Hell week

Last week was tough. In fact, I think one of the toughest I've had in a decade. Not only was I under a crippling workload, but a crippling personal loss fell right in the middle of it -- I lost a cherished member of my extended family. I won't write about her, because she was deeply private -- in the end not even wanting to share her deathbed with any but those whom she felt absolutely needed to see her close her eyes for the last time in order for them to be able to carry on. But I will note that I spent a couple of days last week not only struggling to meet a more complex series of deadlines than I've had to face for quite some time while also forcing back tears. It's funny how, with practice, I've learned a little about controlling strong emotions, venting them in measured quantities, learning how to push them into the recesses of my mind until I have the opportunity to face them. I spent some time last week alternating between getting on with things and closing my door to cry. That's something I don't think I could have managed ten years ago, and I'm not sure whether my being able to do it now is a good or a bad thing. It seems on balance to be a good thing to understand how one's emotions can take a grip on one's actions and to prevent that when necessary, but it also feels as though something has been lost. Even if it represents a maturity I never had before, a self-restraint bred of a deeper understanding of how the different parts of my mind are put together, it is an understanding that has been honed through many years of loss and disappointment. It may be a kind of progress, but it is also a reminder of how far along the path I've travelled, with the end now more closely in sight than the beginning -- though hopefully only slightly. Now if I could just bend that path into a different shape, a circle perhaps, I'd be in even better shape. I wonder if that's how my beloved Jan, lying in the caress of my brother, saw things last week. I hope so.