grief

The “moving” in Moving On


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I have been thinking, well more than that really, about moving to be with my boyfriend.

He lives in Canada and I had planned to spend the summer with him anyway, but he would like me to just come up with my daughter and stay. It is an idea with many things going for it. Primary is that I love him and want to be with him, but there are secondary benefits as well. It would force me to get serious about what I want to do career-wise. He tells me he is okay with taking care of me and my daughter, so I don’t necessarily need to have a job lined up before I come up. I don’t know how I feel about that.

Perplexed really.

I have worked near continuously since I was 15 years old. Even though I know women who do the stay at home thing, I never really imagined myself doing that. I could write. There is a writing program at the university in Edmonton. I could take a class. Work on my writing. That novel I know is in me. K would be in school half days and I would have time. Staying at home, I don’t know. He asked me, what I think, was an important question last night.

Am I changing just to please him?

I have talked about learning to cook. We were talking about doing laundry which led to the inevitable ironing that I basically choose to ignore. Would I cook if it weren’t for him? Iron? I don’t enjoy cooking now but there was a time when, even though I wouldn’t have called it fun, I did it. For my daughter’s sake more than anything, I know I need to start doing it again. And I do iron when I need to. I just don’t see the need very often and I doubt much that would change (and truthfully, I have never been able to iron dress shirts properly. Memories of my mother’s pursed lips as she inspected my attempts are not buried too deeply in my mind).

There is a lot that needs to be done before I can go and live with him though. I wonder if we are being realistic about the time table. I felt more confident, too, before I told an old friend the other night about what I was planning. She rained pretty heavily on the parade. Some of her concern was unwarranted and based on the fact that I have delibrately kept some people out the the inner loop of my life in the past 6 months, but she made a few points.

It would be easier to do this I think were it not for the scary times of the last few years. They have made me crave safety more than I have in the past. I am still a little fragile though getting better. And then there is my daughter. There is this tremendous sense of responsibility and need to protect her from…..well….everything, and I know it is not realistic. I can’t make life perfect and risk free for her, and I know her well enough to know that what is most important for her is that I be in a place where I am happy. Her happiness mainly derives from mine right now.

There is still a lot to think about, plan and do.

More Than Friends


A couple dating in a cafe.

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You get to this point where dating is more than the work it really is anyway and despite the fact that you are creating new definitions for the word lonely on a hourly basis, you just quit. But the need to connect with someone of the opposite gender is not one that is easily vanquished so you end up in these rather odd friendships with widowerers. You message with them on the YWBB site or you move into emails or IMing.

And there is nothing romantic about it but it is not entirely innocent either because neither of you is used to playing coy or being circumspect anymore and it isn’t long until you are looking too forward to the time you “spend” with this other person.

I had two such friendships. One that is over by mutual agreement.

The second is becoming something else. By mutual agreement.

And I have to admit that I am happy about that. I should be frightened really and sometimes I want to just tell him that. That this is really scary and that I would rather just be “just friends” again, but I don’t. Don’t tell him that. Don’t want to be just his friend. Don’t have any idea of what is propelling me onward in this aside from a need to know him.

Since the week before Christmas when we first began to communicate, I have received 128 emails from him. We IM every night now and talk for hours past the late night into the early morning hours on the weekends.

Two weeks from tomorrow I will see him in person for the first time. It is strange to have these overwhelming feelings for someone I have never been in the same room with. Not even the same country with. There are all these questions. Like why would anyone so wonderful be so concerned about me? Will I get shy and tongue-tied when I see him? Will it be as easy to talk to him when I am looking in his eyes? What will his arms around me feel like? How will I ever be able to hold everything I think and feel back when there is nothing in between us anymore? When does more than friends become more than that?

Meltdowns


Meltdown is a rather apt term for what happens when all the problems of life coalesce and rise up like a tsunami, sweeping away the carefully crafted facade and barriers that allow the grieving to function in the world at large. There is no warning for a meltdown.

Bottomfeeding lows, as I call them, are felt days, and weeks even, off. The irritability and hypersensivity that evenutally give way to a distracted out of body feeling, the insomnia which is more annoying than panic-inducing, the tears that stop at the back of the throat..most of the time.

The meltdown stalks quietly on the heels of lows. It waits for that something extra. A trigger that is new, so it’s still sharp and cuts deeper than the dull blades you’ve become accustomed to.

I had a meltdown this last Friday night. I should have suspected it was coming. I had been feeling way too damn good for someone closing in on the first anniversary of her husband’s death.

Good being relative it should be understood.

I seriously doubt anyone but me would think that a week and a half of killer insomnia (not the usual barely five hours a night but the wicked head-kicking 3 or less stuff) and a near thought paralysis constitutes a good week. However, given the circumstances I was pretty happy that this was all that was wrong.

It started last Friday when I read an obituary in the paper for my friend Meg’s father-in-law. He had a stroke before Christmas and hadn’t really recovered. I knew the reason I was reading about it instead of hearing it from her was that she didn’t want to feel I needed to come to the visitation, and truthfully, I really didn’t need to, but I did need to.

Does that make sense?

It was as much to show support for people who are as near to family as you can get without making it legal and also to jump a first hurdle.

Firsts are those things that haven’t occurred since before your spouse died and vary according to the individual.

My first after Will died was Valentine’s Day. Not a terribly important holiday for us and so it passed with only mild trepidation and discomfort on my part, but it seems that the last first of the first year without him would be a visitation. It was hard but less so than if it had been someone I knew well and loved…like say my father who is quite ill with a progressively terminal illness.

It was one of the worse meltdowns I have had in a while. Since I have had two more. I am sleeping less, as impossible as that sounds.

I feel like I did the week he died. As though I might hit the floor at any moment. Worse though I am driving everyone crazy with my craziness. Almost as though I am daring them to turn their back on me.

The last thing I want. I lost my “friend” too. Pushed him too hard. But he is somewhere I can’t go right now even though I would like to. Even though I know it could never last. So, I think it is time to pull back. Retreat and hole up. Rest up.

I think there is more coming.