Twice Happy in One Week

I am in a phenomenal mood, again. Granted, I did take the day off from work, which is always cause for merriment.

I woke up at 4:00am this morning to make it to a 4:45am dermatologist appointment. I went, then went to the hospital for blood work and then came home. I never went back to sleep, even though I went to bed at midnight last night. I did, however, get absolutely everything done that I have been wanting to get done for months and now I’m in the best mood.

I brought my clothes to the dry cleaner today and the most adorable yorkie ever was there. She was so sweet that I couldn’t stop scritchy-scratching her. She loved it. The owner, a very nice woman, told me she liked my ring and mentioned the rarity of seeing a diamond ring with sapphires. I told her the story of the ring and the story of my widowhood, as I always to when somebody shows interest in my ring, because in my mind, they have really shown interest in my husband.

After the dry cleaner, I went to the Salvation Army with a slew of donations. When I brought them to the men loading the truck, I asked, “Are you taking donations?” and the man said, “We sure are! We don’t take husbands, though.” I smiled and said, “Oh, that’s okay. I don’t have a husband.” I surprised myself with my answer and with my demeanor. He was a nice guy. He made me smile, while simultaneously bringing up perhaps the saddest fact in my life, yet, his good-natured beauty took precedence. I learned that it’s okay to smile and feel good, despite the tragedy in my life. I’m smiling, even as I type this.

I began crashing about an hour ago, having woken up twelve hours before that. Man, I’m tired, but I feel really good, again. I have to credit the weather, I think. I am so very excited for spring. Today was nice. I got a lot done. I continued thinking about creating my own destiny.

I’m happy.

Shneedily,
Shneed

PS - I love my brother, Starr. ;) (He told me to write nice things about him. I was thinking them anyway. Writing them is just a formality.)

Love?

Last night, I dreamed I was beginning a romance with a man named Doug. I loved the way I felt in this dream. I felt important, cared about and...well, not lonely.

I box. I sing. I run. I study. I socialize. Even though I am invested in each of these activities, I still feel incomplete. I want somebody to care about me the way Chris cared. He cared about what I did. I did well because he cares. Now I’m not really sure why I do well. I don’t really have a reason. Nobody cares, not the way Chris did.

I want love back in my life.

I’m reading “The Power of Intention” by Wayne Dyer and i’m hoping to begin to create my own destiny. Creating one’s own destiny is hard enough, without the added, seemingly impossible task of recovering from a devastating and profound loss, simultaneously.

Despite the fact that I am suffering from depression, I continue to work, play, sing, box and run. Does that mean that I’m not really depressed? I feel depressed. I mean, I’m just barely hanging on to the slightest amount of interest in any one thing I’m doing these days. I mostly don’t care and I really can’t fathom the idea that I might be finished grieving some day.

I still wish new people I have met knew what happened. I feel a bit silly about that because I don’t really understand it. I feel as though it has something to do with the love I mentioned above. Compassion from others is a good substitute for love, temporarily. The softness of compassion goes a long way. I don’t tell anyone, though. It’s silly.

I’m getting old. I’ll be 40 in 5 weeks and even though I know there is love in my future, I struggle with my fear that nobody is going to want me, because I’m old.

Maybe somebody will.

Just Doin' What I Used to Do

After my half-hour grief-meltdown, I pulled myself together and decided to cook the chicken I bought the other day, following what I think is going to be a delicious weight-watchers recipe.

As the frozen fowl was soaking in a pot of hot water, my phone rang and on the other line was my beloved brother, whom I love almost as much as I love a good chicken recipe! Alright...I love him more than chicken.

We talked on the phone for a bit while I slowly, yet determinedly ingested a delicious glass of red wine.

Tonight’s not special. It’s just fun and relaxing, just like nighttime used to be. I feel really good.

How I wish I could return to this on a regular, less conditional basis.

As usual, drunk on half a glass o’ red. (not "drunk-as-usual", "drunk-on-half-a-glass" as usual)

Shneed.

Punchy

I slept twelve and a half hours, last night. I woke up, had some coffee, some lunch and then went straight to the boxing gym where I successfully completed a little more than half of the most intense drill I have embarked upon, yet. Very, very tough and very, very exhilarating.

Sometimes when I work out, my emotions rise to the surface and then I need to purge them. That’s what happened today. I punched the heavy bag twice, for five minutes straight each time and the more I hit the bag, the more my anger floated to the surface. I kept punching and punching but I was not feeling relieved. I remembered reading a psychological study in class a couple of months ago, where the results showed that punching and yelling did not successfully assuage anger, yet increased it. People who hit things actually got madder and madder and wanted to hit more things. That’s what happened today. I was exhausted when I decided to stop the drill. I never stop when my brain tells me to. I wait until my body will no longer perform. That’s how I know I’m really ready to stop. Finally, I got so tired from punching that I got even madder that I couldn’t punch anymore, so I had all of this unreleased anger pushing up from my core.

I took off my gloves, did my sit-ups and left, got in my car and began to drive away and then I began to cry and I kept crying as I drove toward home. This time, I decided to detour through Teele Square and down the street Chris lived on when we met. I stopped in front of the apartment house he lived in and glanced up at the third-floor porch, remembering how we used to sit up there and kiss. I barely knew him, then. We had just met.

There was too much snow on the ground for me to find a place to park, otherwise I would have sat across from the house and cried for as long as I needed to. As it was, all of the spaces were filled, which was probably for the best. I drove back up to the main street, still sobbing, and brought myself home where I cried, freestyle, until I was finished. I showered, made myself up and went to dinner with my friend.

I really enjoyed this evening, dining out, having coffee and attempting to shop at Pier 1. The store was closed, though, so I brought my friend home and tried to arrive at a decision about whether to go sing at the open mike, or not. I wanted to go, but I had begun to feel sad, again. I talked with another one of my friends, who tried to talk me into coming out. He almost succeeded, but ultimately, I came home, cried again, dropped half an Ativan and began writing. I’m waiting for the pill to kick in.

I made the right choice. I’m glad to be home, even if I am feeling great sadness.

I am going to miss Chris for the rest of my life. I miss him. I wish he was here.

I suppose I had a good enough day, for somebody who is experiencing as much depression as I have been. I worked out, enjoyed dinner with a friend and I think that writing this tonight, I have finally let go of today’s anger.

Tomorrow will be a much better day. I’m spending good part of it with my fellow Burrages. They always make for a good day.

Safe and warm at home,
Shneed

The Transfer

I started thinking about my grief, today, and what it means to me. My grief keeps me grounded in the confirmation that I loved my husband and that I miss him. I realize I can do both of those things without crying every single night, but realizing is only the first step.

I have been working out very hard lately. I work out at the boxing gym three times a week and two weeks ago, I began spending my Saturdays running four miles and then heading straight for the gym for a two and a half hour workout. I love running and I love the boxing gym. I want to do it.

Last week I took a four day hiatus from the gym and cried every single night, I began working out again and stopped crying. I still feel anxious one-hundred percent of the time, but I haven’t cried. The common beilef is that exercise works wonders on depression, but there is more to my story than just that basic belief.

I haven’t been able to let go of my grief and for the past three weeks, I have sunken into a quagmire of despair and anguish powerful enough to completely shut me down. The shocking part of all of this is that I think I bring the meltdowns on myself, deliberately, but subconsciously. The thought of letting go of my grief brings on an enormous amount of guilt. My husband died. I can’t be happy ever again or that means I didn’t love him or I don’t love him or I never loved him or that I didn’t love him enough if getting over him was this easy. Those are the fears that choke the breath out of me.

I am in quite a bit of physical pain from last night’s crazy-intense workout...and I feel emotionally okay.

It seems to me that I have replaced my emotional anguish with physical pain, which hurts considerably less than grief. Still, in some way, as long as I am in pain, I don’t feel guilty about feeling better. This realization could be the key to my next phase of forward movement. The more physical pain I experience (healthy pain) the more I can forgive myself for easing up on the emotional pain.

I thought about a scene from Stephen King’s The Green Mile where John Coffey is using his special healing powers to suck the brain cancer out of Melinda Moores, the Warden’s wife. He puts his mouth over hers and ingests the poison out of her, and when he has taken all of the evil from within her, He turns and exhales an ominous, treacherous storm of insects into the air and collapses into a heap of exhaustion, leaving her to awaken back into herself and her life, after her cancer is no longer in possession over her mind.

In some ways, I feel like Melinda Moores. The gym is my John Coffey. It sucks the bad oxygen out of me, the stuff that feeds the grief, and the exercise replaces the bad air with healthy oxygen that leaves me physically stronger and emotionally too exhausted to grieve, which for me, translates to “relaxed.”

I feel as though I can combat grief with pain for now and eventually free myself from both the anguish and the pain.

Trudging

I just can’t lose my sadness. I should probably be in bed sleeping, but I’m up doing useless busying activities that really don’t matter, like surfing the internet and watching tv, trying to keep my brain from thinking sad thoughts.

I’m supposed to call my doctor and tell her how the increased dosage of Zoloft is going. I’ll call her tomorrow to tell her it isn’t working all that well.

I wish a man would enter my life and sweep me off my feet, again.

