My first not-a-birthday

My birthday has always been a Big Deal. Not necessarily in terms of having a big party, or getting extravagant gifts, but it's always an occasion: maybe a party, maybe going out for a fabulous dinner, but it's one of the few days each year designated as a "Kathleen doesn't have to lift a finger" day.

The year I turned 50, I decided to play on American tropes about aging by creating a 30-day countdown to my fiftieth birthday on Facebook: each day was a new stereotypical "to-do" item related to aging, complete with such gems as "trade all jeans for pastel polyester slacks" and "begin referring to all technology with the prefix "the;" e.g., The Facebook, The Google, etc. I did this because I was filled with optimism for the future, and had fun with the notion that 50 was "old." It was so well-received that I made it an annual tradition for the past four years. Each year's list contained items progressively more outlandish than the previous one; it was great fun.

I'll turn 55 one month from today; there will be no countdown this year. There will be no birthday celebration this year, because there's quite literally nothing to celebrate. There will be only me, alone, wishing I were with Doug. I'll get no birthday card from my husband; I will never get a birthday card from my husband Doug (I got three of them from my boyfriend Doug, and one from my fiance Doug, but I'll never get one from my husband Doug). I'm no longer filled with optimism for the future; to the contrary, I'm filled with nothing but the desire to have no future at all, because I sure AF don't want the one to which I've been sentenced.

As of my birthday, I'll have been a widow for 132 days - six days longer than I was Doug's wife. 

I HATE - with the white-hot nuclear fire of a thousand suns - HATE that truth. I hate the truth that we'll never celebrate his birthday together as a married couple either. I am FILLED with rage that we'll never celebrate a single anniversary. I am jealous beyond reason of widow/ers who had 20, 30, 40+ years together. I know their pain is just as valid as mine. I also know that they have DECADES of memories from which to draw comfort, whereas all I have is the bitter pill that our marriage was over before it even really had the chance to begin. And I'm BEYOND jealous of happily married couples. I don't begrudge them their happiness, of course; it's simply that their happiness is a brutal, viscerally painful reminder of who and what I don't have and will never have again. How am I supposed to NOT be bitter and resentful about that?

So, no: there will be no birthday celebration. I can't imagine that there will ever be anything to celebrate again.

Which brings me to my point, which is to give you information you can use in your own life when supporting someone who's grieving: what in the actual fuck do you do to acknowledge the birthday of someone who's drowning in grief? I can only speak for myself, so I'll do that; for anybody else, I suggest you ASK what they want and then do that.

Let's start with what NOT to do: For the love of Cthulu, DO NOT WISH ME A HAPPY BIRTHDAY. If you've been paying attention AT ALL, you know that my birthday will not - CANNOT - be happy. A cheery "Happy Birthday" is going to do nothing other than make me wonder if you have always been emotionally tone deaf or if it's a new development. Seriously, people: don't do it. 

"But, Kathleen," I hear you cry, "I can't just ignore your 55th birthday! So what SHOULD I do?" 

I'm so glad you asked. Honestly, you really CAN just ignore it. As far as I'm concerned, July 1 is just another day of the life sentence I'm serving, and there's no need to do anything differently than you would on any other day. That said, if you feel as though tradition dictates that you MUST do something, do something to honor Doug: 

• Drink an Irish Car Bomb or a shot of Jack Daniels Honey in Doug's honor.
• Donate $5 (or more - more is always welcome, too) to the GoFundMe for the scholarship I plan to create in Doug's name. 
• Plant some orange marigolds in your garden (he loved those).

Every day sucks; some days suck more than others. Without a doubt, my birthday is going to suck far more than I probably even expect (and I'm expecting MAJOR suckage). Please don't make it suck even more than that by trying to cheer me up or by insisting that I celebrate a personal milestone that, quite frankly, I've been hoping since February 20 that I won't even be here to see.

Skin Hunger: not just for babies and young children

Human beings need to be touched.

Extreme loneliness can lead to chronic medical conditions (including an increased risk of Alzheimer's); it can lead to mental illness. Loneliness, in a nutshell, can kill you; it can certainly make you wish you were dead.

Remember the old "if a tree falls in the forest..." joke? Well, if a person is completely isolated, all the time, is s/he even still a person? "People" have lives; "people" have goals; "people" have relationships with people they see and talk to and hug; "people" have social lives; "people" have a reasons to live. I have none of those things, really. 

I've always believed that solitary confinement was excessively cruel; now that I'm essentially living it (albeit in 1620 sq ft rather than a prison cell), I no longer "believe" that: I FEEL it. My GOD, how can we DO THIS to people? I don't care what crime a person committed - human rights apply to ALL humans. Solitary confinement is not rehabilitative; it's not "reasonably" punitive; it's fucking INHUMANE. I've been doing this for a few months and I'm losing it; we do this to people for YEARS. I cry even harder just thinking about it.

Doug and I were very affectionate with each other, both verbally and physically. As someone who's been starved of affection for large chunks of my life, I felt his affection like a soothing bath of aloe after a bad sunburn. His touch gave me life.

And now? Now I've lost him, so my daily dose of physical and verbal affection is gone. And then a pandemic hit, which means I've lost ALL physical affection from anyone, not to mention all the traditional grief support that people usually get from friends and family. And now, society appears to be on the verge of collapse. If I had Doug, I could deal with the pandemic isolation and the constant stress of everything that's going wrong in this country. But I don't have Doug. I don't have ANYONE. I have to deal with ALL of it completely alone. Completely alone all the time, but for a few minutes on the very rare occasions when I see people in person. IT'S TOO MUCH. I don't know how much more I can take.

Missing Doug, on its own, is more than enough to make me not want to live anymore. But this total and complete isolation with no end I can see, combined with the social upheaval caused by criminals masquerading as public servants and the hatred I see directed at people protesting... it's all damn near turning me feral. That anger I've been writing about? Like my loneliness, it gets worse every day. I wanted to go to the 'I WILL BREATHE' protest in Nashville yesterday (I mean, what do I care if I expose myself to COVID-19, right? Some principles are worth dying for). I chose not to, because I am SO filled with repressed rage that I fear that anyone who sets me off might be in serious danger. I may be old, short, and fat, but do not underestimate the damage I could do with the pent-up fury bubbling just under the surface: If I start hitting something or someone, I may never be able to stop. 

How am I supposed to come up with a reason to try and live when I'm drowning in loneliness and all around me is nothing but evil and inhumanity? Yeah, I'm broken, but apparently so is the whole damn world. And that's just more heartbreak on top of the heartbreak I'm already dealing with every waking minute. When I'm not crying for Doug, I'm crying for our collective lack of humanity. 

I AM SO DESPERATELY LONELY and there's no end to it in sight. God, I wish there were words that could better describe the despair behind that statement. 

Zoom calls don't ease the loneliness. A hug won't ease the loneliness. A THOUSAND hugs won't do it. Because I'm lonely to be held, for a LONG time, by someone who knows me completely and loves me deeply. But he's dead.

I don't know how long I can hold on. Every minute feels like my insides are being ripped out of me. For the first time in my adult life, I NEED somebody to take care of me, because I can't take care of myself. I've been reduced to the emotional equivalent of an overtired toddler in the middle of an epic meltdown, screaming for my mommy to comfort me. But she's dead, too.

Human beings were not designed for this kind of isolation. I was not designed for this kind of isolation. I sure AF wasn't designed for this kind of isolation while also grieving the loss of my beloved husband AND watching the world burn. No, I wasn't designed for this at all. And I honestly don't know how much more of it I have in me. 

I'll tell you what I want; what I really, really want

TRIGGER WARNING: Very frank discussion about end of life and assisted suicide

Over the past three months, I've written a lot about what I want that I can't ever have again (Doug and our happy marriage, a life worth living, joy, happiness). I've written a lot about what I don't want (this life sentence, now with solitary confinement thanks to COVID-19). But it occurred to me this morning that I haven't written (other than the vague, "why do I have to keep living this life I don't want?" musings) about what I would do if I could do exactly what I want given that Doug's gone. 

