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.
No comments:
Post a Comment