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.
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