Ideally, what I would love is to choose to exit this life - gracefully, with medical assistance (to make sure it happens quickly and with no goofs). Why?

For starters, it would remove all sense of desperation, because I would know that I can exit stage left on my own terms, with proper medical assistance. It would motivate me to do the things I need to do to get my affairs in order, get the house in shape to put it on the market, and plan. It would mean a peaceful - rather than traumatic or bitter drawn-out ending. It would allow me to say goodbye to my family, and even have them present if they want to be. It would allow me to be an organ donor. It would mean peace of mind. And that peace of mind might actually lead to staying around longer than the year or two it would probably take to do all that work and planning, because just knowing that the option is there may take some of the wind out of the sails of desire (forbidden fruit, and all that, right?).

If I were living in Belgium, I could do just that.

But not here in the States. Nope; here, my options are as follows:

1. Hope to die in my sleep (I've done that every night since February 20, and it hasn't worked yet).
2. Try to find some way to take myself out that is guaranteed to work and be painless (and as there are no methods that fit both criteria, that's out - and believe me, I've done the research).
3. Continue to live this not-a-life, continue being miserable, and continue making everyone around me miserable until I finally die an old, bitter woman who will be missed by exactly no one because I will have already been dead LONG before the end finally comes.
4. TRY to live again, only to face a new wave of wanting to get the hell off this plane of existence every time life shoots me down (which I now know that it will, every goddamn time I find a SLIVER of happiness [source: my almost 55 years of experience in this shitty life]).

Doesn't Belgium's model make far more sense? Isn't that infinitely better than the trauma of suicide, or watching me slowly die and become progressively more hateful and bitter over the next couple of decades?

Look, I'm not clinically depressed, whatever you may want to think. I have a history of anxiety, that's true - but not clinical depression. I AM depressed, but I'm depressed because my life circumstances rather require it and not because of a biochemical, medical issue. Frankly, I'd think it odd if I DIDN'T feel life was no longer worth living after losing the love of my life. This isn't an impulsive desire: it's the result of many hours of thinking and analyzing and contemplating what's realistic for me. It's a perfectly rational recognition that my life is no longer worth living, and will not ever be worth living again. I'm not some impulsive teenager who just got dumped by her boyfriend; I'm not a long-time sufferer of clinical depression with a brain telling me things that are patently untrue. What I am is barely ten years away from being a senior citizen, with zero hope of ever again having a life that I deem worth living. I LOVED sharing my life with Doug. I DO NOT WANT to live WITHOUT sharing my life; a life without him means no inside jokes, no true intimacy, no travel partner. What's the point of making memories without having that one person I want to make them WITH?

No one cares about that, though. They care about what THEY want; they care about what their religion says; they care about denying the reality that sometimes, and for some people, life is simply too painful and too difficult to be worthwhile.

What about what I want? What about my loneliness, which hangs over my every waking minute? My sadness, which is ever present? My rage, for which I have yet to find an outlet? My pain? Those don't factor into the equation at all. Nope; in this country, I'm free to march with Nazis (not that I ever would because FUCK NAZIS); I'm free to go out in public and expose anyone and everyone to a potentially deadly disease; I'm free to buy all the guns; I'm free to euthanize a pet whose quality of life is nonexistent. But I'm not free to choose the time and place of my death. Not unless I first suffer the pain of a lengthy terminal illness, and even then not unless I move to a state that allows assisted suicide.

Instead, I'm supposed to just die a little every day, alone, until I finally die for real, alone. And if you don't think THAT'S more tragic than the alternative Belgians can exercise, then I don't know what else to tell you.

The OTHER four-letter word starting with F

My sleep schedule is still being problematic: I've gotten only four hours each night for the past three nights. Four nights? I don't remember, probably because I'm not sleeping.

The current emotion driving me is FEAR. Terror, really. You see, I go back to work on Monday.

I've had 99 days to focus on only my grief. 99 days to journal, and write, and cry any time I need to, and scream any time I need to, and go for a walk any time I need to, and talk to a friend any time I need to. 99 days when I didn't HAVE to do anything I didn't feel up to doing. That all ends on Monday morning at 7:00 AM, when I have to become a functioning, productive member of society again.

I don't know if I can do that. Hence the fear.

I work with a wonderful group of people, and I know that they have zero expectations for me in terms of productivity right now. I also know that that largesse will not last forever; it can't. And what if I never get my skills and knowledge and personality back? Who wants to work with someone who's an incompetent downer virtually all the time? No one, that's who.

Less urgent, but ever present, is another, far bigger fear: going back to work takes me out of the stopped-time space in which I've been living. It forces me out of my bubble of grief for eight hours a day. And - to me - that feels like a line that's being drawn between life as Doug's wife and my uncertain and unwanted future. As of Monday, I have to step over that line and into that future.

And I don't want to do that.

I want to go back to the life I had and loved, not forward into this life that has nothing good to offer me. I want to be Doug's wife again. I want to be loved again. I want to go back to knowing that if I have a bad day at work, it's no big deal because I'll have the evening with my love.

But I won't have evenings with my love, and I can't go back, and I can't stay in my bubble. As of Monday, I'll have to work. And that's all I'll have. No socializing, no theatre, no anything resembling a life. Just terrifying work, and a terrifying future that I don't want. 

I don't want this. I don't want any of this. 

I want my life back.

And RIGHT back to the beginning again

In recent weeks, I've been sleeping more (five, and sometimes even six hours). Notice that I didn't say I'm sleeping better; I don't wake up feeling rested, ever. But I've been sleeping more.

Until last night, which was just like the first few weeks after Doug died: couldn't fall asleep until 4:00 AM; awake at 8:00 AM.

Today, I've been cycling through crying, screaming, FURY at what's currently going on here in the states (and there's so much that it would need another entire post to get into it, so let's not), and my mind going in circles about what should I do and what can I do and is there anything I can do get me to where I want to be? and no, I know that nothing will get me to where I'd be happy to go on living, but what about trying this other thing? and no that wouldn't help either and why am I even bothering to try? oh because Doug would want me to but Doug should just come here and TELL me that if that's what he wants and why isn't he visiting me? and did I have it all wrong and I was the only one happily married? and maybe he's glad to be free of me and what if I go back to work on Monday and can't do my job anymore or what if I get really sick and I have no one to take care of me and then how will I survive if I get too sick to work? or what if my job gets eliminated? it's very hard to find jobs in technology when you're over 50 and probably even harder if you're a woman who can barely bring herself to smile and who can't actually DO her job anymore and how can I live another 20 years like this? 

Yeah. THAT'S what goes on in my brain ever since Doug died, and I wrote it exactly the way it happens in my head: one enormous rapid-fire run-on sentence. And it happens constantly, unless I'm distracted by Netflix or a phone/zoom call. It's hard to believe I'm not sleeping, because I'm exhausted all over again just reading that shit.

This discouraging turn of events is particularly ominous given that I'm going back to work on June 1. 

Last week, after I decided that I'm done even trying, I felt a sense of relief. That lasted a few days before I landed right back to the desperate panic that's been my default setting for the past 97 days.

Grace the Grief Counselor says I need to stay in the moment, and I know I committed to trying to do that. But here's the truth: my every "in the moment" is so very dark, and frightening, that I have to try to force myself to envision a better future. But every future I envision ends the same: me remaining alone, lonely, miserable, bitter. And when I live in the past (by drowning myself in memories), I'm right back to that same bleak terror I feel when I'm in the moment.

I wish I could make this stop. I wish Doug were here. I wish I could get my mind to stop whirling. I wish I weren't so scared. I wish I didn't loathe every minute of my existence. I wish I could believe that I'll be happy again someday. I wish I didn't have to sleep alone every night. I wish I didn't have to laugh alone and cry alone.  I wish Doug were here.

I wish.

Reality TV and the infinite inside joke

You poor people suffer with me every day; I'm both grateful and sorry for that. So, today, I thought I'd share a short(er than usual)-and-sweet post, courtesy of a fun memory that popped into my head this morning.

