Tears In Traffic

Grief and anxiety collide in a week of real reflection

Well, it feels like it’s been forever since I sat down to throw something a little more reflective together. I have come to the opinion that these pieces are better when they “write themselves,” so to speak. It offers me a level of congruence that I feel is suppressed with academic writing—and most definitely lost when I force a topic (this never ends well!). That’s not to say that the effort is reduced on my part, more just that it tends to offer an honest reflection of my own experiences with something, as opposed to something a little more manufactured.

The ecology of this reflection has a somewhat biographical nature, as I guess most reflections do when we come to think of it. For me, it started with a drive home on a Monday morning and ended seven full days later, late into Monday night, approaching an hour that would make Cinderella nervous. In fact, as the night crossed over into the waiting day and I dragged myself to bed, full in the knowledge that upon awaking I would be welcomed with the standard seasonal January morning, I couldn’t help but feel like the clouds had cleared somewhat. And in fact, as I type this, looking out at the cold 24 hours later, I am still embraced in the warmth of my reflections.

I find myself exploring the ideas of grief quite a lot recently, not that this is something that I have a voice on, and that being because I believe it’s such an individual experience for all involved—something I’m coming to realise as I go through the journey myself. Yet there is one thing I feel it’s okay to address without encroaching too much on the experience of others, and that’s that grief is a funny old thing. It ebbs and flows like the rising tide. One minute you are going about your daily business—next thing you’re cross-legged on the floor, deep in existential crisis.

For me, it’s often music that sets things off. There is something in the power of music that has rightfully given it the ability to really enhance the emotional state. Think about it: no matter the reason, be that your perfect workout track, the ’90s dance banger, or even that classic breakup album, music simply has the ability to move you in ways that offer no recognisable way of measuring. My own journey doesn’t escape this, as one may think with understanding the concept somewhat—however, it is an unfamiliar space to me, unique and fluid, and thus needs to be approached in this way. Needless to say, when my senses are operating from a heightened state, one wrong—or indeed right, depending on your outlook—and I lose it.

This normally happens in the car for me, and I know that this may garner a little backlash, and I certainly would never categorise myself in this way for anything else, but I’m kind of your stereotypical bloke in that way. The worst thing is I even understand all of the negative implications of suppressing your feelings and not talking. I also know the reasons that one may employ such tactics; for me, this mainly sits along the lines of hiding a sense of vulnerability—this being recognisable in my comfort in controlling my direct environment. Now, although this is a defence mechanism that I could argue is deployed to keep me safe, every now and then something breaches the lines and opens the way for those emotions to escape their tightly monitored fortress.

There is simply no logic to it either… a thought, memory, smell—in fact, it’s all fair game when grief is involved. So I apologise if you’re driving around the roads of Lancashire, find yourself at a set of lights, glance over to the motorist next to you, only to find a nearly (that bit is important) middle-aged man crying into his lap, all whilst tapping his steering wheel and singing country music terribly—it’s not a welcoming sight. I genuinely must look psychotic.

At the start of this article, I mentioned the fact that this has been a week-long journey—what I failed to mention was that it has been accompanied, or even quite possibly sparked, by a slow-rolling anxiety attack. I’m new to the world of anxiety; however, I’m quite quick to recognise when these feelings are bubbling, yet this one was a little sneakier than the usual ones. Actually, if I’m honest, I didn’t see this one coming at all. Yet, as anybody who has experienced anxiety knows, true to form, one minute I was singing along to a country classic, the next I was a blubbering mess, anxiety and grief rolling together like a whole whirlwind of emotion.

We all deal with these moments differently; I personally completely malfunction. I shut down and start to over-focus on elements of my life I control, and as much as that sounds productive, it’s not. What it actually looks like is me sporting an oversized hoodie, hood up, compulsively mopping the floor, all whilst trying to hide the fact that the idea of leaving the house makes me feel sick. It’s manic, fear-inducing, and downright horrific, often hard to recognise that it’s actually a mechanism employed to keep us safe, as it generally feels like an ever-consuming attack. But take a minute to explore that vulnerability, and we often find that our body is trying to tell us something.