Sad,
Shneed

Hashing it Out

Clay recognized that I want very badly to begin suppressing my feelings. I’m afraid of being judged for still grieving my loss. I am still grieving, though. That’s the fact. Nobody who hasn’t experienced the loss of a spouse can ever understand how deep the hurt goes. I don’t cry all of the time, but I am certainly wracked with anxiety absolutely every moment of every day.

The anxiety I feel when I am on my way to my therapy session is almost unbearable these days. I don’t like going. It hurts. I feel like Clay would never understand if I started crying and couldn’t stop. I don’t like crying. I don’t feel in control when I am crying and that embarrasses me.

There are so many men out there who have wives and girlfriends. I hear their halves of the phonecalls and I wish they were talking to me. That’s the way Chris used to talk to me. I wonder if anybody was listening to his end of the conversation, longing to be the woman on the other end of the phone. Men can be really sweet. I don’t think I have ever entertained that idea before.

If I call Clay and tell him I changed my mind about wanting some time off, he’ll think I’m nuts. I suppose I’d be talking to the right person in that case, though, right?

Allowing Others

It took a long time for me to realize that I was full of resentment toward Clay for going away for three weeks. I would never have thought I could blame him for wanting to take some time off, whatever the reason. I swore up and down that I was glad he was going away because I needed a break. I was happy to have three free Thursday evenings all to myself. That felt true.

We talked the other night about how I have been feeling since he returned. My grief returned in full force and began taking me down. I had no explanation for its return. There was no anniversary coming up. I’m not searching for a replacement-man anymore. Clay told me over and over of his suspicions that my relapse had everything to do with his absence. I didn’t believe him. I didn’t feel especially angry toward him. Being angry with him for taking vacation felt like an absurdity.

Still, each time I questioned the reasons behind the return of my downward-spiral Clay was adamant about his belief. Once again, I denied the allegation. I told him that I did, however, refer to his vacation time as “The period of time when he was performing human experiments.” He said “That sounds like anger to me.”

Not only did he completely miss the joke, but he called my bluff and popped me out of my denial. I believe him, now, and in one session, the session that was supposed to be my last, I transitioned from needing to be independent of him to just plain needing him. We came to an agreement that I would take a couple of weeks off of therapy.

I realized, as I drove myself to the gym in a tirade of inconsolable grief, that I have been pushing people away since Chris’ death. I have been disallowing people to care about me.

At the gym, I hurt my left pectoral muscle and when the time came for me to do fifty chest presses, the trainer, Ed, told me not to. I argued that I was feeling better and he suggested that I split the fifty reps into two groups of twenty-five. I agreed, all the while thinking, “Fuck you. I’m doing all fifty at once.” I took to the bench and began, but then realized that he cared about the possibility of me hurting myself further.

I thought about Clay.

I thought about Ed.

I thought about how I resist the care of others.

I thought, “Ed cares whether or not I hurt myself.” and decided to split up the reps then suddenly awakened to the thought that Clay cares about me and wants to help. Once again I felt like the five-year-old me in the school yard with my mother and the trust and safety I felt when I was five. I realized I need to begin allowing people to care about me. It’s okay to let people in. It’s okay for me to vulnerable. I am no longer the caregiver.

I don’t have to be unbreakable, anymore.

Waiting to Exhale

I used to be able to feel carefree. I used to enjoy leaving work and meandering through the various departments at Macy’s, trying on clothes and fragrances. Mindless shopping used to relax me. I don’t think I have truly and completely relaxed since November 19, 2003.

I want to talk about how having such a close encounter with death has affected me. I am still shaken to my core from Chris’ illness and from the way our lives got turned upside down. I held my breath to brace myself against what I knew the doctors were about to say, and I never let it out. I have been holding my breath since the end of 2004. That’s the exact feeling I have 100% of the time. I won’t allow myself to exhale. If I do, Chris will get blown away in the storm.

I still remember the difference between how I felt in 1999, when I met Chris and how I feel now. Life was very different, then. My worst nightmare was the possibility of not getting cast in a musical. Now my worst nightmare is the thought of each of my loved ones dying, one, by one, by one and the thought of my own death feels comforting to me.

Thursday is my last session with Clay. I’m sad about not seeing him, again, but I think I’d like to begin seeing somebody who has some experience in relaxation therapy.

A New Day

I wanted to write last night, but I was in such a horrid state of grief that I decided to shut the computer down, turn off the television and go to sleep.

I realized something important yesterday. I can be in the depths of depression and still force myself to go to the gym. Of course, I didn’t know I was depressed until way after my workout. Before I left work, though, I had begun to feel as though I didn’t really want to go to the gym. I kept telling myself that I needed a rest, since I ran on Sunday. I made a decision to put on my workout clothes when I got home and see if I felt differently.

My workout was pretty strenuous, well, as strenuous as it could be without the trainer there to push me beyond my limits. Still, I stayed true to myself, and I maintained my dignity by pushing myself through every exercise I normally do, even though I was fighting myself every step of the way. I just wanted to “phone it in” last night, but I did my absolute best to keep obligated to myself and follow through on the commitment I made when I joined the gym. In order to keep my promise, I needed to regroup after each routine, metaphorically pat myself on the back and begin the next one as if it were the first, a physical tabula-rasa.

When I finished, I packed up my gloves and wraps, got into my car and drove away. About a block from the gym, I completely fell apart and bawled, with reckless abandon, all the way home. That’s when I realized that depression was behind my initial reluctance to work out last night and once the culprit became clear, I developed a sturdy sense of pride that I was able to reschedule my breakdown until after my responsibility to my body was fulfilled. Go me.

I’m not asking questions. Grief is here to stay, it seems. I have put men on the back burner, which has alleviated my anxiety tenfold. I am jealous of anybody and everybody who has a partner these days. I want to be the one that is every single one of their partners. I want to be that special person, enveloped in a cocoon with my soul mate, but I am still hurting way too much to begin that phase of my life just yet.

My heart is huge and I feel so much love for everybody in my life. I love boxing. I love running. I love being alone and I love being with others.

I am very sad, but as long as I know I can do all of the things I love to do, sadness or no sadness, I can hold onto a shred of hope that sometime, in my future, I will wake up to a new day.

Sum of me…why not take sum of me?

I am being really nice to myself these days and taking the time I need to be by myself. Some might say I have withdrawn, but that wouldn’t really be the truth. My definition of withdrawn is a bit different, I think, in that I still get out and have fun, but I also turn off my phone for hours on end so I don’t have to talk with anybody. I’m just feeling my way through.

I took a couple of vacation days on each side of my already long weekend. I drove to New Hampshire to visit my mother and stayed with her for a couple of days and then headed south for an hour to visit Bonnie for the day. I left my textbooks and laptop at home so I wouldn’t be tempted to weigh myself down with responsibility, and I played with my mother’s toy poodle and gave him all of the love I still have left in me. I wish I could get a dog of my own, but I am simply not home enough to really shower enough affections on one.

I have been coming home every night and crying, and I really don’t want to try to stop. I just want to sit and cry. I have decided to stop trying to fill my void with another man. It won’t work, anyway. The harder I try, the more time I waste. Instead, I am using my time to get in shape, study and be around friends and family. I am trying very hard not to worry that I might spend the remainder of my life without another love. If that’s what God has in his plan for me, then so be it.

I would very much like for spring to come, even though the changes in seasons really get me down.

I miss him. That phrase is what my life is all about these days. I’m not going to be ashamed to grieve, anymore. Grief is part of who I am, now. Boxing, happiness, school, friends, running, singing, sadness, an increased dosage of Zoloft…all parts of who I am. The sum of me.

Anger. Sadness. Lack of focus.

I have been having a very tough time lately and I must say I am growing very weary of all of this.

Clay came back after a three week break and athough I didn’t expect to, I cried for the entire hour I was with him. Depression has taken hold and my life has become so split, like I’m living a double life.

I am very happy when I am around others and very sad when I am alone. The universe still feels so wrong to me since Chris died. We belong together and we never will be, now. Not on this earth, anyway.

I want so much to be in another relationship where I can share with a man, love a man, do for a man and accept love and kindness from a man, but meeting somebody is very difficult. I don’t really want to try. I just want it to happen, as I have said again and again.

I can trust the universe (which I have grown to hate) and know that eventually, when I am not looking, that someone special will come alone and change my life, but even that has become difficult. I find myself wondering if every single man I meet is the next “one” or not. I am exhausting myself. Wondering such a silly, superficial thing is taking away from my own being and my own happiness, yet, I am incapable of stopping my brain from asking me over and over, “Is he the one? Is he?”

There are a couple of men whom I am very attracted to, but who are in relationships. That’s the other part of it. At my age, I am hard-pressed to find a man who I find to be sweet, funny, smart and available. Nobody is all of those things, it seems. The rejection I have experienced on Match is not something I can take right now. Guys have expressed their desire to see me again, only to drop off the face of existence. Why can’t guys just say, “I don’t think I want to see you again.”? Is being truthful that difficult? I can take rejection when rejection comes clearly, but when I am left wondering what I did, what I said, what he’s thinking, what he’s potentially afraid of...It’s just too taxing.

So I cried like I haven’t cried in a very long time in front of Clay and I felt very safe doing it. I’m having a lot of trouble. I hate that Chris died and I hate that I am left alone to try to put it all back together again. None of it is fair. Not what Chris went though. Not what I go through on a daily basis and not what I still have to go through until I die. None of it. He should be here with me. He is the love of my life.