Doug was 12 years older than I; because the nature of our relationship was such that we enjoyed mocking ourselves and each other - and because Doug never ACTED like an old man so there was never a doubt that we were playing - it was a regular topic of gently humorous torment. If he was annoyed about something minor, I'd say, "You kids get off my lawn!" Or I'd remind him that, when he was graduating from college, I was... 10. When I did or said something foolish, he'd lament the state of "kids these days." He'd also refer to himself as a cradle-robber.

The point is, we had fun with our age difference, as we did with everything else.

Those of you who know me, also know that I've never been a fan of "reality" TV. Doug, on the other hand, loved it. He liked to say that he watched shows like Survivor and Big Brother and The Amazing Race because they were fascinating from a social/psychological perspective.

I went ahead and let him believe (mostly) that I bought that story. I didn't, of course. But we made it an unspoken agreement: Doug agreed to pretend that he only watched them out of professional curiosity, and I agreed to pretend that I believed that. 😉  

Four months after we started dating, Season 28 of The Amazing Race started airing, and Doug took to recording it so we could watch it together on the weekends. The cast that year included a father/daughter team: Dad was an OB/GYN from Texas, and Daughter was a YouTube star. It was clear that they had a great relationship, but there were times when it just seemed... weird. Like in Episode 2 when Daughter was selling kisses for pesos (something to do with a bus ride; I don't remember the details), and Dad acted almost a little jealous. Watching them together was sometimes reminiscent of watching Tobias Funke: you know what's being said isn't actually how you're hearing it, but it REALLY sounds somehow off. (Hilarious examples of Tobias and his unique way of expressing himself are HERE and HERE. Watch them; you won't be sorry.)

Anyway, by the end of the first episode we were already watching these two with one eyebrow raised, so anything that could be REMOTELY interpreted as off-color would send us into GALES of laughter.  And she was so supportive, always cheering his meager and ineffective efforts: "You're doing great, Daddy!" "Good job, Daddy!" "You've got this, Daddy!" But then... then, we hit the motherlode. The statement so innocent-yet-oh-no-she-did-NOT-just-say-that. The ultimate gift that keeps on giving for a couple who created inside jokes as easily as we breathed air:

Father was trying to find something or build something, and he had to do it on his own (again, details are fuzzy). And it was NOT going well, as per usual. To encourage him, Daughter said it. She said the thing that put us over the top. She said, "You're doing such a GOOD JOB, Daddy."

People, we paused until we could stop laughing. And then we rewound it to watch again. And again. And again. We were CRYING with laughter. Because we knew: that simple little phrase would be the catalyst for more laughs over the course of our time together than probably anything else. Doug would pour me a cocktail? "You're doing such a GOOD JOB, Daddy." He'd grow some beautiful tomatoes in the garden? "You're doing such a GOOD JOB, Daddy." He'd go out to the store and come back with some little trinket or candy he thought I'd like? "You're doing such a GOOD JOB, Daddy." Funnier still was when I said it in response to him making some laughable mistake (say, opening one beer, and then putting it down, picking up an unopened beer and trying to pour it). "You're doing such a GOOD JOB, Daddy." And it was always said in my sultriest, sexiest voice.

And I warned him, the day we watched that episode: "You know, babe, it's just a matter of time. At some point, we're gonna be in bed getting jiggy wit' it, and I'm gonna say it. I mean, I HAVE to."

And so, MANY months later, when The Amazing Race had faded in his memory and he least expected it? I did just that. And it was GLORIOUS. If you think that good-natured laughter and sex are incompatible, I question your sense of humor and feel bad that you're missing out.

WYG Prompt: what would it take?

Prompt: What would it take to seek out the smoldering ache of loss and soften into it?

Seek out? I don't have to seek out my pain: it is ever-present. If I’ve done one thing right in this disaster that has become my life, it’s that I have not tried to hide from the pain. I let my feelings come, and I let myself feel them. But in the interests of full disclosure, I don’t know if I can really take credit for that. Sometimes it seems as though the pain of my grief has me in a chokehold from which I cannot escape.

Moreover, I don't know what this "smoldering ache" to which the prompt is referring may be. My grief is not a smoldering ache. My grief is a conflagration - a nuclear furnace - of sharp, stabbing agony.

I don’t know what it means to “soften into” the pain. I imagine it has something to do with being gentle with myself and not judging my pain. But I don’t really know how to do that. I only know how to feel the pain and express the pain. I do not know how to “soften into it” or “lovingly tend it” or whatever new age bullshit this is trying to peddle - because that is indeed what it sounds like: new age bullshit.

There’s not really anything else to add: the pain is always right there on top of me, surrounding me, crushing me… I don’t need to seek it out, I need it to burn itself out.

Based on what I’ve seen and read from other widows and widowers, even many years out, it’s very likely that will never happen, and I’ll remain forever as I am today: stuck in the nuclear furnace of my grief, unable to escape it or protect myself from it or even ignore it.

Freedom, or something nothing like it

I wrote a brief Facebook post on this subject yesterday, but it's worth writing about here as well:

Three-day weekends are especially difficult. That's surprising, given that the days all rather blend together for the most part, and yet here we are. On long weekends, Doug and I would luxuriate a bit: Eggs Benedict and crisp roasted potatoes rather than plain old bacon and eggs with toast/biscuits and preserves (our typical weekend breakfast); a little afternoon nap (or not-a-nap, depending on our mood), some time outdoors, grilling out, and lots of conversation ranging from deep philosophical subjects to the most sublimely silly nonsense.

Yes, I could have made Eggs Benedict for myself (but I didn't, because that's far too much work for a meal that only I will eat). I could have taken a nap (but I didn't, because when I tried I couldn't shut my brain off enough to sleep). I could have gone for a drive, but again - no fun doing that without Doug riding shotgun. I could have grilled out, but I can't grill worth a shit. It was a day of deep and profound sadness punctuated by the occasional moment of humor. 

Being lonely for the one person whose company you'll never enjoy again is a pain that defies description and cannot be understood by anyone who hasn't been here. It is a pain that cannot be healed, or softened, or lessened. It is a loneliness that cannot be overcome, or even the slightest bit eased, by anyone else. It is the emotional equivalent of death by a thousand paper cuts. Except that the paper is actually a straight razor. And each cut is immediately filled with salt. And that razor keeps cutting me everywhere, over and over again, until every square inch of my flesh is ripped open and bleeding and full of salt. And I've lived that pain pretty much nonstop for the past 94 days.

My desire to talk to Doug - my longing, my YEARNING - it's so overwhelming that I can't breathe when I let myself really feel it for more than a few seconds. And frankly, it's almost embarrassing: I worked very hard, for a very long time, to become a woman who didn't need a man to 'complete' her - a woman who didn't need a man in order to be happy. But that man... I need him. My God, how I need him. I am SO unbearably lonely without Doug. Everything is flat and empty, as though all the color and energy and dimension in the world has been sucked away, leaving a bleak, gray, cold, dystopian hellscape.  

It's not just conversation that I desperately need: Doug and I were very affectionate, and to go from that to not being touched at all is like another log in the fire of my despair. And I'm not talking about sex (well, not only that); I'm talking about hugs, and the way he would stroke my hair at night if I was having trouble falling asleep, and the way he'd hold my hand when we watched TV, and the way he'd kiss me every time we walked past each other. Physical touch is one of my primary love languages, and I genuinely believe that missing Doug's touch may be the thing that ultimately kills me (but that's a subject for another post).

I am now so alone that I have become one of those people who could die and no one would even notice for days; my pets would eat my remains before anyone even showed up. Do you have any idea what it's like to go from being the world to the person who's the world to you... to being someone who could be dead for days without anyone even missing them? THAT, my friends, is ALONE. And it's my reality, now and for the rest of my days. For the record, if your knee-jerk response to this paragraph is to tell me that you'll check on me every day so that an untimely death won't go unnoticed for days, I want you to re-read everything I've written since I started this blog because you're COMPLETELY missing the point.

