sports schedules.  This new program was working out wonderfully though. My dog was healing and finding joy in their life again. There was still the crazy of driving to and from but the end of the program was in sight.  Ya know that saying about God and the Universe's timing, is always on time?  With two weeks left of IOP therapy I found my saving Grace in the midst of all this Craziness.    

At one of my many therapy appointments I became friends with a lovely woman who also had a dog who had gone through a similar situation. She was so understanding. She was someone to lean on and give a hug when I felt the weight of the day. In one of our many conversations, it had come up about how much we both loved music.  She shared with me that the choir she sang with was about to start up again for the holiday season.  She said I didn't need to audition or anything, that it was a community chorus and gave me the information on when and where they met.  At first I thought to myself, how the heck am I going to make that happen with everything else?  I decided not to worry about it. It was one evening. I could go, check it out, and see how it went. It was the best two hours I had spent in a long time. I couldn't wait to go back the following week.  

As many of you know I have a love/hate relationship with the holiday season. But this holiday season has gone better than previous ones. And, I owe that to the choir.  In fact I actually sang Christmas carols with the right words. Not "deck your spouse because their dead. Or deck your spouse because their jolly."  Because of my new enjoyment for the holiday season, things didn't really compute that Christmas eve was around the corner. It didn't really hit me that it was actually Christmas Eve until my eyes became faucets and big emotions without words came rolling down my face.  It was the type of crying where no matter how much I told myself to get it together. I couldn't and had to ride it out. 

Ah yes Christmas Eve, Pete's birthday. I woke up wanting to be joyful. I even started creating a post in my mind for his day. But somewhere between getting out of bed, into the shower, drying off, and standing in my closet did that joy come to a screeching halt. Instead I was sitting on the floor with the door partially closed while big fat tears cascaded down my face. Its Christmas Eve damnit. Pete would have been 51. Then I did the math again and realized he would be 52 and started to cry again. How could I forget? How could I forget his age, his smile, his laugh, his favorite meal. But I can remember lyrics to a song from 2001. How is that fair?

 

And yes as we know Life is not fair.... 

  I had wanted to be "happy" and hold space for that happiness that he lived and to Celebrate. My heart apparently missed that memo and I spent most of the day crying on and off.  I had so many emotions and situations that flooded my mind.  Over the passed three days I have tried to pinpoint where these emotions have come from, ya know, besides the obvious reasons.  I could just chalk it up to another year come and gone.. But it feels like there is something more. I think it had something to do with new memories that came forward at my last therapy appointment. 

If you have known anyone with PTSD, it does weird things to a persons brain.  Everyone's trauma is their own. How that person sorts it out is unique unto them.  One of the things that my brain did was to take happy memories and hide them away in a vault. Not all my happy memories just the ones with Pete. Like when we were dating, first married, and even some things from when Aryanna and Petey were little. Things that we did together as a family. Sure, I look at pictures and think to myself "that was so fun." but anytime I think of those moments with Pete I can't see him clearly. Its almost like wearing glasses that are the wrong prescription.  Granted I realize no one remembers every second of their life. But when those memories are of the person and the life we shared, and that person is no longer on the planet... those lost memories feel like a punch to the gut.  Thanks trauma brain, for taking those happy parts of my life. (Note the sarcasm)

Back to therapy....

 I was sitting on her couch doing EMDR therapy. The hope was to get my brain and body to settle and be on the same page.  A moment to breathe and just be. She asked what felt overwhelming in that moment. I recounted the events of previous days. One thing that was right front and center was the weird emptiness I felt over my last choir concert of the holiday season. To me I felt like choir had become a friend that I hadn't seen in forever. But the sadness that consumed me felt more like my best friend telling me she was moving to the other side of the world. I told her how I felt silly being so sad about it. That logically it was only a few weeks but that it felt too long until we would sing again. And then the big tears. I sat quietly as I watched my brain piece things together. 

I saw myself wearing the clothes I had come in with. I saw me sit down next to me and wrap my arms around the me sitting on her couch. This me said "I will be your friend."  And the flood gates opened. It was all the thoughts. Do you know what its like to always feel like the weird one? To feel so alienated from close friends and family because of the things that I know, feel, and see? This is not a new feeling. But when I was with the choir, I didn't feel like the weird one. I was just there to join other people who loved music and loved singing.  I opened my eyes and looked at my therapist. She said. This feeling and this connection is a space that you allowed just for you. You didn't let anything else pull you away. You made the time for you.  