My sadness is riding shotgun again, next to my happiness. At any moment, it can reach over and grab the wheel. And it does.

I am such an unpredictable bundle of joy and sadness these days.

I want someone to love me. I want to give my love to somenone.

I Dream of Creejie

Last night, I dreamed that Chris and I were moving back in together. I was so happy he agreed to live with me again.

We were trying to decide where to live. I really wanted him to live with me in the apartment I live in now and when I asked him, after some thought, he said yes. But then we ended up moving somewhere new because he felt the apartment was too small for the two of us. In reality, my apartment is quite large, which is kind of funny because Chris’ attitude in my dream pretty accurately depicted how he could sometimes panic over things that were not panic-worthy – but then, I guess we all can do that, can’t we?

We moved into a white, very blocky condo complex (not a place Chris and I would have chosen in life). I was afraid that there were going to be centipedes in the apartment. Chris told me he bought me some bug stuff to spray the apartment and when I began to argue that he didn’t know which kind I needed, he pulled out one of those spray cans with the hose connected to it, opened it up and showed me the white powdery stuff I needed in order to kill the “pedes.” I was completely filled with love for him. He knew what I needed.

Within my dream, I awoke to see a centipede on the ceiling above me. I quickly grabbed the can and saturated the little beast with poison. I remember thanking God I was able to protect myself. I loved Chris more than I can ever convey in that brief murderous moment of panic.

Throughout my dream I felt a sense of completeness, calm and contentedness – like I had no worries in the world – that I haven’t felt since the day he died and I felt that way when I awoke. I rolled over, pushed my alarm up a half-hour and enjoyed the feeling of love coursing through my veins.

I love him and I feel very safe today.

Never

I ate too much. It doesn’t look that way on paper, but I really did. I made a delicious cheeseburger wrap, followed up by three-quarters of a cup of popcorn that I popped myself in the microwave with just a tablespoon of oil. I’m stuffed.

I’m sad, too. I have begun crying about Chris every night, again. I can’t help it. I don’t want to help it.

Dating and wanting to be with a man, again, has shown me how cruel the world can be. There’s nobody out there. Chris found me and liked me, so there was never a period of time when I wondered if we would go out again, or if he would call me later. All I do, now, is wonder.

I knew about baseball because of Chris and now I know nothing about it. I liked knowing about it with Chris. I liked making pizza with Chris.

There is never going to be another Chris and I’m terrified that there will never be another man for me.

Whatever.

I’m going to bed.

Fun is Married

I crumpled today, twice, simply because I miss my husband and I can’t believe all of the sadness that has filled the past three years. My tears, today, were ones of complete resignation. I felt weakened and tired. I miss him. I miss just hanging out with him, sharing waffle cone ice cream on the front steps, laughing in bed, garnishing tuna wrap plates with daisies and all of that special stuff that went on back then.

I wish I could lose the pressure I feel to find another man. It’s my own pressure. I’m doing it to myself. I am panicked about getting older and I’m trying to find a man who will want to be with an older woman. I’m only 39, though. I’m not “older” yet, am I?

If only I could forget all about men. I keep trying, but I keep missing Chris and wishing I could create something similar for myself.

The way I feel these days, I’ll never even come close to finding anybody whose company I can enjoy as much as I enjoyed Chris’.

There have been a couple of men I have developed crushes on, but at my age, the men I meet are married. So was I. Was. The guys I keep meeting are married because they’re fun. So maybe the only men out there that are still availalbe are actually sub-par.

Sometimes I wish I could meet a widower who is fun to be around because he would understand how I feel and I would understand how he feels. We could help each other.

I’m going to stop writing now. I’m obviously in a negative place.

Tomorrow will come and I’ll feel much better.

Shneed

Training Wheels

Ativan is like training wheels. Tonight, I think for the first time, I am successfully managing to make a conscious decision (albeit a drunk one) NOT to cry over whatever offends me.

Taking tonight's half an ativan, I feel as though I am saying, "Look Mum! No hands! I'm doing it! I'm not crying!"

I am still in the red zone and could cry any minute, but within fifteen minutes, I won't even be entertaining the thought. I do need the ativan, right now, to help me not lose control. But someday I won't need it. Someday, I wil know that it's okay not to mention my widowhood and to just say "Hi." to people who don't really matter to me.

Fuck. I can be so self-righteous.

Oh well. Such is life.

Shneed.

Ew!

I had the funniest, most silly night tonight drinking wine with my friend, Robby. That’s why I’m not going to cry, now, over a meaningless encounter with some person I have not seen in twenty-plus years. That’s why I swallowed half an ativan even though I drank two delicious glasses of pinot noir entitled “irony.” Ah, it all makes so much sense now.

The evening was sheer euphoria after spending all day long in 19th century China, writing a 8-10 page paper for my history class. It’s almost done. I celebrated...or escaped...tonight by enjoying an evening with one of my best friends.

At the end of the evening, a woman approached me and said, “Robin?” and recognizing her right away, I replied, “Dottie!” The girl I grew up right across the street from recognized me and came over to say hello. She introduced me to her friends as Robin Orloff and I corrected her. “It’s Robin Burrage.” I said to which she, understandably, replied, “Oh. You got married?” and I saId, “And widowed. “

Her reply was, “Ew. Too much information!”

I wanted to say, “Oh, I’M sorry to have made you as uncomfortable as I was when my husband DIED.’” but of course I didn’t. She had been drinking wine and I caught her by surprise. Her response, even if I hate it, was perfectly normal. That’s what’s wrong with our society. Death is taboo, instead of being what it is, which is N O R M A L.

So, tonight, I am NOT going to cry. There are too many wonderful people in my life for me to focus on somebody I haven’t seen in twenty-plus years. My friends are there for me and they understand my snippy retorts and they laugh about them with me and we all know that death is just a part of life. Anybody who can’t understand that, is seriously sheltering himself from the inevitable. We are ALL going to die.

Ah. It feels GREAT to have said that.

Cheers.

Shneed

Split LIfe

I have been thinking about my grief, as an entity, lately. I still have some work to do.

I have begun to realize that I think of each piece of my ordeal as a whole separate life. For example, I still feel as though hearing Chris’ diagnosis, witnessing his chemo-induced nightmare, being told he was going to die and then watching him die could not have happened to me. I feel as though all of that happened to somebody else. And I feel that my life now, can’t really be my life.

I also feel as though this person who has been dating guys for the past seven months can’t possibly be me. I was married. Somehow, I missed when that ended. How can this be me?

I hate that my grief is probably going to always be a part of me, now. I need to accept that, instead of hating it. I keep thinking that someday, I will feel no grief, but that thought is just a wish, even though if it came true I would feel awful because I wouldn’t be sad that Chris died, anymore.

Grief lasts.

Chris died.

Chris died.

Chris died Chris died Chris died.

I hate those words.

I hate them.

Enough Said

I haven’t been able to write for the past week because my brain wouldn’t let me. Even now, I have to push myself to write since I’m still slightly frozen from the fear that I am going to begin admitting truths to myself I still don’t feel comfortable admitting.

My second date with Jim went nicely. I like him. He’s a nice man. I find myself thinking about him quite a bit and I find myself wanting him to like me back, which is strange because I feel as though that desire is coming from my head and not so much from my heart. I feel as though I have made a conscious decision for our relationship to grow. He’s nice. I like him. We seem compatible. It all makes sense. The part that gets cloudy for me is when I wonder if I am closing off my heart’s emotions and telling myself that my head says we’re a good match. Have I closed my heart because of the fear I have of losing somebody close to me? I don’t know the answer.

Jim is a complete gentleman. He pulls out my chair for me and helps me get into my coat. He hasn’t walked me to my car, yet, on either date we have been on and I wonder if he’s feeling awkward about kissing me. If that’s the case, I find that aspect of him quirky and endearing.

After our date, when I was walking to my car, I felt a surge of panic begin to erupt from within me. I immediately dialed Carol’s number and to my utter joy, she answered the phone. She said she had been standing by for me, which made my heart swell.

I talked with her through my affection toward Jim until I felt as though I had permission from the universe to feel my attraction. When I arrived home, my mind took me on a scary journey on which I realized that someday I will be doing all of the things I did with Chris with somebody else. My body jerked with panic, suctioning the air from my lungs and I began to cry from my realization and from yet another funeral in honor of my lost love.

In other news, the boxing gym continues to batter me to a pulp, which is exactly my favorite kind of workout, even if the aftermath is nothing short of excruciating. I worked out Saturday afternoon and I still cannot walk up or down stairs without supporting my weight with my arms. Now I know what happens when I perform two minutes each of jump squats, front and back lunges, side lunges and sitting squats. It ain’t pretty, yet I am already hungering for the next workout. I need to know, by human experimentation, if this drill is going to get easier with practice.

When I awoke Sunday morning, I, quite literally, rolled out of bed (I couldn’t use my legs to lift myself out of bed), shuffled gingerly into the kitchen and composed an e-mail to the gym which read,

Ouch.
Sincerely, Robin Burrage

I received a reply which read,

That means it’s working.

Enough said.

There is no Great Depression. They all suck.

I am in the process of recovering from a day-long depression which erupted into a forty-five minute meltdown that is just wrapping up now.