The pain is overwhelming, and I just want it to stop before it drives me insane. And yet, it lives on. It grows within me and around me. It's become an entity of its own, cloaking me in despair and longing, and making me smaller every day. For four short, beautiful years, I was Doug's world and he was mine. Now, I'm nobody's world. I'm not sure I'm even really a person anymore; I'm pain and anger and loneliness in a human suit. How's that for quality of life, hmmm? A life with no joy, with loneliness that won't ever go away because the only person who could relieve that loneliness is dead? A life that has to continue only because "life is a precious gift"? Well, I disagree. My life is not a precious gift, not anymore. My life is now a curse.

And, my goodness, how that pisses people off! I cannot tell you how many people have told me that I have to keep trying, because it's worth it. Is it? Really? Tell me, how does someone else - someone who is NOT living my life - determine that MY life is worth living? News flash, folks: you can't get in someone else's head, and you cannot know what's "worth it" to them.

When I was a little girl and a young woman, ALL I WANTED was to be the quintessential mid-century housewife. I wanted to make a home and raise a family. After divorcing Thing One, I adjusted: I'll have the career, and I'll raise my son, but I still wanted a long, happy marriage. After divorcing Thing Two, I adjusted again: fuck marriage; fuck relationships; I'll just be alone.

But then, Doug came along. And with him, back came that dream for a long, happy marriage. Except that this time, I got it right. I finally had the love I'd wanted my whole life, and I was going to get that long, happy marriage.

And now he's gone. I've already explained, in excruciating detail, why I'm not going to have another shot at that dream of a long, happy marriage. I've already explained, in excruciating detail, repeatedly, why life without that long, happy marriage to Doug is not a life I'm interested in living, but I'll reiterate:

• Vacations without the man I love to share it with me are not vacations; they're nothing but a change of location.
• Building or buying the dream house that Doug and I planned is not a dream worth indulging without him. What good is a beautiful, spacious, functional kitchen when I have no one to eat what I make except for myself? What good is a beautiful home if it's filled not with love but with sadness?
• My primary love language is physical touch; spending the next 10 or 20 or 30 years celibate? Without ever being kissed, caressed, hugged by the man I love most who loves me most in return? No thanks.
• Having to go through my days and nights without my love to talk to about anything, everything, and nothing is exceedingly lonely.

I'm going to say this again, and I'm going to use bold type and small words so that it's easy to understand: The only life I want was stolen from me 94 days ago. The only life available to me is one I do not want. AND YOU DON'T GET TO CHOOSE WHAT MAKES LIFE WORTH LIVING FOR ANYONE WHO ISN'T YOU.

FFS, I promised that I won't kill myself, but that's not good enough for you people? I have to not only stay in this life I don't want, but I have to decide that it's worth living, too? Even though I know damn well it's not?

One more time for the folks in the back: YOU DON'T GET TO CHOOSE WHAT MAKES LIFE WORTH LIVING FOR ANYONE WHO ISN'T YOU.

Supposedly, I live in a free country. Literally millions of Americans are refusing to stay home or maintain appropriate social distancing or wear masks when they go out, risking millions of lives under the guise of freedom, and nobody's stopping them. And yet, I'm forced by social convention to continue living - against my will - a life that holds no joy and no hope for joy in the future.

Somehow, I don't feel free at all. 

Grief brain: not just for the grieving anymore

I've written a lot about grief brain (aka widow brain, aka Grief-Induced Stupidity (GIS)), but it didn't occur to me until just now that it's not only the grieving who experience it. Thanks to the Great American Tradition of Grief, those of you who love someone who's grieving... you experience it too. I  know this because of the inadvertently thoughtless things people say to the grieving; GIS is the only possible explanation. Case in point: I'm not even going to link to the site where I found this, because I'm so angry that I don't want to send them any traffic, but this got my anger juices flowing in a BIG way:

Often the pain that wounds us most deeply also leaves the most enduring mark upon us. The shock that becomes the tender, throbbing ache of the heart eventually leads us down the path of enlightenment, blessing our lives with a new depth and richness.

Oh, how I LONG to find the author of this big, steaming pile of horseshit and verbally beat them with a clue-by-four. It's positively appalling, the mental gymnastics that people will go through to find a way to give a faux-spiritual spin to, "Hey, see? It's GOOD that your loved one is dead, because now you'll REALLY appreciate those you love!" 

No. Just... no. Suggesting that my husband's death was so that I could be enlightened is beyond ridiculous; suggesting that my life was not already deep and rich is OUTRAGEOUS. It's manipulative tripe, designed to minimize our pain and make the grieving feel like shit if we don't find some silver lining in the storm clouds of our despair. You know: we're supposed to become the Inspirational Widows Who Overcame and Triumphed, preferably with a picture of us either free-soloing El Capitan or crossing the finish line at the NYC Marathon or trekking across Alaska. Because nobody wants to believe that sometimes bad things just happen, and they're awful, and there's no rhyme or reason to them. And NOBODY wants to see us moping around for longer than they deem acceptable.

People, if you ever say this, or any variation of this, to a grieving person live and in person, you're likely to get knocked on your ass. Consider yourself warned^(**). And not only will the jury vote to acquit, they MAY actually suggest that you should be knocked on your ass a few more times. THAT'S how horrible a thing to say this is.

Look, I get it: someone you care about is in pain because someone they care about has died. You want to help; you want to ease their pain. You can do neither. Your choices at this point are:

1. Be present and allow yourself to truly witness and validate our pain.
2. Disappear so as to avoid the discomfort of witnessing the pain of someone whose life has just been ripped to shreds.
3. Follow the Great American Tradition of Grief, which is to spew platitudes and cliches that sound as though they should be helpful, but whose real message is, "This is making me really uncomfortable, so kindly feel better or just slap on a happy face and shut up." You may not THINK that's the message you're sending, but I GUARANTEE you, it's the one we're getting.

Option 1 is ideal; Option 2 will leave us feeling abandoned, so that's suboptimal, but it's still better - by a country mile - than Option 3. If you Option 2 me, I'll probably be hurt, but in the long run I'll understand so long as you don't let too much time pass without reaching out. If you Option 3 me once, I'll explain how and why what you said is not helpful, and suggest what you can do instead. If you Option 3 me a second time, you're clearly more interested in making yourself feel helpful than in making me feel supported, so you're cut off.

Try to practice this skill in your daily life; if you master it in less catastrophic circumstances, it won't feel so foreign when you're supporting someone in deep grief. And practicing it is easy, folks, because we ALL complain A LOT, over issues big and small. So, the next time one of your friends starts talking about her sick dog and expressing her fear, resist the urge to jump in with reassurances like, "Oh, he'll be FINE!" Instead, go with something like, "I'm sorry; that must be really terrifying." That's it; acknowledge our suffering. That is literally ALL you need to do. If you want to offer to take on some task that you know we're not up for doing, and you're close enough (both physically and emotionally) to us that it doesn't seem like level-jumping, then that's lovely (but don't be offended if we don't take you up on it), but it really is above-and-beyond. The magic here is in acknowledging and validating our pain.

You can practice this on anything from ridiculous complaints about traffic ("Man, that sucks!") to major life issues like, say, a cheating spouse ("How horrible for you! I'm sure you're feeling just about every emotion there is.")

And after you say these validating, loving things... you listen. You let us talk, and you let us cry if we need to, and you let us scream if we need to. And every now and then, you say those validating, loving things again. Lather, rinse, repeat as needed. And follow our lead: if we don't want to talk, let us not talk. Sometimes, we just want to be alone with our thoughts, or a documentary, or a big bottle of bourbon; don't take that personally.

Most of all: teach these skills to your children! Let's start raising the next generations to support those in grief in a way that will be meaningful rather than harmful. Feeling empathy may be human nature, but we kinda suck at expressing it. Let's change that, shall we?

No, none of this is going to make your grieving loved one feel better; you need to accept the possibility that we may well feel better at some unknown date in the future, but we may equally well be in this same pain for the rest of our lives. So, no - you're not going to make anyone feel better, but you will help us feel SEEN. Those of us who are grieving tend to feel invisible. Feeling seen doesn't lessen our grief, but it does provide a little release valve that eases the pressure, just a tiny bit. Which is why I so appreciate the folks who reach out to me regularly to offer a listening ear, provide one when I take them up on it, and accept it when I say no or don't have the energy to reply one way or the other.

