Grieving Ourselves: Losing the Person We Used to Be

I've written before about being analytical and always having been pretty good at understanding cause and effect. You would hope that is the case given two engineering degrees, working as an engineer for several years, and then transitioning to a global Supply Chain and Operational Excellence consultant. If I hadn't been good at cause and effect, I would not have been in those jobs very long.

However, I have also written about when the wheels came off for me after my trip home in the spring of 2021. When I returned from that trip and suddenly had severe issues with anxiety and depression, I had no idea which of the several possible causes, or factors, were truly to blame, but ultimately had to accept the fact that, in reality, it did not matter.

For someone like me—someone who literally had a 100% for the term in the logic course I took as an undergrad (and you don't really know me yet, but up until that point in school I had majored in athletics and women and was not getting A's)—my logical brain hurts when there is no definitive answer. Not unlike when relationships end and I don't know why. My brain becomes like a computer stuck in an infinite loop trying to figure it out.

Well, that is what it's been like trying to figure out the anxiety.

Plus, does the anxiety make me depressed, or does being depressed make me anxious?

From logic class, if A = B and B = C, then A = C.

Why can't everything that has been happening over the past five years be like that?

Simple answer...

It can't.

Now fast-forward to today, and here is our next problem to be solved.

Are the issues I am dealing with now the result of anxiety, depression, or aging?

I wish I knew.

As you may have read in A Scarf by Any Other Name, we lost my mother at the end of last July. The night before my birthday, to be specific. And yes, her upcoming anniversary—and yet another birthday without her—are definitely making me anxious and a bit depressed, but that is not why I bring this up here.

I bring it up because one of the many phrases my mother used often as she got older was, "Aging is not for sissies."

I know she wasn't the first person to utter those words—George Burns on Carson comes to mind—but she certainly uttered them often, and I have definitely felt that over the past five years. While I still do not think aging is to blame for many of the mental and physical issues that have come up during that time, I also know it doesn't help.

My time with Jack Lemley while writing his biography, my neighbor Marge, who used to walk by my house on a regular basis, plus many others I have known in their late seventies and eighties, have shown me that aging is not fun.

But what the anxiety has taken, I think, is much more severe.

Just prior to my trip home five years ago, when I literally decided one night to get in my car the next day and drive home to see my mother and father before it was too late, I had replaced my patio roof after a storm mangled the cheap, old tin one that had been there before.

I took the old one apart by myself.

I designed, estimated, and then laid out the big, beautiful new wood roof I was going to replace it with.

I pre-cut and pre-painted all the joists.

I built a thirty-three-foot-long 2 × 12 carrying beam by myself.

I dug footings and put up four notched 4 × 4 posts.

I put the beam in place myself.

I installed the rafters, tied them into the roof, and then put the red metal roof over the top.

I'm pretty sure we could land a helicopter on this thing if we had to.

Well...

Maybe not.

But suffice it to say I was very pleased with the result, and it has now been through many storms without budging.

There are two problems with the story above.

I have never been able to finish the roof the way I originally intended.

And now, when I sit underneath it, or swing in the hammock attached between the two center posts, I look up at that roof and have no idea how I did it.

More importantly...

I know there is no way I could do it now.

Looking at it and thinking about doing it now makes me instantly anxious.

Writing about it right now is doing the same.

Unfortunately, much of my life is like that now.

I tried, a couple of years after that trip, to repeat it. After getting everything packed and the house ready, I headed east but only made it as far as Twin Falls, roughly two hours away.

I don't like to cook anymore.

When I try to make things I used to be good at, most of the time they don't come out anything like they should, and half the time I can't even get myself to try.

Last year at this time, when the heat got bad in Boise, I made a couple of trips to Sun Valley to escape it.

Now, just thinking about making that drive overwhelms me.

During the peak of my consulting days, I flew somewhere every week, and some weeks to multiple "somewheres." I once flew from Zürich to San Francisco to present at a conference, attend a dinner, meet Brandi Chastain, who happened to be the guest speaker, ask her to sign a poster for my little sister, sleep for a few hours, and then fly back to Zürich the next morning.

Last summer, when I was trying to get home to say goodbye to my mother, the anxiety became so bad that I almost couldn't get on the connecting flight in San Francisco.

I grew up in construction and later became a civil engineer.

I used to love job sites.

Now, if I walk or drive by one, I get a brief flash of fond memories...

...and then I immediately become anxious.

Sad.

Full of grief.

I could go on with dozens more examples, but what it comes down to is that the anxiety—and perhaps the depression, with a little aging thrown in—has made me a completely different person.

While I am certain that some of those changes—the ego, the overconfidence, always believing I was right—are probably good changes (at least I'm sure my sisters would say so), losing so much of the rest of who I was has been very much like grieving the sudden loss of a very dear friend or family member.

The hardest part isn't that I can't do these things anymore.

It's that I still remember exactly what it felt like when I could.

Not being fully aware that I was grieving has made all of this doubly difficult.

I wasn't just grieving the people I had lost.

I was grieving the person I had been.

This has been an interesting journey, and writing about these different aspects has definitely helped. I also think it has helped with the "unpacking" that has been going on.

We lost my father and my mother roughly three years apart, and I'm confident that if my math is wrong, my sisters will let me know.

But if I look at the timeline...

Drive home to see the family.

Return to Boise.

Begin having severe anxiety.

Go through the Wells Fargo layoff as call center operations are moved offshore.

Fly home to say goodbye to Pops.

Return home for his Celebration of Life.

Fly home again to say goodbye to Mom.

Spend time with my sisters after her passing.

Return to Boise.

That is a lot of unpacking.

But somewhere along the way, regardless of the cause, I also got to see, at least to some extent, what my father, who died of Alzheimer's, and my mother, who died of dementia, were going through.

My mother hated leaving her house.

I now have a much better understanding of why.

My father struggled for years to accept what was happening to him.

I now have a much better understanding of what he was going through.

He was grieving himself.

I wish I had any answers in what I wrote above, but as always, I share these stories in case someone going through some of what I am may read this and benefit in some small way.

I also share them on the off chance that family members, friends, and caregivers of people going through similar things might better understand—even a little—and perhaps become a bit more patient.

I can tell you with certainty that I wish I had been far more patient with my mother over the years.

I am grateful that I could be there during her last week, take her outside, hold her hand, and see her smile in the sunlight.

But I truly wish I could have been that way much, much sooner.