The movie White Oleander was just on television. I caught the last hour of the film while I did housework and as the credits rolled, I felt an ambush of anguish wash over me. I read the book in Los Angeles and watched the movie when I lived with Chris in Brighton. The Santa Ana winds are an important theme in the book’s plot. I remember the winds from when I lived in L.A. They were strange and eerie in nature, warm, dry, powerful.

Chris went to a class one night, right up the street from our apartment. He was supposed to be home by 11:00pm so I drifted off to sleep at around 10:30 that night, figuring I’d wake up when he walked through the door. I awoke with a start at midnight and he still wasn’t home. I panicked, got dressed, left the apartment and ran up Fuller Ave to Santa Monica Boulevard looking for him. The winds were blowing and tree branches were strewn along the sidewalk. I developed an asthma attack along the way, due to the dry nature of the wind. I ran all the way to the studio where his class was being held but nobody was there. Chris was nowhere to be found. I ran back home, not really knowing what I would do when I got there. Ten minutes later, Chris came through the door. Class ran over an hour late and he didn’t call to tell me. We fought a bit, well not really, we bickered. I began coughing uncontrollably and didn’t stop until the next day when the doctor gave me an inhaler.

The incident horrified me. I thought Chris was dead. There had been several shootings on the very corner where his class was taking place and when he didn’t arrive home, my imagination ran wild.

Tonight, the mere mention of the Santa Ana winds squeezed a trigger in my mind and sent me on a trip into grief and anger. Hell, I was already on the edge of grief and anger since I woke up this morning. The trigger just helped me release the tension.

I miss him so much. I tried to look at pictures of him tonight but I felt no connection to his flattened likeness. I cried about his diagnosis, his cancer, the chemo, my anguish, his hair loss, his loss of control, my loneliness, my fear of unknown things to come and so many other things.

I’m happy that I am a healthy eater because I experienced a complete emotional eating binge this afternoon that consisted of beef stir-fry, a bunch of grapes and some unbuttered popcorn. A grieving widow could eat a lot worse than that. I’m still going to eat a weight watchers chocolate ice cream sandwich.

If only I hadn’t pulled that muscle, I would have gone to the boxing gym yesterday and worked all of this out of my system before it had a chance to work me over.

I’m going to return to the gym Tuesday night with a vengeance.

Watch out, muscles.

Shneed

Jim

I had to skip boxing yesterday because I have pulled a muscle in my neck and back. I toiled over whether I should go work through the injury or skip the workout altogether. After much consideration I decided to skip.

I didn’t fully appreciate the effect boxing has been having on my mood. I was just teaming with anxiety all day yesterday to the point where I got nothing done. I can’t afford to let that happen today, too. I have tons of reading to do for school and I am hoping I can calm myself down and get my nose to the grindstone within the next few minutes. I can do it.

My muscle still hurts, but not as bad as yesterday, so by Tuesday, I will be back at the gym, hopefully.

I still have a hard time not crying when I return home for the evening these days. I still feel a large void in my life where Chris used to be. He would be proud of me as of late, though. I think my boxing shenanigans would have impressed him.

Carol said the most thoughtful thing last night. She said that when I’m ready, she and Josh would like to watch my wedding video so Josh can meet Chris. My heart swelled. What a sweet, thoughtful thing to say and do. I’d like Josh to meet Chris, too.

I have a second date with a man I met on Match a few weeks ago. He was my last-ditch effort at the online form of meeting people. I just don’t like that sort of setup. My account was running out and the day before it closed, he winked at me so I sent him my personal e-mail address and we stayed in touch. Our first date was nice. He’s a sweetie.

I’m not one for small talk on a first date, so we talked about theater, true crime stories, phobias (our own personal ones), fears and the deaths of Chris and of one of Jim's close friends. During our conversation, he said, “Wow. I don’t usually reveal this much on a first date.” Go me. We’re having dinner again this Thursday evening. I like this guy. He likes me, too.

He’s very busy pursuing his Ph.D. in Psychology so he works at a paid internship Monday through Friday and goes to school at night, plus he works a part-time job to help make ends meet. I like that he’s that busy. He’s got big plans to open his own practice by day and return to the stage at night. He’s an actor, too. I like our busy schedules. Anyway...I’m excited about Thursday evening.

Last night I cried for Chris. I just miss him. I still have a large amount of survivor’s guilt, too, and I wonder if it will ever dissipate.

January 17, 2007

Chris and I would have been married three years, today. Now that the day is here, I feel a little bit better. Sleep did not come easy, last night. I lay beneath my electric blanket, sobbing for a while and fell asleep around eleven-thirty, only to awaken at 3:30.

I have said it before and I will say it again and again, this boxing workout is unbelievable. Boxing is a discipline and because my workout is supervised by a trainer, I am able and much more willing to maintain my focus for longer periods of time and with more energy than ever before. What I love the most is how I forget everything during the two hours I spend in the gym (2 and half hours, last night). After the workout, my endorphins keep me in a nice, natural, much needed and much appreciated state of serene relaxation for sometime afterwards.

This morning, while I tossed and turned trying to forget the pain in just about every part of my body, I began to cry once again. Suddenly, an image appeared in my mind’s eye of a red rose opening into bloom. I stopped crying and thanked Chris for the flower. I know he sent the thought into my mind. Then my brain began to wander again and I remembered how Chris’ tumor distorted his body. A thought immediately took over in my mind.

“That isn’t who I am, Shneed.”

The thought was so crisp and clear and instantaneous, that I believe Chris sent those words into my mind, as well.

“I love you.” I thought back. “I always have, even before we met.”

I felt comforted by the discourse taking place within me, two spirits forever intertwined, still communicating.

I’m still sad, and still so happy that we met and loved each other.

Happy Anniversary, my love.

-Shneed

January 17, 2004

I’m scared of tomorrow. Tomorrow would have been my and Chris’ third wedding anniversary and I’m afraid of the fear I’m expecting to feel.

I’m not going to go to the trees. The trees are in my mind and in my heart, now. We may have stood beneath them when we said our vows, but what would I do beneath the trees without Chris there? He’s in my heart and in my mind and in my spirit (except for when I’m crying).

I’m sad.

-Shneed

Transcension

I joined the boxing gym the other night and became an official member, committing to going there every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. I canceled an audition I had for an upcoming musical. The two things I am focusing on for the next while are my school work and boxing.

I love the workout. It’s nothing like I have ever experienced before. I don’t even get to do the fun stuff until I get through the first part of my workout, which consists of jumping rope for 9 minutes, stretching, drill work (very difficult), and a medicine ball workout (extremely difficult). After, and only after that, I finally get to box. First I stand in front of a mirror and shadow box, practicing form, then I get to don my fabulous blue Everlast training gloves and punch the heavy bag for nine minutes before spending another six minutes sparring with the double-ended bag. After a bout with the speed bag, it’s off to the matt for sit-ups and then I get to go home. the entire workout takes two hours. I am exhausted and euphoric when it’s over. I love it.

School is difficult this semester, but so far, so good. I passed in my first Statistics and Analysis in Psychology assignment and passed with flying colors. Ugh. The material is very confusing and makes me want to cry. It’s really nice to cry about a trivial matter, for a change. My history class is lovely. There’s tons of reading to be done, but the class is only six weeks long (4 to go) so by the time I feel like beating myself to death with my own text book, the class will be over. I love my life when I’m this busy. I’m beginning to feel like the “old” Robin, the pre-Chris Robin and for the first time since Chris got sick, I’m starting to be able to feel good about that with minimal guilt.

I have been reading another great book by John E. Welshons entitled Awakening from Grief: Finding the Way Back to Joy. I could not have found this book at a more appropriate time. It falls on the heels of my reading, Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl, which was written by a man who survived the nazi war camps and lived to find meaning in all of his suffering. The book has helped me find meaning in my own suffering and now this new book is helping me see and feel my experience from a more transcendental vantage point.

I am a person who has experienced a cataclysmic event in my life. My husband came and then he went. His presence in my life was sheer bliss and his absense is crushing. But his job is done. He came and did what he was put here to do, and then he left. I am here to do what I am supposed to do and then I will be allowed to leave, as well. That’s the way it works.

I am feeling better these days, and although I am attributing some of my progress to Zoloft, Clay reminds me that Zoloft can only do so much and that I am the one who is making myself feel better. I know he’s right, but nevertheless, the guilt I feel from “walking away” from my husband remains. I believe, in time, I will overcome that exhausting part of my grief. When my loyalty counted, I didn’t walk away. I stayed for as long as I wanted and needed to see Chris through his last dark years on earth and I know that beneath all of his fear and pain, he appreciated my prescense. Was it enough? Did he love me? Did I help? I hope so.

I guess I’ll finally have the answer when it’s my time to go.

Self Deprecating Mood

My mood, tonight, centers around self-deprecation, probably the effects of PMS combined with the fact that school starts tomorrow and I will be going non-stop until 10:30 pm. For some reason, even though that’s the pace I prefer, I am filled with anxiety.

I don't know why I have been left alone. I feel as though I have been punished and I feel as though I just don't deserve the kind of love I shared with Chris.