**Disclaimer: I am not recommending nor am I condoning violence. I am simply using a very pointed statement to explain that folks will not look kindly on you for such a statement.

With surrender, at last comes some peace

There's a sense of calm in throwing in the towel; a serenity in admitting that there's no fight left in me; a peace in deciding not to rejoin the world of the living. It turns out that, having decided that I'm done, I'm completely free. I'm free of the pressure to feel better; free to spend every minute that I want living in my memories of Doug; free to live my truth, no matter how uncomfortable it makes everyone else; free to admit that I'm choosing not to try and live because living is just more work than I'm willing to do; free to stop these ridiculous failed experiments of forcing myself to eat healthy and exercise and sleep and journal and "do the work of grief," all in the desperate (and vain) hope of finding a minute or two of relief - not happiness, mind you, and certainly not joy or meaning or purpose or even contentment - just relief. Far too much effort for far too little return, that.

For a lifelong overachiever/teacher's pet type who always strives to do the absolute best at everything I attempt, it's positively liberating to admit defeat and give up.

I hit Grace the Grief Counselor with this decision on Tuesday, and I think I shocked her: see, I seemed like I was in a much better place during our session last week. And while we all know that moods can turn on a dime in grief, I don't think anybody expected I'd go from where I was a little over a week ago to where I am now. Journaling has definitely helped me process my emotions, but I don't think she expected that all that work would lead to me giving up. Evidently, I'm not as predictable as I thought. She thinks this is temporary; I think she underestimates both my resolve and my pain.

Brooke was equally stunned when I talked to her this morning, but - to her credit - she just asked questions and listened to what I had to say without judgement. She hopes this is just a dip in my personal roller coaster of grief, but she had the decency not to say that she believes that to be the case (FYI, there are few things more insulting or patronizing than the insinuation that I don't know my own mind).

I've got folks jumping on the antidepressant bandwagon again, and again I say it's not gonna happen. I don't want to artificially suppress my pain. My pain is REAL and VALID and it DESERVES to be felt fully and expressed fully. Antidepressants won't bring Doug back or give me the courage to try and live again; they'll just make me not care so much that my life isn't worth living. 

Thanks, but I'd prefer living my actual experience than one that's been dimmed by medications that can only address the symptom (sadness) rather than the problem (my life has been ripped to shreds and cannot be repaired rebuilt without a herculean effort that I'm not prepared to undertake). Think of it this way: when you buy a car, you expect to have to do maintenance on it, and eventually repairs. But if that car gets totaled, you don't keep throwing work and money at it to fix it, because it's a lost cause. Well, kids, I may not be a car, but I've been totaled; and as a highly analytical person, I promise you: the cost-benefit analysis of "fixing" or rebuilding me weighs heavily on the "not worth the effort" side of the scale.

You're free to disagree, and you probably do, but here's the beauty of it: you don't get to make that decision for me: my body, my choice, and all that. I realize that's upsetting to quite a few people, and while I wish that weren't the case, I'm not changing my mind.

I'm going to do the bare minimum that I have to do, and wait to die. That's it. You don't have to like it, and you don't have to respect it, but you ought to find a way to accept it, because it's MY life, and it's MY choice. And if I want to spend the rest of my days holed up alone in my not-too-far-from-looking-like-an-episode-of-Hoarders house with my nasty, overgrown-with-weeds yard, working when I have to, crying every minute that I'm not working, and praying for the sweet release of death every damn night as I finally collapse in exhaustion, that's my right as a human being. 

See, I spent my young adulthood trying to figure out who I was; from my mid-thirties, I was scrambling to raise my son pretty much entirely on my own: his dad had moved far out of state and rarely visited, and I don't have any family here other than my son. Even the time I spent married to Thing Two was time spent raising Andrew alone, because Thing Two was absolutely no help whatsoever.

But my son is grown and independent now, and this was supposed to finally be MY time: I've paid my dues, I worked hard, I did my job as a parent, and now is the time I'm supposed to get to live for myself and do what I want. And I was going to do just that. The ONLY thing I wanted was to spend the rest of my life with Doug. I can't have that, so the rest of my life needs to wrap up already. At almost 55 years of age I have ZERO interest in starting over in any way, shape, or form. 

I don't want to live this life anymore, and I refuse to be embarrassed by that or see it as pathological. It is perfectly sane and reasonable, given my life history, to come to the conclusion that actual living is simply not worth the effort. And for me, it isn't.

I'll still do the Facebook Live script reads that one of my friends put together, because I committed to doing them. As time allows and as I feel like it, I may work on decluttering my house (should be really easy to get rid of anything that doesn't spark joy when NOTHING sparks joy) so I can replace all the stupid knick-knacks I've acquired over the years with pictures of Doug. At least then I'll be able to look at him while I serve this life sentence with no chance of parole.

Lies we tell ourselves, Part II

If you haven't read Part I yet, you probably ought to go and do that before reading this.

By now, you're probably wondering why I'm writing all this, and what it has to do with the big revelation I had about that "I was living in a forest" prompt. Well, here it is: if Doug and I made all this magic together, then clearly that means that I could - in theory - make magic again with another man. I don't have to spend the rest of my life alone and pining away for my only great love.

Except that I won't make magic again with another man, and I will spend the rest of my life alone and pining away for my only great love. Because I'm not brave enough.

In After Life, Anne says to Tony, "You're in pain. But the thing you lost is the same thing that can stop that pain." And she's absolutely right. But my life isn't a brilliantly-scripted dramatic comedy written by Ricky Gervais. No, MY life is a series of tragicomic improvisations that always end the same way: with me alone. 

You see, we've already established that I can no longer be happy and fulfilled living without a partner; been there, done that, and too much has happened for that to be an acceptable life ever again. There are people who love me, sure - but there's no one who loves me most. There's nobody who isn't happy unless they start and end their every day talking to me. I am at best an afterthought; people care about me, but I'm nowhere close to the top of their priority list, because they have their own lives with their own partners. And after 5 decades, I had Doug for four years, and he did love me most, so now I know how it feels to have that; having had it makes living without it impossibly empty and lonely and painful. So in order for me to believe that I could ever be happy again, I'd have to believe that the following will occur:

First, I would have to get to the point where the thought of another man touching me doesn't make me nauseated. Odds: not in favor.

Next, we'd have to find a man who finds me attractive enough to pursue me in the first place (because I'm sure not pursuing anybody, ever). Given that I wasn't exactly being chased by the fellas when I was young and beautiful and enjoying life, I think it's pretty safe to say that very few indeed are the men who would find me desirable - between my appearance and my ever-present sadness and anger, that ship has long since sailed; I'm no longer beautiful inside OR outside. Please, save it: I'm not fishing for compliments; I'm telling the truth. I'm far more Venus of Willendorf than Venus De Milo - and trust me, the overwhelming majority of men would rather date a woman who's genuinely batshit crazy than one who's fat; I'm in my mid-fifties, and men in my age group are typically looking for much younger women; oh, and grief has already aged me a good five years, and I didn't look particularly great for my age before. My point is, nobody is likely ever to be romantically interested in me.

But, humoring the peanut gallery, let's assume such a man magically appears in my orbit and pursues me. Now, I'd have to find him attractive enough to be interested. OK, that may not be impossible, as I find all sorts of men attractive.

But now, let's throw in all the other requirements: he has to be smart; he has to be funny; he has to appreciate my twisted sense of humor; he has to be honest; he has to be faithful; we have to share similar values; he has to be totally okay with it if I earn significantly more money than he does (because I probably will); we've gotta have chemistry; he has to be willing to seriously invest in building a relationship. 

Oh, yeah, and he's gotta be willing to accept if not embrace the fact that he would NEVER be my first choice, because I will ALWAYS be in love with my dead husband - and no sane man is gonna take that on. Then there's the exhausting process of getting to know each other and telling all our stories, and investing all that time and effort, and...

