trigger

I know that, when I am feeling tired, things arise that don’t bother doing so when I am not. I have learned this over many decades, not to fix on any choices, opinions, nor decisions when feeling tired, angry or hurt. It’s as if a mind, so clear and engaged with daily life falls into super-tired and then goes deeply weird. Sometimes, most times, the whatever that finds a way into the within of an already compromised state takes on the efficiency and the focus of a drone, with no empathy, no emotive colour nor depth, no ability to connect beyond its own directive. I was going to write that it feels like finding myself in a small space with a whole nest of angry wasps, but, although there is something of that, it isn’t quite the truth. It’s more as if the whole terrain changes, one I trusted, was sure of, my footing securely supported, all my thoughts lining up like good wee scouts, my inner team.

With all of that gone, the troublemakers come in like missiles, like drones, laden with regrets and recriminations. The trigger can be something someone says that swipes a person right back to childhood; could be a moment in time, long long past; could be a choice made in a different time that still troubles up in a bad dream. For me, it’s listening to an audio book today, feeling tired. Although the book is fun and engaging and brilliantly written and spoken, one of the characters has a husband with dementia. She knows it, we who listen know it, even the husband knows it, but he floats in an out of reality. Because the writer has obviously experienced this situation, even distantly, the theatre is accurate enough to take me back to so much of the real situation.

However, I have read acres of books on dementia. They do sadden me, but only at a distance. I was there and for many years. The grief for a strong and heretofore upright, impossible, infuriating, figure of importance and value as they lose their grip, their hold on reality, their control of self, begins way before death. Way, way before. We know it, all the family knows it, all friends know it, neighbours, shopkeepers, anyone and everyone. However, and here’s the bit that got me in this audio book, the man, the gentle, bright, strong and loving man who caught this awful disease, also knows it and chooses to talk to his wife about his feelings of fear, of sadness, of loss.

I never had that. That’s not a poor me thing, nor written with blame in my keyboard tapping, but I can feel, like a punch in my heart, how wonderful it could have been to cry together, to talk, to hold, to share. Perhaps, and I would say this to another who told me just this, it was just the way it was for you and him. There’s hurt in there, an unintended rejection, and maybe an acceptance.

Sunshine and warmth spins me. I love it, long for it, especially this season, but when it comes, lifting light and freedomwild, I can suddenly feel like I’m on a swivel stick, confused emotions dinging around as if all my road signs have turned on me. I can’t explain it better. I just know there is a yearning on such days. Opportunity is out there, loud and lustrous, but my feet are fettered. I will walk, and I do, but the walk is singular, when once it was something I wanted, but rarely achieved. I tweak and dead-head and weed and clear, but it doesn’t bring me the Good Job response I seek. As the sun, warm and wonderful, captures the sky, moving from blinding light to a red resolve, I watch it. It’s as if sunshine needs sharing. Look at the way those yellow flowers rise, butter bright, see the way gulls white up, rising above the incoming tide! See those roses, their response to the sun, the tips of my too-long grass quivering in excitement. See this, see that? I want to say all this, but it’s just me here.

What shall we do tonight, he used to say on these rare sunshine days. Let’s go out for dinner, and we did, booking late, dressing up, a sunshine excitement running like fire through our bodies and minds. And we laughed as the sun visors came down, as the sunlight sparkled off flutes of fizz, anticipation electrifying. It never mattered that tomorrow a summer storm was forecast, nor that he would be out in it, searching for whales, dolphins, porpoise, safe landings. This sunshine day was all that mattered. But that was then, and it thinks me.

When we have had happy times, great experiences, we don’t forget. We will, eventually, accept their place in our past, but when a. trigger triggers, it all comes overwhelmingly back and we need to employ juxtaposition. I had this and now I don’t. I had this in spades and now I don’t. To accept this is like volunteering for extra latin classes, but it needs to be done if a person wants to move on richly, and I do. However many times sunshine days confound and upend me, I know that I did have what I had. I still don’t know how to accept the loss, perhaps because sunshine days are as rare as Kyawthuite up here in the chilly wet Western Stick Out islands. I allow myself that. If triggers comes daily, they are more sortable. The random ones less so. But I will work on this. Everyone feels loss, everyone, and, hopefully, most of the everyones out there will notice, react, consider and make changes for personal support the next time the trigger triggers.

The Pierris reds up wild. The sea-loch skin is beautifully scarred by geese families, en traverse. The ancient pines dangle red oxide cones, backlit as the sun catches them in its downward bright. Shadows lengthen, change, shift. The sun-followers begin to close their petals, and I have linguine to cook as I remember those sunshine days, the ones where I was an active and dynamic part, and I am so very thankful.