I keep thinking about the way we met and how unassuming we both were and how naturally our relationship progressed. Neither of us expected to meet and neither of us knew we would fall in love and get married. Everything happened so naturally and since I don’t know how I found love the first time, I don’t know how to meet and fall in love with someone again. I am lonely these days and I want to be close with somebody, but I can’t imagine ever being close to anybody in the same way I was close to Chris. I am so afraid I will never know love again.

I think I made a good choice when I let my Match.com membership run out. I need to refocus my lens and gear my thoughts toward the things in my life which I can control. I want to stop pressuring myself to meet somebody. If I can forget about love for a while, I will feel better, I think.

I did have a date with a forensic psychologist (I know!) Friday night. He’s a very nice man and we had a very nice time. We both decided to see each other again, but unfortunately, people don’t always follow through with their intentions. He’s currently pursuing his Ph.D. in Psychology, so he’s very busy, as am I. He is my last ditch effort with Match and if he doesn’t call me, I’m just going to focus on other things for a while.

Everybody at Russian Christmas had a boyfriend or a husband and I wanted so badly to be sitting there with Chris.

Going to the party was really tough, since I hadn’t ever gone without Chris before. I’m so tired of being tough, going places on my own and having people tell me how brave I am. I’m not brave. I’m tired and I want my husband back. I had to walk to my car alone afterwards and everybody else went home with their partners. All of the men were so funny and nice and sweet and I kept thinking that Chris fit right in with all of them when he was here.

I hate this. This is so unfair. I want him back.Why did he have to die? I don’t want to be alone anymore, but I don’t want to date. I just want to find myself suddenly falling in love the way I did with Chris. I felt like loser sitting there without him.

Carol has a boyfriend and she’s talking about marriage. Robby has his husband. I’m feeling so alone and I’m feeling like I have become the single person I never wanted to be, again. I’m her again and now I have to start from the beginning and I DON’T WANT TO!

He should have been there with me.

I’m not going to try anymore. It’ll happen. It has to.

Russian Christmas

I just had a wonderful time celebrating Russian Christmas with a friend of mine who celebrates every year by inviting a handful of friends over and serving up hors d’oeuvres and home-made borsht, along with good wine and shots of vodka, which we all consume while engaging in witty, humorous discourse. It was fun, but now I’m feeling a little sad.

The first time I attended Russian Christmas was in 2000, when Chris invited me. My friend, Annemarie, was Chris’ boss at the time and Chris was the “real” invited guest, but he invited me along. We went to the party together for two years, 2000 and 2001. Then we moved to Los Angeles for the latter part of 2001 through the latter part of 2003 and then Chris got sick, so although we were invited in 2004, we did not attend. Then Chris was gone and I could not attend without him in 2005 or 2006, but this year I decided to attend.

Annemarie never excludes me from the invitation, and that very generous, very thoughtful gesture touches me very deeply. I feel as though most people would have given up on me by now.

What I love about Annemarie is that she isn’t afraid to talk about Chris out loud in a room full of jovial party guests. She nonchalantly mentioned the time that she and Chris attended a Red Sox game together in the rain. She’s not the least bit uncomfortable. She included Chris and she included me. I wish Chris could have been there with me tonight.

I drove myself there, found a parking space on Boylston Street and walked over to Park Drive on my own. I was nervous about finding parking and nervous about leaving the party alone and walking to my car, but I made myself proud by doing both of those things, tonight. Chris would have been proud of me.

I was the first one to leave the party. I don’t really like being out really late at night, so when the clock neared 11:30I felt a little bit of panic set in and I felt compelled to leave.

I’m home now and I already feel as though I can’t sleep, so I’m not even going to try. Eventually, the gravity of exhaustion will take me.

Good night.

Two Years of a Two-Year Sentence Served

When I think about the fact that Chris died two whole years ago, I feel scared. How can two years have passed? How can my life be piecing itself back together? How can I get through my days more easily and not be crying as much as I used to? Finally, how can I ever be free, completely free, from the guilt of moving on? No amount of logic seems to alleviate the guilt-generated nervousness in the pit of my stomach.

I can already feel that 2007 is going to be a good year for forward movement in my life. I have one more two-year anniversary date to get through, my wedding anniversary, before I am past the year of seconds, which in no way means I have finished experiencing the last of the firsts.

At the urging of one of my friends, I attended the Ellis Paul concert at Club Passim last night. My decision to attend came too late for me to order tickets to the late show, but nonetheless, Ellis rocked...or “folked” as it were. I guess he “folk rocked.”

Focusing on the music was a challenge last night as my mind peridocially wandered back in time throughout the evening. I missed entire blocks of the music set, remembering how Chris and I met, how he introduced me to the world of folk music and how we enjoyed romantic evenings out at venues similar to Passim. The festive holiday lights which regularly ornament the walls of the room reminded me of Chris. The view out the windows brought me back to a time when I was one-half of an “us.” Ellis’ lyrics messed with my moods, causing me to toggle back and forth between elation and destruction.

I was home by ten and in bed by eleven-thirty.

Today’s rain lent an entirely appropriate backdrop to the anniversary of the worst period of my life. I was happy to see the dismal weather system looming outside the panes of my living room window. Maybe by this time next year I will be ready for the sun.

I am trying. I still have to try. Nothing comes naturally, yet.

Last night, I donned Chris’ brown cordorouy jacket, my fabric hug, and I curled up on my bed and cried, telling him I love him, that I always have and that I wish he hadn’t died. I wore the embrace for a while before I sat up, and then I returned the textile remnant of my husband to its hanger along with his pajama bottoms, boxer shorts, ties, Red Sox t-shirt and stripey “Australian girlfriend” jersey. Those are the clothes I kept for myself as remembrances of the deepest love I have ever felt.

The year 2007 is going to be all about courage. Courage to move forward, courage to find love again, and courage to fully engage in my life, grounded in the truth that this is, indeed, my life and no longer a life I share with Chris.

This past Saturday, I took an introductory boxing lesson at a boxing club and absolutely loved my session. I am now gearing up for membership. Nothing, to date, has alleviated my anger and anxiety more than punching a bag and hitting the mits in the ring while I followed the trainer’s shoulted commands, “One! Two, one! One, two, three!”, concentrating on form, footwork and cardio endurance. I arrived home with the usual endorphin rush, amplified by the most pronounced feeling of relaxation I have ever experienced before and after Chris.

2007 is going to bring change and my life is going to become beautiful, again. I am going to punch my way out of prison this year.

His Legacy

This morning, I have been reading a lot of the stuff Chris wrote in the year and a half before he died. I think I am going to publish all of his writings in my book, along with my own writings from before he died, beginning with the diagnosis.

Last night, I dropped a delicious Ativan for the first time in a little while. Zoloft has been doing the trick for me, so I haven’t needed too much Ativan. However, I do love the stuff. I had forgotten that even though I have been taking it periodically, I have only been taking half of a pill, so last night I very hastily dropped an entire pill down my throat and before I knew what was happening, I had been relaxed into a state I can only remember from a time long before cancer ever entered our picture.

I must be feeling the anniversary. Last night, on two separate occasions, I actually got that old feeling that I could call Chris and ask him something. That hasn’t happened in a very long time. First, I was trying to find the boxing gym I am going to today. I know it’s near the Paradise on Commonwealth Avenue, but for a split second, I thought, “Chris will know. I’ll just ask him where the....oh....I can’t do that.” and then later in the evening, I was watching “Taxi Driver” and I couldn’t figure out whether Robert DiNero’s character was a taxi driver or a cop. I thought, “Chris knows. I’ll ask him...oh.” I always freak myself out when I do that. At my appointment with Clay the other night, and then again on the phone with Robby last night, I referred to Chris in the present tense. “Chris has a...blah blah blah.” and then I corrected myself with the past tense form of the verb.

When I read Chris’ stories, I feel like he’s right here in the room with me. His writing is every bit who he was, a nice reminder for me on those days when my memory of him feels clouded by the passage of time.

We had fun, Chris and I. Home was a silly place to be, and an emotionally safe place for me to land for the first time in my life. Family life was peaceful for the first time. I had a best friend living with me, existing with me in the same emotional and spiritual space and I loved that we shared that space, physically and emotionally.

I suppose if I am serious about finding the meaning in my life as a means for growth, I would have to begin by believing that Chris primed me for life and love and that I am now fully equipped with everything I need to bring that gift to somebody else and share life with him. I have to believe that perhaps the meaning in my life lies in bringing meaning into the lives of others and that maybe I can start by bringing to others all that Chris gave to me.

After all, I have become Chris in my own way. He lives on within me and if I choose, I have the power to show everybody who he was by projecting Chris’ beauty onto them.

Life would be better if Chris could have continued to project his beauty, himself, but as always, I’m happy to help. Even though Chris was sick and in danger of dying, my life held the most meaning and happiness when I knew I was helping him.

Finding the Meaning in my Life

Sometimes, the word of a trained professional is all I need. Clay confirmed for me, by expressing his opinion, that I probably had the flu because typically, with anxiety-induced psychosomatic symptoms, a person will feel as though she needs to vomit, but probably will not actually do so. A tremendous weight of fear and shame has been lifted from my shoulders.