Frankly, I do not now and will not ever have the energy or courage to make that kind of investment again. Too much risk. Sure, the reward is enormous, but there's not a bookie in Vegas that would take that action (source: my 54 years of experience on this planet, all but the first 15 of which includes dating/being in or between relationships). I've been around long enough to know that the house always wins. In War Games, 'Joshua' says, "Strange game. The only winning move is not to play." That's certainly true for me when it comes to love. And so I've played for the last time.

And all of this makes my already bleak outlook even worse. Because now I have to face the fact that I'm CHOOSING to stay alone and lonely rather than take the risk of loving again, even though I know full well that means I will forever be in this horrible place: lonely, sad, angry, and bitter. And choosing it makes it even more pathetic than believing that's how the universe wants it to be, because it means that I COULD choose otherwise. But I'm not going to choose otherwise for all the reasons I just listed, and I'm okay with that.

In 13 Reasons Why, Hannah says, "The way I see it, there are two different kinds of death: If you're lucky, you live a long life, and then one day your body stops working and it's over. But if you're not lucky, you die a little bit over and over until you realize it's too late." I thought I died with Doug, but that's only partly true: I died a lot that day, but what's left of me is dying a little bit over and over every day. I know when I'm beaten, and I am absolutely beaten.

While I can no longer say "I found Doug" as though we were some predestined miracle, that doesn't really change anything: I still know that I can no longer find happiness without a partner (again: I already lived THAT chapter, and there's no going back to what passed for happiness then). I still know that there will be no other partner for me. 

So I'm just going to settle in to the shell of a life that's left to me. The pandemic has left me well prepared for being a hermit anyway, so I might as well embrace it. From here on out, I'll work (well, starting on June 1), and I'll take care of the pets, and I'll watch Netflix and Hulu, and I'll cry myself to sleep in my empty bed every night and wake up crying every morning because I woke up, and I'll watch as my house and yard continue to fall into disrepair. (If I don't have the energy or motivation to try and build a new life, I sure AF don't have the energy or motivation to clean my house or make repairs or weed the yard, so I might as well go FULL Grey Gardens, amirite?). I'll save LOTS of money to leave for my son since I won't be wasting any on clothes or hair or nails or makeup or evenings out or vacations or new cars. And please spare me the lectures on how my son needs his mother: I KNOW THAT, but his mother is long gone; he needs HER, not this broken and pathetic thing that's taken her place. 

No, I will not go out for a night with the girls; no, I will not audition for your show; no, I will not come to your holiday dinner. I will sit here every night and every weekend and every holiday, in this house that's now my prison, alone, lonely, sad, angry, and bitter, until it's time for me to join my husband. Because actually living again requires taking on far more risk than I'm willing to take.

One of the most frequently quoted lines from The Shawshank Redemption is "Get busy living, or get busy dying." Looks like I've made my choice. No, I'm not going to kill myself. All I'm doing is accepting that my life is over but for the technicality that I'm still breathing; I'm just not gonna fight it anymore.

Go ahead and judge me for it. You were able to overcome your grief? Good for you, but news flash: I'm not you. You haven't lived my life. You think I'm weak? Yeah, I used to think that too about people who said they didn't want to live anymore. Fine, I'm weak. You know what else I am? Fucking DONE. I've been telling y'all for three months that I'm not strong enough for this, and now I'm just accepting the reality of it. I am in pain ALL THE TIME, to one degree or another, and I just want it to stop. Honestly, if I could 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' this whole thing and forget I ever even met Doug, I would seriously consider doing it. And yes, I know that sounds terrible, but THAT'S HOW MUCH I HURT ALL THE TIME. So yeah, I want the pain to stop. If that means drinking myself into oblivion every night until my liver gives out, maybe I'll do that. If it means parking my fat ass on the sofa, eating junk food and watching Netflix until I finally shuffle off this mortal coil, that's fine too. Early-onset Alzheimers? Home invasion? Serial killer? BRING IT. Whatever it takes, really.

For those of you who've tried to be helpful over the past few months, thank you. But it's time for you to let it go and move on. I'm not your project or your responsibility. You can't help me, you can't fix this, and nothing you can say or do is going to change my mind and make me decide to get on out there and "live for Doug because he can't." If Doug wants that, then he can fucking well come visit me and TELL me so. But as he is still decidedly silent, I've gotta do what works for me. And what works for me is embracing my status as a pathetic widow: alone with my pets and my TV and my memories for companionship, waiting to die. Y'all can talk all the shit you want about it. Make fun of me, pity me, think to yourself, "I would be stronger than that," whatever. Someday you may find yourself in my position (though I truly hope not, because I wouldn't wish this on ANYONE), and maybe then you'll understand.

Well, damn. I SWEAR, when I started writing these two posts, I genuinely expected that this startling (to me) revelation would end with a swell of music accompanying my proclamation that I've realized I have to LIVE, dammit! But I processed it all by writing through it, and... it looks as though my revelation wasn't much of a revelation at all, because I'm right back where I started exactly 89 days ago. It's like Wagner's Ring Cycle, only not nearly as achingly beautiful. Off topic, but the definitive and most hilarious interpretation of that work can be found here (bonus - this one is only 28 minutes and change, as opposed to the 17 hours of the original recipe); I figure you deserve at least a little levity in this otherwise bleak and wretched communique. 

My life is over, and I'm tired of trying to convince myself otherwise. There's no hope for a better future if I'm not willing to put in the effort, and I'm not: too much risk for a reward that's unlikely to happen. So I'm just gonna hunker down here and do the bare necessities while I wait to shuffle off this mortal coil. 

You have a life, so go live it. And leave me to wait mine out, because that's all I'm gonna do.

Lies we tell ourselves, Part I

This is the second-hardest thing I've ever written (the hardest, by far, was this Facebook post). It's taken me DAYS to write it, because while I know it's absolutely true, the cognitive dissonance makes it nearly impossible to accept its truth and what that truth means for me. It's another long one, so maybe go get yourself a beverage before you start reading.

When I wrote on the "I was living in a forest" writing prompt, there were a few things that came out that really stuck with me (emphasis added here on the crucial parts that jumped out at me when I read it after finishing):

• I was living in a forest, lush and green. It was a forest that grew with us and around us; it was a forest that we created with our love.
• Our love created an entire world, and we lived in it together. We tended it, and we tended each other.
• Maybe our forest was never lush and green and beautiful. Maybe the birds never sang. Maybe the wildflowers were always weeds, and the clearings always toxic. Maybe the beauty of our forest was something that never existed in reality, but was instead a virtual reality we could experience only when we were together?

That last one, man... that's the one that really got me. That's the one that makes me cry buckets every time I read it or think about it. That's the one that tells me that I've been lying to myself since February 20. 

It's also the one that could bring me back to the world of the living, if I'm brave enough to let it. Spoiler alert: I'm not, and I'm never going to be.

When I read what I'd written, I realized that I've been looking at this all wrong - and in looking at it all wrong, I wasn't giving Doug OR me the credit we deserved. I've been using words like "soulmates" and "destiny" and "made for each other" when I talk about our relationship, as though we were brought together through some cosmic design. And that's just crazy talk: do you really think God/dess is sitting around with a list of all the people on earth, assigning one and only one mate to each of them? Back in 1953, when Doug was born, did that God/dess say, "OK, here's the deal: I'm gonna give you a great love, but just for a really short time. You won't meet her until you're 62. Oh, and she won't be born for another 12 years. AND she'll be a Damn Yankee. FROM NEW JERSEY (😳). Have fun with your shitty love life until then!"? I think not. 

No; I do believe that Doug and I were soulmates (to the extent that we were not perfect, but perfect for each other). But here's the thing: soulmate relationships are not born; they're built together. If Doug and I were made for each other, it's because we chose to be. I remember, at one point, telling Doug how sad I was that we didn't meet back in 2007/2008 when we were both single and both living in the same town: I could've spared myself the godawful experience that was my MistakeMarriage to Thing Two, and he could've spared himself the godawful experience that was his MistakeMarriage to She Who Will Not Be Named. But he had an insight that was absolutely correct: if we had met back then, we would've screwed it up, because we weren't ready for each other yet. And I believe that's true: I had just nearly died of pneumonia and was grappling with the "if I don't get back out there and get remarried I'm gonna die alone!" mentality. He was super involved with the Church of Christ (which, fine, but that would NOT have been a good fit), and had his own emotional baggage to unpack. And neither of us had done the work on ourselves that would have made us ready for a healthy relationship. 

