Today was Tuesday. My day was to consist of taking Gary to his day care, going to a breakfast meeting with my team and then to a normal day of meetings. Right before I walked to the garage, I picked up the new cd delivered yesterday and popped it in my car recorder to add to my collection. John Denver Live.....wow, I'm not sure if it was a blessing or a mistake.
As John's smooth voice accompanied Gary and I down the hill from our house and through Anaheim, Gary sang along to "Rocky Mountain High", "Country Roads" and "Poems, Prayers and Promises". He never saw the tears running down my face, but just kept singing. I was experiencing total melancholy. I knew it and tried to connect with the true emotion coursing through my veins. I identified it as grief for having lost the man I married, grief for my former life as a College President for Heald, and shock of a new job, team and home. Some of the music I so relate to growing up in the 70s and 80s at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia. There is always solace in the valley where I was raised. I was homesick for Virginia, for Sacramento, for Panama and for what "used to be".
I don't think my melancholy and grief have any correlation to my new life. I am blessed to have one of the best Executive Director positions on the West Coast. I have great new team and live in a wonderful place with loving family. The two situations are just very different and both very real.
Dementia has changed my life. Politics have changed the professional side of my life. There is a reason for it all. I know God has a plan.
As my day unfolded very differently than originally planned, I was shaken from my melancholy by a wonderful opportunity to join an executive meeting with the owner of our company and some other upper level, high thinking executives. I had to be "on" and I've learned enough over the years to compartmentalize those emotions and perform.
During the meeting and later in the day, I was missing being able to pick up the phone and share my day with Gary. He just can't understand an in-depth conversation anymore, much less empathize with any complex situation. I miss him so much. He is my partner. Or he was.....the man that is here is very sweet and I am blessed that he is happy. High maintenance, but happy.
Melancholy is real but I refuse to let it interfere with my performance.
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