I talk a big game when it comes to my ability to handle adversity and suffering in a constructive and forward-moving manner, but the truth is that sometimes I doubt that ability. Lately, I have found myself stuck right smack in the middle of the road, wanting to let go of Chris and the horrors surrounding his illness and demise, yet not entirely consciously being unwilling to release my grip on my grief. I still cannot articulate what purpose my grief serves me, but I believe I am getting something out of my reluctance to let go, otherwise, letting go would not feel so impossible.

In his book, Man’s Search for Meaning, Victor Frankl talks about the healing power of finding meaning for one’s suffering, a meaning in life. This very thought-provoking book has prompted me to question the meaning in my own life. I thought my life had meaning, but what I am realizing is that while people in my life have meaning to me, and while activities in which I participate have meaning to me, I am not aware of the actual meaning of my life, itself. When I ponder the answer to the question, I come up short.

I care about people and I want to use that quality more. I am studying psychology in order to give myself the proper tools to help others, but learning an official skill set will take time, so I am a work in progress.

Why did Chris suffer and why did I suffer Chris’ suffering and why, for that matter, do I continue to suffer the loss of my sweet husband? There are valid answers to all of these questions and there are reasons for all of the suffering of all people.

Answering that question with regard to Chris’ suffering hardly seems fair. He is no longer alive and cannot benefit from his own suffering, unless there really is another place the soul goes after life on earth. Did Chris suffer so I could learn how to give myself entirely to somebody else? That answer feels narcissistic, which shames me, but if the answer is true, it is not just true for me, but for everybody who has been hurt by Chris’ death. We have all learned and the lessons are plenty, even endless. We learned what disease looks like close up. We saw a real-life demo on how a person deals with being diagnosed with disease. We learned medical terms we never thought we would need to know. We learned, some of us for the first time, how losing a loved one feels. We learned we can go on living, and that suicide, although entertaining, is not the best option. We lost old friends we thought we would know forever and gained new ones throughout the ordeal. The lessons just go on and on and probably will for as long as we are able to learn.

My next course of action is dissecting my life, my thoughts, my beliefs and my aspirations in an attempt to uncover the meaning my life holds. There is meaning, of that I am certain. I may not be able to precisely identify that meaning at this point in time, but Victor Frenkl has opened a door for me which leads into the proverbial “great unknown.”

There is where I am headed. There is where we are all headed.

Physically or Spiritually Ill?

Marc and I ended up riding the train to Copley Square and walking to the top of Newbury Street to the North Face to pick up his jacket.

As he searched the racks, my well-being progressively became not-so-well. I grew weak and began sweating profusely and had to sit on the steps inside the store while I waited for him to chat with the salesman. I finally stood and said, “I’m going to wait outside for you. It’s really warm in here.”

As I exited the store, a strange and familiar feeling washed over me. I knew I was about to faint and I panicked and by the time I got outside, all I could do was hold onto the railing and try to stay on my feet. My lights were going out and I knew if I let go of the railing I was going down. I have only almost fainted one other time in my life. The feeling is very strange, as though someone is turning a light dimmer down. Everything looks the same, except that suddenly, the world appears less colorful, more gray and dim. I wanted to call for help, but my voice wouldn’t work, nor would my normal capacity to form words. I could see a bench about ten feet away, but I just could not let go of the railing without falling to the ground.

After a few minutes, Marc came out and asked me if i was okay. I couldn’t really answer him. I could barely shake my head back and forth to indicate “No.” He rubbed my back, which made me feel so cared about and reminded me of how Chris made me feel all of those years. Marc asked me if I wanted to sit down on the bench and once again, I could not answer him. I shook my head again. Then I said to him, “I think I’m going to throw up.” and he said, “You do?” and then it happened. Right there, in public, in broad daylight, I vomited against the wall of the North Face while excited holiday consumes bustled about spending gift cards and returning unwanted gifts. I could not have cared less. Embarrassment was the last thing on my mind.

I felt better instantly, except for the aching muscles in my legs, arms, back and head. Marc helped me over to the rain-soaked bench where I sat with my head down for about ten minutes. He offered to hail a cab for me and give me the money to get home, but remembering the ideals of my fabulous husband, I said, “No. I am NOT giving my money to the man. I can get home by train.” After a few moments, I stood and we slowly walked to the subway station. Marc returned to work and I went home.

With the help of Advil PM, I slept from 8:30 last night until 2:00 today. My aches are gone, as is my nausea. I have not eaten a morsel in twenty-nine and a half hours and I’m not hungry at all. Way to jump right back on Weight-Watchers, right?

The thought that all of this may have been brought on by the anniversary of Chris’ final hospital stay and his final days on earth scares and amazes me. I really don’t know what the cause of my sudden illness was. I suppose it could have been psychosomatic. Aside from my physical ailments, I don’t feel sick. I don’t have a cold. I just experienced a bizarre breakdown of my ability to function. I don’t know if a person can have the flu for a few hours, or not. I really don’t know what happened. I only know that I feel so much more able to function in the safety of my apartment today and I am a little nervous about my return to the real world tomorrow.

I can do it, especially knowing that I have an appointment with Clay after work.

Beaten,
Shneed

Shell Shock

I have returned to work, today, after my three-day holiday weekend and I am feeling quite nauseous. I have no proof, but a strong suspicion that depression has taken me by the leg and is threatening to wash over my entire body and soul. I feel tired, sad, sick and completely unmotivated.

This morning, on the news, the anchorwoman made mention of the Asian Tsunami of 2004. I missed that entire event because I was in the hospital getting the news that the doctors were going to stop Chris’ treatment and send him home for “comfort care”, which has always translated to “death” for me.

The body is an amazing organism. I truly believe that the nausea I feel is depression trying to get me to pack up and go home. I can do that if I want to and nobody would blink twice. I can go home sick. All I really want to do is crawl under my covers and cry for a few hours. I am not capable of focusing on anything else, today.

Marc and I are going out in a little while to pick up a jacket he bought on Newbury Street. I don’t want to go. I just want to cry.

Five minutes later…

I just returned from the ladies room where I spent the last five minutes in tears. I finally gave in. I wonder how many more times this is going to happen, today.

I’m going to try to feel better, but if that doesn’t happen, I am definitely going home sick.

-Shneed

Seven Stops on the Grief Express

I had the most magnificent day, yesterday, hosting a Christmas Eve celebration (even though we’re Jewish) at my apartment with my family. Yesterday marks the first time I have ever hosted such a family event and I feel as though the festivity was a screaming success. There was no room for grief in my day. I am truly blessed to be able to see the other people in my life whom I love and who love me.

Still, the moment all of the “good-byes” were said and I found myself standing alone in the middle of my living room, loss came to pay a visit, which made me bizarrely happy. I still need my grief as proof that I love Chris and at the present moment, I am not quite sure how to be certain of that love without tears and crushing despair. Even in the midst of my despair, I accepted an invitation to have dinner with a friend and her family so I picked myself up, brushed myself off and indulged in a Christmas Eve Chinese food binge, which elongated the cheerful day in which I was already ensconced.

The plan was to leave the restaurant, drive around and look at Christmas lights and leave adorable wooden reindeer on random cars as a gesture of holiday cheer. I agreed to accompany my friends but when the time came to leave, I needed to dash home and deal with my feelings. I think I cried for about seven minutes before I opened my laptop and pushed through a class assignment, once again proving that engaging in responsible actions alleviates my sadness. Go me.

I am moments away from leaving, with my brother, to visit my sister’s family and then to visit my father and his wife. Today will also be filled with cheer. I am doing what I have set out to do. I am having a happy holiday season, peppered with grief, but happy, nonetheless.

I got through Thanksgiving, Chris' birthday, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day so far, even though I have lived in parrallells along the way, noting what was happening two years ago to the day, every step of the way. Four down, three to go. New Years Eve, New Years Day and my wedding anniversary are the final stops on this year’s grief express.

Choo-choo!

-Shneed

Christmas Eve, 2006

Suppress, suppress, suppress, suppress, suppress.

Merry Christmas.

Mountains and Smaller Mountains

Clay said I sound different, that I have been describing the events of the past three years in more detail than I have in the past. I hated him for delivering that message because in conveying his thoughts to me, I feel as though he has relayed to me that I am “getting over” Chris’ death. I should tell him that’s the effect I experienced. Clay’s been pretty good in the past shouldering my displaced hatred toward him. Clay’s a rock...the soft kind of rock that other rocks bounce off of.

Therapy is a strange and mysterious phenomenon. The human mind is a strange and mysterious phenomenon. I wanted to quit going to Clay because I thought I was finished talking about my experiences. A common belief among therapists is that clients will end their treatment if they are afraid of facing pain or tapping into a memory or feeling that seems too powerful to acknowledge. As a client, myself, I feel hatred toward all therapists who may believe that notion, but that’s probably because the notion is true and as the old adage dictates, “The truth hurts.” What I mean to say is that now that I have decided to remain Clay’s client for a while, I have begun to talk with him about the most painful part of my ordeal, Chris’ actual illness, the symptoms, his pain, the deterioration of his freedom, quality of life and lastly, his very body. This aspect of my nightmare is so painful to talk about that I can already feel all of the thoughts connected to it squashing back down into the depths of my psyche where I can hide them from myself. I don’t really want to talk about those thoughts, but I need to get them out into the air. When I imagine myself telling my story to Clay I come up, once again, hating him. Poor Clay. But what can I say? I didn’t decide that he should become a therapist. I am the innocent in all of this.