So what made Dougleen (our friend Zach's couple name for us) so special? We decided to be special. We were intentional every step of the way; we thought, and we talked, and we debated, and we negotiated, and we planted that forest - one tree, one flower, one peaceful clearing at a time. We did the work. It's really that simple. And it was work, even though I don't think either of us would've characterized it as such, because it was "work" that wasn't draining; quite the opposite, in fact. It was work that energized us and brought us closer together every day. There were any number of moments in those four years when the whole thing could've crashed and burned - and probably would have, if not for decisions we made together really early on. But we didn't crash and burn; we just kept tending that forest until it became our ultimate safe place. Our forest became our sanctuary from the rest of the world; I became home to him, and he became home to me. The universe didn't do that; some cosmic deity didn't do that; WE did it. We EARNED it.

"But Kathleen," I hear you cry, "what does 'we did the work' mean"? I'm so glad you asked. When we had been dating for about three weeks, we had The Talk. You know The Talk; it's the one wherein a new couple sets the rules of engagement, so to speak. Our version of The Talk went something like this: 

Me: "I know this is still really new, but honestly, I don't want to date anyone else. I really like you, and I want to focus on seeing where this goes. I want to date you and only you." 

Doug: "I feel exactly the same way; I'm all in." From there, we rolled up our sleeves. 

We talked. We discussed. We negotiated. We clearly and directly expressed what we needed from each other. We used our words when something bothered us, instead of acting out of raw emotion (we didn't always succeed, but we succeeded far more often than we failed). We walked away to cool off for a few minutes on the rare occasions when emotions got too heated and we couldn't use our words effectively. We put US ahead of him and me. 

And we didn't date; not the way we contemporary Americans usually do dating. We didn't go out on the town one night a week, and then several months later progress to two nights a week, and then several months after that go away for a weekend, etc. No: we didn't go out often at all, even when we'd just started dating. 

You see, contemporary American dating is a TERRIBLE way to evaluate a potential mate, because there's little that resembles the real life of a married/cohabiting couple in getting dolled up and going out on the town once or twice a week. ANY couple can get along well when their time together is primarily spent going out, always looking their best. It's ALWAYS easy to turn on your partner when everybody's beautifully made up/shaved, wearing their sexiest underwear, with his face and her legs and armpits as smooth as glass.

The real trick to what Doug and I built is that we immediately started spending entire weekends together, just living our lives. That meant dealing with housework, and grocery shopping, and cars that break down, and sick pets, and bills to pay, and lines to learn. It meant we didn't get dolled up unless we were going out. In a nutshell, we started living with each other in weekend-long bursts pretty much as soon as we decided we were going to give us a real shot. So I knew exactly how he behaved when the internet went out; he knew exactly how I behave when I'm on the road and I get a flat tire. 

We didn't try to put on our best faces for each other; we didn't try to pretend that we were perfectly well adjusted and that all our emotional baggage would fit nicely in the overhead compartment. No, we talked about our issues at great length. Not only did we talk about them, but we planned for how we'd deal with them - so Doug knew that if he, for example, said or did something that sent me into OverThinker Mode, he could count on me to TELL him that, and we'd deal with it together. We promised each other that, whatever the problem between us, it would always be us against the problem rather than us against each other. 

We saw each other at our best, sure. But we made sure we also saw each other at our worst, because you absolutely cannot love someone until you've seen them at their worst. And I think we chose that we were going to love each other long before we actually did love each other.

Even when we took our first week-long vacation together, we didn't hit the town nonstop: we ate breakfast and lunch most days in our room. We hung out on the beach. We took a few days to go sightseeing, and had dinner out most nights, but even so, we spent most of our time just being together: talking, reading on the beach, doing not much of anything. We didn't NEED to go out for entertainment, because we entertained each other.

Our love was magical, but it was magic we made together.

Stay tuned for Part II tonight.

Hello darkness, my old friend

I'm trying. I really, REALLY am. But I'm failing at this.

I know I've had a couple of days with bright spots (bright meaning a moment or two when I wasn't totally miserable), but that doesn't really mean anything. It sure doesn't fix anything. One swallow does not a summer make, and all that.

I woke up today to a crisp, cool morning with the sun dancing on the leaves of the trees in my backyard. For most people, that's a day to relish: for me, it's just another day to wish I hadn't awakened.

Made some coffee, walked the dog, fed the animals, watched the first episode of Upload, and had a few hours of distraction on Facebook. There's yet another social meme making the rounds: Ten days of pictures celebrating love/marriage. That was strike one. And then saw the news that Fred Willard died. Fun fact: you know you're a widow/er when you read his obituary, learn that his wife died two years ago, and think "good for him; he's with her now," and then find yourself envious of a dead man. That was strike two. And then the many, MANY posts - complete with pictures - of happy couples enjoying the weather and their quarantine together, and there's strike three.

Tomorrow is the 30 year anniversary of my mother's death. It's also exactly seven months since I married Doug. And three months since the surgery that killed us both.

I can't anymore. I want to take a baseball bat (or the cast iron fireplace poker) and break every window, every dish, every glass, EVERYTHING breakable in this house. I want to scream until I have no voice anymore. I want to get in my car and drive until I can't drive anymore (whether that's because I run out of gas or run into a wall, don't really care).

There is, quite literally, NO WAY for me to express the rage, the fury, the desperation that I feel nearly all the time. No wonder I'm exhausted.

I don't understand how I'm supposed to live this way. I don't understand WHY I have to live this way. I don't understand WHY I have to be alone and lonely EVERY GODDAMNED MOTHERFUCKING MINUTE OF EVERY GODDAMNED MOTHERFUCKING DAY. Nobody seems to believe me, but I AM NOT FUCKING STRONG ENOUGH FOR THIS.

And for the love of Cthulu, do NOT offer to come and hang out with me and maintain appropriate social distancing, as though that will somehow make it better or make me hurt less. THERE'S NOTHING THAT WILL MAKE IT BETTER AND I WANT IT TO STOP NOW.

Please don't interpret this as a cry for help. Don't call me, don't text me, don't offer me anything. Just leave me the fuck alone. I don't want to hear that I'm still here for a purpose: that's religious fucking bullshit, and frankly I don't even care if it's true. I DON'T GIVE A FUCK about my "purpose" if it means I have to spend my life alone without the man I love. FUCK my purpose. I've BEEN a good person. I DESERVE happiness. FUCK giving back. Fuck ALL of it.

Between Doug dying and the pandemic, it's clear that the universe WANTS me to spend whatever miserable fucking time I have left on this planet alone and alternately raging against my pathetic excuse for a life and crying so hard I can't breathe. So just leave me alone so I can do it until I can finally get off this shithole planet.

WYG Prompt: the thirteenth guest

This prompt has a story that goes along with it, and my writing about it won’t make sense without that story, so…

The number thirteen gets a bad rap in our culture. Friday the 13th is seen as unlucky. Some buildings skip the 13th floor, jumping right from 12 to 14 (as though you can avoid something crappy by skipping a number). Fear of the number thirteen even has its own multi-syllabic psychiatric label.

The number thirteen also shows up in fairy tales, often spanning that bridge between unlucky and sacred. Very often, it's the uncomfortable old witch that doesn't get invited to the party. It's convenient that she's left out at this point - I mean, everyone knows you can't have 13 people. There are 12 people on the guest list, and clearly, you can't add someone else lest you tempt the fates.

 

The truth is, she's never going to get moved up that guest list. That old wise witch is the one everyone wants to avoid. She knows too much about death and loss. She's scary. Who knows what might rub off if you let her come inside. And really, who wants to think about death or disease when you're trying to have a party?

 

But the old witch shows up, doesn't she? She arrives, with a short, respectful bow, eyeing her wary hosts. She knows better than to wait for an invitation that will never come.

