dating a widower in LDR

Two More Sleeps


Sleep

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We measure our time apart by the number of nights we must sleep alone and not snuggled comfortably together. As I write this, we are but two singular nights from each other’s arms and legs in a relaxing tangle of flesh.

 

Ten days together. As a couple. As a family. It’s almost harder to wait the closer it gets.

 

When we are apart, we both sometimes indulge ourselves in re-reading emails and old IM conversations. For some reason I remembered a poem that Rob wrote for me just before our first Valentine’s this year. I had discovered he could speak French.

 

J’aspire à jour où

je peux vous prendre

dans des mes bras et

couvrir votre visage

de baisers.

Un jour bientôt

assez pas bientôt.

 

Two more sleeps.

 

 

It is What it is


Bruce Lee wall painting. Tbilisi, Georgia

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“Take things as they are. Punch when you have to punch. Kick when you have to kick.” – Bruce Lee

 

Rob has this saying that he uses to explain, qualify, quantify and generally achieve a zen state about nearly all things that are beyond his reach and control. “It is what it is.” I have to admit the path to Nirvana is not as cut and dried for me. I have a difficult time just leaving things alone even when all I can really do is worry about it.

 

Back in the last month or two before the first anniversary of Will’s death, I had this nagging feeling that something “wicked this way comes”. I called this feeling “the other shoe” as in “waiting for the other shoe to drop”. I am not unique in this anxiety ridden state of being. It’s common among the widowed. Common among most survivors of tragedy in general I would venture to guess. When you have lived through one of the worst things you could ever possibly imagine happening, no matter how fervently you hope for better days…..believe in their eventuality even…..you cannot help but fear the future a little. It hasn’t smiled too widely on your recent past after all. After a while I came to understand that this feeling I would get was nothing more than the grief alerting me to the passing of another milestone or “first” without Will. It was what it was, I guess. But even all these months later, and the ample opportunities life as provided for practice purposes, I am still not over the need to try and control circumstances through action. Pre-emption even when possible. I can’t let things just be what they are. I need to fix or explain or something. A side-effect of care-taking? Something inborn? My teacher side? I don’t know.

 

It’s turned me into something of a risk taker. Even while I was trying to shore up the crumbling sand castle that was my life, I was taking tremendous chances. Changing teaching assignments two years ago when I knew that the end was near for Will and I would be in a new situation without my established support network. Going back to get my masters when Will was first sick even. Tossing aside fair-weather friendships because I didn’t think their occasional help and support was worth the emotional strain. Completely changing the terms of my relationships with family and in-laws for much the same reason. The whole dating thing when I clearly wasn’t ready. And, of course, Rob – who turned out to be the least risky of all my leaps of faith.

 

I am asked all the time how I am feeling about leaving for Canada to be with Rob. Am I worried? Am I scared? Am I sure?

 

I worry about the details because that is who I am: a water rabbit. I am scared of crossing the border because Immigration is an authority unto itself. But, I have rarely been this sure of who I am, where I am going and what I want.

 

It is what it is. Just kick when you need to and punch when necessary.

#500


Rob sent me email number 500 this afternoon. At number 499 he asked me if I wanted anything special included in the next one. I replied that I wanted “just you” because I haven’t seen him since he and his younger daughter, Mick, left for the airport very early on the Monday after Easter. Though that is only 18 days ago, there is no “only” when you are apart from the man you love. His reply, #500, was “short and sweet” and included a photo he had taken of himself with his cellphone camera in the parking lot of the plant where he works. He had taken my request literally. The photo was captioned “just me”.

500 emails. And those are just the ones he has sent to me. You might ask, “He counts the number of emails he sends you?” He’s an engineer but in his defense, I started it. The counting, I mean. I think I mentioned it in a post to the YWBB board in a futile attempt to explain, yet again, that it is possible to get to know someone via email/letters and as an example recounted the number of messages we had already sent each other. That will teach me to start a quantifying contest with someone who has a latent Dilbert streak in him.

I will be a little sad when the daily emails stop. They have become an integral part of my day. But I am ready to trade my morning greeting on the computer screen for strong arms around me, soft kisses and a fuzzy chest to lay my head.