Ah, now that all of my black thoughts are sufficiently suppressed, I can begin to get ready for my trek to Beth’s house today to visit with my in-laws, whom I love more than I can ever convey with mere words.

I have been reading a book entitled, Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl, a man who survived Auschwitz and not only lived to tell about the ordeal, but transformed his experience into a meaningful manifesto written to deliver hope and an explanation for human suffering. In the book’s pages, I continue to find solid ground to stand on and to continue my recently reluctant march forward. There is much pain in this world, but there is beauty as well, and love, and humor, and kindness.

My heart bleeds for Victor Frankl and all others who have experienced similar horrors and I am so very thankful to people like him who share their stories, because these are the people who clearly demonstrate that horror, trauma and sadness can be overcome. My own horror pales in comparison to any death camp memoir. That thought, alone, helps me see my experience as a mountain that I can climb with relative ease.

-Shneed

Out of My Mind

Tonight, I visited an assisted-living home and, along with a host of other singers and walked the hallways singing Christmas carols to the residents. People stood in their doorways smiling and singing with us. We crammed into one woman’s room (She’s 96 years old!) and sang O Holy Night to her. Her excitement was a gift.

We also sang to alzheimers patients. I was nervous, at first, but then I reminded myself that the woman who took care of my husband was me and I wasn’t scared to help Chris then, and I’m not scared to help others now. The residents loved the music and I felt as though we all spread so much happiness tonight.

Afterwards, I went to the Whole Foods Chris and I used to go to when we lived in Brighton. I used to not be able to go there. Tonight, the pain was not as great as it was in the past. I drove through the same intersection that sent me into a three-hour breakdown last week, but this week I did not cry at all. I still feel sadness in that neighborhood and I can still feel how I felt when I used to walk up the sidewalk to our apartment. I can still feel Chris waiting upstairs for me and I can still feel us making plans to have breakfast at the Brighton Cafe.

Tonight, the memories did not hurt me because I took myself outside of my own mind for a couple of hours and gave of myself to others.

I want to give to others more often.

Push

I don’t want to go to work. I wish I could stay home.

Operation “Having a Happy Holiday Season” is going pretty well. I have been out holiday shopping, which is something I really haven’t done in a while. Giving makes me feel better.

Last night I went out with two of my closest friends for our annual holiday outing. I had fun, but I still felt detached, almost not even present. The part of me that was present felt bland, fogged over, and I had to remind myself, even as I sat laughing with my friends, that I was out having fun. The threat of returning home to my Chris-less apartment and to my life as the single person I should not be, always looms.

Carol talked about funny things Josh said. Robby talked about funny things Gene said. I talked about funny things Chris said, aware that their partners are alive and well and mine is no longer with me. All of the funny things Chris said ended two years ago. His humor stopped at age 34, but Robby, Carol, Josh, Gene and my humor continues to mature. Chris is now five years younger than me and over time, the gap in our ages will increase. We should have been three and a half years apart forever.

I didn’t want to wake up this morning, despite my new prescription for Zoloft. I suppose PMS has a way with squelching whatever benefits an antidepressant can offer me.

A pattern I have become aware of is that on weekdays, when I have to be at work, all I want to do is stay home and get stuff done, but on weekends, when I typically have nothing scheduled, I can’t seem to get moving. That sounds like depression to me.

Still, I managed to go out and be at least partially present for a holiday outing last night. I will visit my in-laws on Saturday, I’m having my mother and siblings over on Sunday and I will be at my father’s house on Monday, Christmas day, the day I rushed Chris to the hospital 2 years ago. Maybe I will be too busy to think about any of the difficult stuff.

Zoloft and a Plan

Lately, I have been feeling as though Chris is around me. I feel his embrace, but in a different kind of way. I feel comforted. Yesterday morning, right before I woke up, the very last image my brain produced was that of a frame of Chris wearing the biggest, most wonderful smile I have ever seen. I just feel like he is here, guiding me out of the hole into which I have sunken. Maybe the Zoloft is helping...or maybe the Zoloft is helping clear a path for Chris to reach me, now. Maybe both.

I'm still shaky and I don't really trust that my grief will dissipate and I am on guard against every peak and valley. I am filled with anxiety when I think about the goings-on of 2 years ago today, but I can't not think about it. I am still frightened by the magnitude of what happened and I am afraid that it will happen again with whomever I meet next. And I still want to get off this crazy ride. And I still want to prevail.

There will be no Ellis Paul concert for me this New Years Eve. I did that, already and proved to myself that I could be there, but Ellis doesn't hold the same magic for me as he did when Chris was alive and enjoying the music with me.

My Match.com account is expiring in two weeks and after that I am just going to coast for a while and hope and try to meet somebody on my own. But my priorities will be school, exercise and performance for a while. Once I become focused on those three activities, I feel as though the rest of my life will begin to come together.

UPdownUPdownUPdown

Each morning when I wake up, for a couple of seconds I lay still wondering whether, or not, I am going to cry. On my way up the five flights of stairs leading to my apartment, I wonder the same thing.

I have been crying for so long that I can’t remember what life was like before I cried every single day. Tears have become a norm in my daily routine. I cry in the morning, laugh throughout the day, cry when I get home, laugh before bed and cry under the comfort of my blankets. There are so many different types of tears that I never noticed before I became an expert: angry tears, soul-crushing tears, tears of complete and utter resign. I know which ones I am crying each time.

Last night on my way home from the audition, I passed through the neighborhood Chris and I lived in when we came home from Los Angeles. I didn’t really plan to come home that way, but something inside of me kept pulling me in that direction.

Last night’s tears began as I sat at a red light at the intersection of Washington and Commonwealth Avenue. I glanced across the street toward the Brighton Café, a favorite breakfast place of mine and Chris’, and closed my eyes for a few seconds. Suddenly I was inside, sitting across from Chris three years ago, smiling at him. The memory was so real I forgot I was in my car. I could feel him. The realization that I was merely dreaming came back like a cruel arctic frost, hardening over my joy and freezing time at 2005.

That part of town does it to me every time. I continue to pass through in some effort to understand and accept what has transpired over the past couple of years.

I cried from the time I arrived in that intersection until I arrived beneath the covers in my bed, taking a fifteen minute break only to eat some Edy’s slow-churned caramel swirl ice cream and cool whip. There’s nothing sad about Edy’s slow-churned caramel swirl ice cream and cool whip.

Before turning in for the night, I prayed to Chris and to God to send me a man who is just like Chris.

What I really want is to be with a man who is just like Chris.

How Burrage Got Her Groove Back

Today ended up being a good day, although its false 4:00am start was tough. I finally went back to sleep at 5:30 after posting my last entry and dreamed about stressful situations and impossible outcomes.

I awoke for the second time at 9:30am to a voicemail message from a friend inviting me over to a remain-in-your-pajamas pancakes and coffee date. With ten minutes of waking state in me, I brushed my teeth, threw a coat over my jammies and headed to my car to drive myself to her house.

I conveyed to her my feelings that nobody wants to hear my grief woes anymore and that everybody expects me to be over the ordeal, and in her sweet, always compassionate way, she reassured me that none of my good friends expect me to be over anything, nor are the people who love me tired of listening to me work through my grief. I exhaled. Somehow, just knowing that they know how I feel during my moments of solitude made me feel loved again.

From her house, we went to watch her boyfriend play in his jazzband for a couple of hours. The weather was beautiful, I had no schoolwork to do, no new songs to learn and as a result, no kerfew.

We returned to her home afterwards where we enjoyed more coffee together and then I drove to the Cheesecake Factory to enjoy dinner with five others from the show in which I just performed. I had wanted to cancel out on them at 4:00am this morning. I’m glad I went. The evening was a lot of fun with a very nice group of people of whom I am very fond.

I did it. I turned it around.

I can feel myself getting back on track with the help of Zoloft. I really needed the help, this time. I feel as though a heavy, wet, cold blanket has been lifted off of me and I am beginning to dry off and warm up.

Thank goodness for the relief.

Muscle Memory is Killing Me

I am not doing very well. I woke up at 4am and I tossed around thinking ugly, dark thoughts until now. My head hurts and I am feeling a lot of pain and even though I realize this is self-pitying, selt-sabotaging behavior, I’m having trouble talking myself out of the funk I have been in lately.

I feel like there is so llittle love for me. I have, once again, entered a wishful state that Chris had survived his cancer, but that notion is just a fairy-tale of old.

Last night, I watched Larry King Live. Marlo Thomas was the guest and the show was about St. Judes Children’s Research Hospital. A few families and their doctors were also guests, along with child survivors of cancer.

Cancer is such a serious, scary, forboding disease. The one thing I wish I had in common with the families on the show is their getting to keep their loved ones. Their doctors saved the lives of their loved ones. They each got to feel what I felt each time Chris told me his tumor had shrunken. These families get to feel what I felt when the surgeon reported that she had managed to remove all of Chris’ cancer.

I am very sad this morning. I think my body is remembering the timeline. Two years ago, Chris was well into his 2nd diagnosis and had lost his belief that he would prevail. My body seems to remember and has begun to keep me awake at night, wake me up in the wee hours of the morning and infect me with depression.

