Flirting with vertigo.

(How much to care?)

I am a single parent and I’m not sure how to feel about it.

Let me explain what I mean by that.

It boils down to the fact that how it feels and how to feel about it are not the same thing.

I am entirely sure how it feels. Of course I am. Of course I know what it feels like to have single parent status abruptly thrust upon me. I lost my wife, and my daughters lost a wonderful mother. We know what it’s like to have our noses rubbed in unwanted emotions. There is not a lot that we can do about it. In our household “How are you?” is not the habitual, superficial, emotional-muscle-memory conversation-starter that it is for most people and used to be for us.

I can’t help what I feel.

The issue is how to feel about the what? How deeply should the what be felt? Maybe I can help that.

I have given some considerable thought to the subject of feelings in the nine months since my wife died. My feelings and I are very much in touch with each other.

And the mere existence of a phrase like “I’m not sure how to feel” suggests that I do indeed have some say in the matter. And I guess I do, to a degree at least. Perhaps there is a degree of control to be exercised in respect of how deeply the what is felt.

It’s like these black feelings are drip fed into a vein via a cannula and there’s a valve on the tube that allows me to control the rate of flow.

Most of the time the will power and the coping mechanisms required to exercise this control are applied to mute, suppress and ideally avoid the bad feelings. Life must go on for my daughters and I, and these feelings have to coexist with the actions required to move forward and make it through another day.

But sometimes the temptation to take your finger out of the emotional dyke can be great. It takes so much damned effort to hold these feelings at bay. It can be exhausting.

The sirens sing that it will be a blessed relief to stop holding back for a while and just give myself to it.

So sometimes I open the door to self pity.

(It’s like the vampire that needs to be invited in.)

I can’t afford to surrender myself completely. Going over the edge is not an option.

But sometimes I flirt with the vertigo.

We tried scuba diving on holiday over the summer. Our instructor described various experiences from his diving career, including the eerie feeling of swimming out over the edge of an ocean shelf. The water black beneath him. Conflicting feelings of fear and liberation. Fighting back the panic and not allowing himself to be drawn into the depths by the alien gravity of the abyss.

Self pity is a lot like that. It is tempting sometimes to flirt with the abyss. To swim out over the edge and float above the blackness. The secret is to wallow but not succumb.