It’s Monday, my power has been out since 5am, and it’s snowing. These are powerful triggers for missing Paul.
I have a magical memory of the first time we had a snow day here. Really, it was an “ice” day and the world looked like it had been glazed over with marshmallow fluff. We walked to the 6th ave Safeway to get snacks, came home and watched movies. Started with the Ice Storm, naturally. We fantasized that next time it snowed, we would cross-country ski through the neighborhood.
Paul loved snow, and he could tell you everything there is to know about it. And he wanted everyone to enjoy it, even Karl.
Paul and Karl, enjoying the snow. (Karl did not enjoy it, but he would do anything for Paul)
As I knew I would, I survived the power outage. I found the camp stove so I could make coffee, I took Emmet for a walk in the snow to the park, and now I will survive this Monday. But it will never be the same without him.
Paul’s not here to tease me about my static hat hair or my questionable grasp of layering, so I’ll give you that gift.
How has it possibly been 5 months? On one hand, I’m feeling the clarity of memories slip away with the time/distance—this is a terrifying thing. On another hand, I can’t believe I have survived 5 entire months since Paul died. That’s almost half a year! On yet another hand (I am an octopus, right?) I am aware of every month and every week and every day that has passed, as if it has been slow motion.
Then there is this: I have read it and I have heard it and I have witnessed it, but I don’t know that I actually expected it to happen to me. It gets harder. I have needed him more, I have thought about him more, and I have dreamed about him more in recent weeks. I’ve had more things I excitedly want to tell him about. Maybe it’s the winter. Or circumstantial—the holidays, plus recent encounters with people who know me because they know Paul, or don’t know me, but knew Paul. Sometimes I feel like a proxy, living in this town that had so much more history for him than it has for me. Perhaps I am just in an awkward stage, the teenage years between fresh, dramatic grief and moving forward (hopefully this doesn’t last as long as my real one, because that’s still going on.)
There’s no point in analyzing it because the effect is the same. I’m pretty bummed out. My New Year’s resolution to channel all my energy into productive endeavors is great, but exercise and good habits can only take me so far. I guess they are good for long game results, and that’s a good place to focus. Focus? Hmm, how well do you know me?…
And it’s the last day of 2018. I would expect to be ready to move on from a year that included so much grief and struggle, but honestly I’m sad to see it go. It’s silly to put so much meaning into the turn of a calendar year—besides, I still think in terms of school years and seasons, so why so much weight on this January 1st thing?
It’s handy, as a symbolic start time for all the optimistic plans I have to improve my life. Cue the montage soundtrack and picture me getting back on my bike, in the water, and to the gym, finishing projects around the house, developing a meditation practice, entering practical goals into my planner and referring back to it to cross them off as accomplished. I’ve already started these things over the last few months, but my energy towards them has been dull. I think I am relying on the self-imposed and conceptual constraints of January to kick me into gear.
But I don’t want to put a year behind me that had Paul in it. A year that included trips together and visits from friends. When there were times that he felt good and had a sense of humor about it all. When Marguerite captured this film of us which is probably the only video and voice record I will have of him, outside of a few voicemails. (I have not dared view it since he died) (but of course now I probably will) (I’ll finish writing this later) (might as well wait until the New Year.)
As sad as the events were, 2018 also included more time with people special to us than ever before, even the year we were married. I think I’m a little afraid to move on from that support, as if the new year will turn the page over.
Christmas this year was hard but peaceful and one of a kind. I was in New York with Paul’s family, my mom, and good friends. It was comforting to be there instead of wallowing at home, but every day something slammed me with a reminder of all of our time there for treatment, and the fun we had in between. In the coming years my holiday traditions will change, but for now I’m just finding my way through the big ones. Just like I’ll find my way through the next year (but with excellent planner use).
On Friday, the four month mark passed. I didn’t think time would move so quickly on this side. I think I also thought that things wouldn’t change, people wouldn’t move on, I wouldn’t shift things around in the house, I would stay on my side of the bed, and I would continue not to let the dog onto it, per Paul’s (and presumably Karl’s) rule.
Last week I stopped by the chemo suite at Tacoma General. I had been meaning to do this for months, but as I suggest above, that time flew. I should have expected the flood of emotions when I crossed the threshold into the too-familiar Milgard wing but it had been a few days since I had cried, so maybe I thought I was in the clear. I got to see and hug some of my favorites, and learned that one had moved to the Gig Harbor location, and that they all still think about Paul. They were so good to us during his treatment, and these nurses spend so much time with their patients – it breaks their hearts to lose them too.
Yesterday I was cleaning my email inbox, something that has to be done in small doses or it would take all week, and I came across an email that briefly debilitated me. It was a response to a note I had sent to my boss and manager in July describing how I thought the next month was going to go, and how it impacted my leave of absence. Reading this immediately placed me back in that moment, when we had just come back from a trip to New York, including vacation on Fire Island, but Paul was feeling worse and worse. His guts were literally starting to escape from an opening in his belly, he could barely eat, and he was rapidly losing weight. I was between “normal” life and the end of it. Still, I didn’t appreciate that that day would be the last one that Paul and I would share a bed. That we would soon be making decisions that could dictate how much longer he would live, in terms of weeks and days. That the time we had talked about often over the previous three years was actually here now. Reading this email didn’t make me want to relive that sadness, but it made me wistful for the time when I still had a Paul to care for.
I have had friends comment that certain blog posts make it sound like I’m not doing well, and I want to address that. I don’t write these things to alarm anyone or to signal that I am feeling what I write, on the whole. In fact, at the time that I write a post, I am probably in a pretty good mood. I do think about these things, and often, but my primary state of mind is pretty normal. Filled with all the mundane concerns about taking care of myself and my pets, plus fun projects and workouts and spending time with friends and planning the future. It just helps me to write these things because a lot of you don’t know. And I’m afraid one day I will forget. And I actually think it’s pretty interesting to observe it and put it down in writing. Think of it as the text version of a curated Instagram page – I am not dumping the emotions I feel right now, but telling a story.
Touring the Seattle Spheres with Miles and Joelle this weekend
How About Now? 