Back on the Mountain

Last night, I informed my landlord that I will be leaving this apartment in August. It’s time. It’s my next logical step in the process. I must admit I didn’t expect to move through the big stuff so quickly. I believe there are several factors that have and continue to help me immensely and they are my friends’ absolute patience and understanding for everything I feel, the fact that Chris and I had an extremely healthy relationship, the fact that I began grieving way back at diagnosis #1, my own built-in resilience and my ability to see and realize that I don’t want to be one of those widows who is still screaming and crying six years down the road. I didn’t kill Chris. It’s not my fault that he’s dead. But he is dead and remaining in a perpetual state of grief will not help him and it certainly won’t help me. Oh, the grief is there, but it’s my intention to take carfeul care of it and not foster it into a pathological state of being. I must keep my eye on the future and Chris in my heart. What happened sucks and that doesn’t even begin to convey the horrorfying reality of the events of the past year and a half. My lacking ability to describe my feelings is frustrating and I hope that as I move forward, eventually I won’t feel the need to describe it.

I did have a conversation with a man who lost his wife to cancer after a three-year battle and his knowing how I felt and what I went through was quieting to me, though very sad. For him, the loss of his wife was more painful than her illness. For me, Chris’ illness was enough to shatter me to my very core and his death destroys me on a daily basis, but at least I can be certain that he is no longer in pain. Of course I would rather that he never got sick and was still here to share my life with me, but that’s just not the way things turned out and my hope is that someday I will be able to completely let go and move into my future. I believe that will happen. Completely letting go and moving into my new home is a step in the right direction. It’s going to be a sad one and I’m expecting my heart to join me in my new home around September or October, but it’s a right step, nonetheless.

This place is much too big for one person. Five and a half rooms to occupy. Five and a half rooms to scour for intruders every night when I get home. Five and a half rooms to clean. I don’t know what’s worse, cleaning five and a half rooms, or actually finding an intruder in one of them. It’s a toss-up, I think.

So, I have laid the groundwork, given my notice and soon I can begin to search for a nice place to live, preferably right, smack in the middle of Davis Square or in North Cambridge, right behind Porter Square. I crave peace and quiet, but I also crave hustle and bustle and since the rising costs of New England real estate are ultimately going to drive me out of the city, I may as well live in it until I buy my own home.