It started with connecting a song to the memory of my dad whilst noticing the early signs of the pending attack. In that moment, I found myself just wishing I could discuss the pressure I was feeling with him. I never witnessed anxiety in my father, and I guess this has imprinted a sense of reasoning into his character for me. And not that I really think he ever truly understood my position, he certainly always had a way of delivering me some sort of clarity. It’s funny, really—I never noticed the vital role my father played with regard to my emotional stability; however, now he’s not on hand, I find myself seeking his voice on everything.

There are days when I recognise his tone in everything, yet days when I struggle to remember his sarcastic yet well-intended tones. I find myself wanting to ask him if I’m doing okay. Ask him if we ever really get it right as a parent. I want his opinions on the news, my publications, my grades, and strangely enough, the one thing that always sought to bring much conflict when he was alive—my often terrible life decisions (in my defence, I make some good ones too!).

It’s a strange feeling, as I never realised how much his opinion played an impact on how I felt about myself. Actually, when I think of it, I spent so much of my life arguing against his position; however, in the later years, and after forging many alliances between our viewpoints, I would often seek his input on most aspects of my life—even if this often led to much debate.

As the week evolved and my anxiety increased, I found myself noticing that every little thing reminded me of him. It’s a strange symptom of grief that is often linked to the manner in which we assign our memories to our experiences—and although it’s quite a sad space, it also provides a space for remembering my father in his purest form. I’ve come to realise that I do hear my dad, yet it’s not from an audible sense. I hear him in my mother when she makes comments about leaving the kitchen light on. I hear him in myself when I’m stressing at the kids for leaving the front door open. I even hear him singing along in the car with me, as I have him to thank for my taste in music.

The more I reflect on the idea, the more I have come to realise that when I take a minute to sit and listen, I can identify his voice in everything that I do, every word that I say, and every decision that I make (the good and the bad).

One would have thought that this mixture of anxiety and grief would be a toxic combination, and in most cases, I would say it probably would be. Yet, for myself on this occasion, it proved to be extremely powerful. Upon recognising what I was experiencing for both of the phenomena, I managed to create a space where I could inadvertently gain his opinion on the pressures that were bringing me such cognitive discomfort. My logic was rather simplistic, yet turned out to be extremely profound in this moment—you see, upon recognising his voice everywhere, I came to the thought that if I listened with real intention, I would find my answers in the same place.

This past week has shown me that in those times when I question if I’m getting it right all the time, if I listen attentively, I can hear him asking me if I’m trying to the best of my ability. He would ask me if I can accept my mistakes, and what I have learned from them. When it comes to my concerns with parenting, he would assure me that he was not perfect; however, his intentions were always delivered with beneficence. And when it comes to surviving and navigating this bat-shit crazy world… well, even if I didn’t know it at the time, he spent his life arming me with the morals and the skills to do so with valour—even if it often felt like he was simply pecking my head.

My week-long journey was transformative, yet painful, although it did come to an end in a rather lovely manner. I needed to take a video off my phone and load it onto the computer. Struggling with this, I decided to log into my iCloud account on the laptop. Having never done this before, this was not only a new experience but also one that has opened the door to some new opportunities for further reflections. Not really understanding this mysterious invisible cloud that we all send our data to, I hadn’t realised that I had managed to save some videos to it that I had simply forgotten I had ever taken.

I have vowed to take the time to look through all of my lost memories, as there are about 6,000 photos and 350 videos that I had managed to hide from myself. This is a task I’m both looking forward to and dreading in equal measures; however, I’m confident in the knowledge that it will offer me plenty more opportunities to explore those lost memories and experiences.

Amongst the plethora of videos that I found hidden in this mysterious cloud was one of the last videos I have of my father before his illness truly took hold. Imagine my response to finding this video after a full week of searching in the strangest of places—how happy I was to finally hear it again, sharing this beautiful moment with my daughter.