I'm still trying to joke. And for now, as I feel sad about Tracy no longer being with us, it feels weird to do that. Is it appropriate? Am I reacting badly?
Difficulties and flat-out trauma do a number on having a sense of humor. I remember the days and weeks post-9/11, how weird and uncomfortable it felt to laugh about anything. I've had feelings that echo those feelings these past few days. On top of that, of course, there's the need to function out in the world: get out to see people, as I did yesterday, get to work, as I did today, and do the mental math of Who should I tell what happened? Who should know? Who doesn't need to? And part of that functioning is to stay as Me as I can. Which partly means joking, joking as well as I can.
I miss her. I hate knowing that whatever jokes I make now, Tracy won't see. Any thoughts I have, joking and serious, she won't be here to hear. Because her mental noise became too great.
This was a little difficult to write. I don't know if I'm expressing this well, or well enough.
...As for functioning, today I got to work. I did work, plenty of it. I was ready, if needed, to tell at least a bit of why I was in this mood: if I needed to say "I got bad news on Friday," I was ready to. (I didn't have to.) I dealt with the logistics of moving cars, and with the mid-30s temps Portland had this morning (with wind on top of that), and eating, and getting to my breaks at a manageable time. And getting to the train and the bus home at manageable times.
I got through today. Maybe I got through it as well as I could have. Maybe.
We'll see about tomorrow. And I want to see tomorrow.