 

She arrives- the 13th guest, bringing an uncomfortable blessing. She brings an unsettling gift. As the old wise woman, she brings the awareness of death to the baptism: she whispers in the young child's ears messages full of power and uncomfortable grace.

 

She doesn't cause death, she is simply comfortable with it. Because she is no longer afraid of death - or life, she delivers a clear message of destiny.

Cheery, yes? 

The prompt: For today's writing, can you imagine yourself in the fairytale? Are you the old wise person who brings an uncomfortable gift? How do the people around you see you: are they afraid, superstitious, uncomfortable?

Oh, I can definitely imagine myself in the fairy tale. For most of my life, I’ve felt unwelcome and unlovable, so that’s not really new. But now? I feel as though people see me either as a pitiful, pathetic, weak woman who can’t get the hell on with her life (I mean, they aren’t wrong about that), or as a reminder of the capriciousness of Death.

We like to say that we should live every day as though it’s our last, and treat every interaction with our loved ones as though we’ll never see or talk to them again. But that’s impossible: if we allow ourselves to be fully cognizant of that reality every time we see or talk to family or friends, we would be blubbering idiots all the time. We’d never want to let anyone out of our sight. We’d cry every time we text someone and don’t get a response quickly. 

Fully feeling the truth that death can happen at any moment - feeling that truth all the time - is not feasible. Can you imagine if my every visit with my son ended with me telling him the litany of things I would probably say on my deathbed? Who the hell wants to be around that? So I don't do it - I keep it in, or I write about it, but I sure don't act on it, even though it's my reality.

Because the truth is this: for me, that IS how I feel, all the time. Every person, every relationship, is precious and could be stolen from me at any second, just like Doug was. And how am I supposed to function when I’m scared that EVERYONE I love could be taken from me before I can ever even hug them again?

I don’t think I’m the wise old woman bringing an uncomfortable gift so much as I think I’m the broken old woman whose “gift” is the sure knowledge that death will come for those you love, and it will destroy you like it's destroyed me. 

I’ve become a harbinger of death. I’ve become an example of the destruction that death wreaks. I’ve become something both less than human (harkening back to my earlier writings about the word “widow” and its connotations, not to mention the treatment of widows through history) and superhuman (“you’re so strong” - which, by the way, I’m really not). I’ve become someone who lives not in the world, but sort of adjacent to it: I have to interact with the living, and carry on with the mundane tasks required in the world of the living, and yet I’m somehow outside that world.

I am the old woman with one foot in the world of the living, and one foot in the world of Death: I don’t belong in either, and yet I belong in both. 

True to the story, I no longer fear death (in fact, I long for it). But unlike the 13th guest in the story, I most DEFINITELY fear life. And, fairy tales notwithstanding, I think my experience is probably the rule rather than the exception: I have yet to speak to a single widow or widower who doesn’t share my fear of life without our partners.

I know that the people who genuinely love me will continue to love me despite my metamorphosis from a happy, vibrant woman into the Crone Who Brings Death to Mind. I know they will continue to love me despite my well-established desire to follow my husband to wherever he is. I also know that this transformation has made it very clear who genuinely loves me, and who has been nothing more than an acquaintance in friend’s clothing.

I can’t even protest by suggesting that I’m still me, because I’m NOT me anymore: I know too much; I know things that everyone knows deep down, but the non-grieving are able to repress that knowledge. I cannot; I cannot escape that knowledge. And I cannot pretend to do so in the interests of other people’s comfort.

I may not BE Death, but I sure am a reminder that Death is coming for all of us - maybe for the one YOU love most - and maybe soon.

I don’t blame people for wanting to keep their distance from that knowledge; it’s too painful.

Today's shenanigans

Not really up for writing anything particularly eloquent or thought-provoking tonight, so just an update on my day.

I had my kayaking lesson, and it was a blast. I will say that getting into and out of a kayak is equal parts terrifying and embarrassing, but it felt so good to be out on the water. That's the good news. The bad news is that the instructor said that it's absolutely not a good idea for me to kayak alone, even if it's just on the lake, until I have a few more outings with at least one other person. Which is a bummer, because with my skin (think "visited the nuclear power plant while a leak was going on" pale), I'm most likely to want to go out really early in the day, or really late in the day. And people who aren't me have, y'know, LIVES, so that's not promising. 

So, solo kayaking is out (at least for now, which means it's probably out for the whole fucking summer thanks to COVID-19). So what am I supposed to do when I want to get out of this house and neighborhood and commune with nature if I can't get on the lake (because inexperience) and I can't go hiking (because too many people ignoring social distancing)? I dunno. Maybe it's time to buy one of those three-wheel motorcycles?

Had my session with Brooke after I got home from kayaking. She seems to think I'm doing better, and I suppose I am - I mean, I left the house and did something, and enjoyed it. I talked to her at great length about what I mentioned in this post from the other day about the uncomfortable stuff that's coming up from what I've been writing. I'm not ready to get into that here; I'm actually working on what's sure to be a REALLY long post, and I'll explain it all then. I'm still processing it, y'all: I promise I'm not keeping some big, dramatic secret.

After meeting with Brooke (well, Zoom meeting), I took a shower, and put on some makeup for a family Zoom call. Yes, kids, I'm so desperate to socialize that I put on makeup as though I were actually leaving the house for an evening out (I did that last night too for a bourbon-and-cigar night with Doug's best friend Mike). The Zoom call was fun, but then I picked up my phone after the call, and my phone's wallpaper is a picture of Doug that I took a few minutes after he proposed to me, and all it took was one look at his handsome face to get the tears flowing again.

It's horrible, having so much love I need to give him, and having no way to give it to him. It's horrible, knowing how much love he had to give me, and having no way for him to give it to me. Not being loved the way Doug loved me makes everything gray and flat and empty. Yeah, yeah, my family loves me, and my close friends love me. It's not the same, and it doesn't make up for what I've lost. I LOVED living my life with Doug. I HATE living my life without him.

So, when Brooke said she feels as though I'm doing better, I gave her the full Monty of my thoughts on the subject, because I'm nothing if not direct: Yep, I am doing better. But if the Futurama Suicide Booth were a real thing, I'd jump right on in without a second's hesitation. Because even though I'm a little better (in that I'm trying to do a better job of feeding myself and doing what I can to improve my mental and emotional health), Doug is still dead, and once everyone else leaves the Zoom call, or I get off the water and back to my car, or the episode I'm watching ends, I'm right back to where I've been for the past 84 days: lonelier than I've ever been before, because the man I was supposed to spend decades with is gone. (Yes, I know that was a run-on sentence. No, I don't care.)

I've come to the conclusion that I'm over-planning my days: I've been scheduling my wakeup time, followed by meditation, then a walk, then blocking time for daily household chores, grief work, death-preparation tasks (don't get worried - I'm just talking about making sure that all the information my son would need if anything happened to me is handy and organized), decluttering the house (there's a lot of shit in this house that I neither need nor want, and it's gotta go), working on putting together a list of household/yard projects that need to be done, and various and sundry other mini-projects I need to do... I'm trying to squeeze a lot into every day, and it's not working.

Starting tonight, when I write out my plan for tomorrow, I'm keeping it simple: the meditation, exercise, daily household chores, and grief work absolutely have to happen every day, because they're my sanity (well, not the chores, but nobody else is gonna do 'em, right?). But beyond that, I'm going to focus on only one other activity (one day it'll be decluttering, the next will be death-preparation tasks, the next will be working on mini-projects - you get the drift). Maybe if I let myself focus on fewer things each day, I'll be able to get more accomplished.

Honestly, this whole experience is an experiment: exercise to see if I sleep better (not so far) or see an improvement in my mood (maybe?); I've changed my diet to see if that'll help me sleep better (not so much there, either). Getting out on the lake, the Zoom calls, the Netflix and Hulu - it's all just part of using the scientific method to see if I can stumble onto something - ANYTHING - that will make me hurt less and feel like life is worth living.

So far, I've found a whole lot of things that DON'T work. I haven't yet found anything that does. 

On that note, I'm going to go pour a cup of chocolate almond milk, watch Sunday's episode of "Call the Midwife," and then see if I can't fall asleep before 2:00 AM for a change.