We started the EMDR again. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes to see where my brain would take me next. That's when I saw it.... a little dim at first.. and then the vault door cracked open and all these things fell out of it.    Singing karaoke after work with Pete. Singing to him in my truck. Singing his favorite song Ave maria and watching his eyes fill up with tears.  Singing karaoke on the free stage at the state fair. Singing to him at the hospital when he was in a coma.  Singing with him in our house. With all the lights turned off, and tiny aryanna on my chest as he and I sang a Faith Hill and Tim McGraw duet. I remembered the way he sang silly songs in style of a lounge singer. The way he made my family and I laugh with his rendition of the "love boat." It wasn't just that I remembered, its that I felt it too. I saw him in color, laughing, and enjoying singing together or just listening to me sing. 

I remembered how music and singing used to be my whole world.  In my mind I asked myself  "What happened?" I had sung over the years here and there but not with the same passion. Not with the same devotion. Its like he died and my song went with him. It reminded me of that line from the movie Grease  "If you can't be an athlete, be an athletic supporter." Yeah, I had become a music supporter. I just went mute when it came to singing. I still allowed the music to touch my soul. There were times when I wished I could pull the music right off the page and wrap it around me like a blanket. Or the times right after he passed I would sit in my car in the parking lot. Alone. no kids in the car. I would turn the bass up and then the volume up on the Journey song "Separate ways (Worlds apart) I let the bass beat me from the inside out. But singing out loud? with other people? That's craziness!

It was in these memories that EMDR was putting together the missing puzzle pieces.  I realized that friend that I hadn't seen in so long.. that friend, was me. When I joined the choir thinking it was just something fun to do it was actually opening the doors to a new wave of healing. Of bringing back the pieces of me that got trapped in that vault of memories. She shoved her way to the front, no longer to be silent, and with her she brought musical joy!  Honestly when I first started singing with the choir I thought to myself, umm... that sounds terrible. Maybe my voice is too far gone to sing anymore. Then I remembered that there were vocal warmups on youtube. I would play those videos in my car on the way to choir practice and warm up my voice. Then I started doing it on non choir days. I found myself singing just for the heck of it and having fun. Again.. What was happening? 

When I think about this  Christmas Eve and my tears that fell like heavy raindrops, I was grieving him, but I was grieving me too. Grieving the parts of me I lost, the parts of me I left behind, and the parts of me that felt lost without a choir to sing in. I was reminded of something my therapist had said to me. Its that my past and my present are colliding together. I was doing something for me that didn't involve me giving myself away. Its that I am learning how to fill my own cup of joy. Even in the midst of chaos.  

 When I think of Pete I smile. Its not always sad. Its laughter too. I share his life, his legacy, his silly jokes, and the heart of who he was and is.   I take heart in knowing that I am healing so many parts of myself.  its the parts of me with him, the parts of me without him, the parts of me as a wife and mother now.  Its still hard to sing. Even in these weeks since my revelations. there is a shyness I didn't have before. I often found myself hiding behind the stronger voices in the choir. I didn't want to be seen. Whether it has more to do with my own fear of not being on pitch or just being shy from sharing my song with the wrong people and being burned because of it.  Either way I know that I am realizing that music in all its forms is healing.

 For now slowly but surely I will allow music to fill my home, my heart, and my voice once again.  I realize now that when the time is right those memories that were once gone will find their way to the surface once again. That Pete is still singing and embraces me with his angel wings. I will take comfort in knowing and feeling that music is laughter, music is love in unexpected places, music is in the family and woman I am now. But its also allowing the music that started with Pete, died with Pete, and was reborn again because of the songs that once again live in me. 

                 

Karaoke night                                             Choir night                                   

                                                                                 

   *Like We Never Loved at All  (Pete and I singing to tiny Aryanna)

       Tim McGraw & Faith Hill 

Its a heartbreaking song and yet Pete had great harmony. So it worked. If you listen to the lyrics there are questions that we as humans will usually ask our loved ones if they still feel. 

On a side note I sang this in my car the other day. I made it thru the whole thing as I felt Pete's presence in the passenger seat beside me.