Yesterday was day-one of my re-entry into the world of antidepressants. I am hoping my Zoloft will save me this time because I find that my brain has been telling me, once again, that the only way out of this mess is through death. I am trying, very hard, to turn this around, but I am really up against it this time because I feel as though none of my friends understand how painful losing my spouse has been for me. The worst part of that is that I think that they think they do understand, but that’s just not the case. Nobody really understands.

I am still fighting the fight and really trying to have a happy holiday season. I have to. I owe that much to myself. Muscle memory is beating the fuck out of me, though.

I have a hard time being around married people again. Carol and Josh are going strong and I find myself not really wanting to answer the phone when she calls. I am supposed to go with her this afternoon to see Josh play piano and then I am supposed to go out with the folks from my recently closed show for dinner. I don’t want to do either. All I want to do is crawl into bed and sleep until I die.

I know these feelings will pass. I’m tired. Maybe now the words are written, I have freed myself to go back to sleep.

Raising the Bar

I left work at 1:00pm yesterday due to a horrible cold that made staying awake feel like the most difficult challenge I have ever faced in my lifetime. I was in bed by 2:00pm and I didn’t wake up until today at 6:00am. That’s a sixteen-hour refrain from my waking state. I guess my body needed the rest. I have been going out every single night and all day on the weekends. My body said “Stop.” and then stopped me.

I called in sick today, but worked from home for half a day because the guy that covers me at work was on vacation. Still, I was happy to have not had to venture out into the ice cold at 8:00 in the morning, even if my heating bill is going to send me out in search of a second job.

I did get up and go through the motions of getting ready this morning. I made it into the shower, got dressed and even put on my makeup, but when the time came to blow-dry my hair, I knew I was staying home. My eyes would not stay open without tearing up and sneezing seemed to be my new favorite hobby.

Even as I dialed my boss’ number, though, I knew I was staying home because I was sick and because I was depressed. I have noticed depression coming on more and more over the last few weeks. I am thankful for my level of self-awareness because I recognized the signs. I had lost interest in almost everything, my job included, and I have been having a tough time coping with the end of things such as my class, my show and my therapy with Clay.

Today I went to CVS to pick up my new prescription for Zoloft. I have decided to begin taking an antidepressant again because if I don’t try to help myself, I won’t ever feel better. I am tired of crying and tired of talking about something that happened two years ago. Nobody expects me to still be upset and I feel as though most people are tired of hearing me talk about my loss. None of that will shape how much I talk about my loss, but taking an antidepressant could free me up to take larger strides into my future. If I don’t try my hardest to keep moving forward, I might never know the joy that my future holds.

This morning was a testament to how depressed I can get. I logged onto my computer and began working. My computer malfunctioned and so did my thought process. I began by thinking, “My fucking computer is acting quirky.” and then thought, “I hate this fucking laptop.” and “I hate my job.” and then “I HATE MY LIFE!” and then before I even knew what hit me, I was curled up on the futon crying, “My husband died.” Behavior such as that is hardly conducive to a bright, new future. Perhaps Zoloft will help me raise the bar on my base level of optimism, which, on a good day...actually, on most days is at a pretty good level. My problem is sustaining that level over a vast amount of consecutive days. My moods are not consistent. I need to learn to let go. I need to find a way to convince myself that letting go is not synonymous with forgetting.

I am considering attending the bereavement group at Dana Farber again if the mediator will have me. She seemed to want only those who have been grieving for 6 months to a year. Even she seems to have placed a statute of limitations on grief.

I think, a lot, about how much good I could do for others and for myself if I just reached out and tried to help somebody else in life. I want to do that. I hope to be able to do that someday. I need to harness my own pain, first.

My Dream

I had insomnia last night, waking at 3:00 am and being unable to drift back to sleep until around 5:30.

We walked side by side, me feeling sadness and loneliness and Chris feeling the anger and sadness he felt from his illness. I wanted to fix it. I wanted to make him better and to be able to reassure him that he was going to be alright and I wanted to really mean it.

I wondered if he would be able to see me after he died and I said to him. “Can we please talk about this?” He wasn’t willing.

I faced him, stretched my arms high above my head and brought them down and around his neck, embracing him with all of the love I have inside of me, hoping it was helping him but knowing from deep down inside that nothing would.

We were having dinner in a restaurant. I was in a horrible, angry mood. I ordered a cheeseburger and when the food came, I was served what looked like a cheeseburger between two halves of an english muffin. When I bit into it, it was all English muffin and no burger. I became angry and called the manager over. I said, “I ordered a cheeseburger and this is what I got." and then I yelled "I’M PISSED OFF!” I knew my anger was bothering Chris. His anger was much more valid. I tried to send positive energy his way but it just wasn’t reaching him.

A young waiter sat down at our table and he anc Chris were talking. I wanted to talk. I leaned toward the waiter and said, with anger in my voice, “Do you MIND if I talk to my HUSBAND?”

Then I leaned over the table toward Chris and said, “Are you still my husband?” He was angry.

We were walking down the street together, me holding onto his arm like I did when he was here. I just kept sending all of my love and energy through him, trying to help him feel better.

We went to visit Bonnie in what looked like a horrible, messy, run-down child-care facility. the toilets were overflowing and there was water on the floors. We couldn’t find comfortable places to sit. Chris was angry the entire time.

There were yorkie puppies in the closet. I called them over and spent all of my time with one of them, who persistently licked my hand throughout the remainder of my dream.

Okay. I have to stop crying and get ready for work.

Holiday Reflections

Grief has a way with attacking and retreating that has caused me to reconsider the benefits of long-term antidepressant and anxiety medication.

I have been feeling better lately, except that underneath absolutely everything I feel lies a low-grade fever, comprised entirely of depression and anxiety. My running temperature shows me how some people who have experienced the loss of a spouse have trouble getting out of bed every morning. I have always been very strong-willed. I exist to defend myself against the sadness and anger that have become a large part of my inner persona. Something within me knows and has always known that the only choice for me is to persist upon picking myself up and marching forward. From the moment the gunshot sounded, I have been off and running.

These days of anniversaries, have me feeling as though my body and mind are slowing, slowing, slowing and grief is right on my heels just waiting for me to trip over some unforeseen obstacle along the track. Each anniversary day is a hurdle. I have jumped over the Thanksgiving and “Chris’ birthday” hurdles with some success although my shins have collected bruises, reminding me of how easily grief can attack and take me down. I didn’t fall, though...well, I actually did fall, but I got back up without losing too much ground.

The Christmas season is approaching and with it comes memories of oncological waiting rooms teaming with IV drips and Christmas carols, cookies and stories from other hapless patrons of anti-nausea drugs and chemo-induced pseudo-comas. I am reminded of Christmas wishes I thought I would never have. “I would love a new Tivo!” became “I would love to wake up and discover I have been dreaming.” and “I would love for my husband’s life to be spared for Christmas, this year.“ I experienced hopeless wishes in the face of anticipated disaster intertwined with nurses wearing santa hats and Saturdays spent feeling as though the Neulasta shot had been administered straight into my heart, instead of the back of my husband’s arm. He hated those shots and the barely tolerable pain they brought.

I feel very much like David Banner, constantly searching for the antidote that could eventually stop the demons and end the transformation into the monster that freely takes over his being.

Maybe "Take care." means "Take care."

So, “take care” guy wants to go out with me, again. Strange.

I’m not saying a thing about how I worked myself into a grief frenzy for nothing. That frenzy was coming one way or another. “Take care” guy was just the catalyst, this time.

More Days Like This

I have had a wonderful , joyous day today for reasons that are not apparent to me.

Work was great. School was fascinating, as usual. and I just enjoyed a glass of wine and a delicious buffalo chicken quesadilla with one of my best and oldest friends who came to meet me after class.

I wish I could pinpoint what was differnet about today, what, exaclty, caused me to wake up one single minute before my alarm sounded when most days since Chris died I have repeatedly reset the alarm only jump out of bed a half-hour late and begin the crazed rush to get ready and get to work consistently ten to fifteen minutes late. Until this morning, I thought my days of rising before the alarm startled me into a conscious state were over.

If I knew what made today different than the grief-filled norm I have come to know, I might be able to take steps toward creating more days like this one. What I do know is that I am heading into bed tonight with a smile on my face and maybe tonight I won’t give in to the unyielding menacing inner voice that tells me it isn’t right to feel happy because Chris didn’t get to.

Maybe.

Shneed

Prelude to a Nervous Breakdown – An Epic Tale

Part One

What I find myself doing all too often is hoping that the guy I am on a date with feels that I am right for him and I never seem to consider that he may not be right for me.

Lately I have been placing too much importance on getting back into a relationship, which has never been a strong characteristic of mine. I have always been self-sufficient and able to enjoy my life without a man by my side. My interests and passions are plentiful and fill me with an enormous abundance of joy.

Last evening’s date went very well, I thought. He was very attractive, smart, energetic and optimistic, and he seemed to enjoy my company very much. We began with a glass of wine at the bar and he issued me a promotion (as perceived by me) to the next level, suggesting that we move into the restaurant and have dinner. Conversation flowed nicely. We laughed, as well as discussed serious matters, such as our personal opinions and experiences using the online dating medium. I shared with him my appreciation for honesty and for being told up-front whether my date is interested in a second date or whether he feels we are not a match. Maybe the mistake I made was elaborating the simplicity of simply packaging rejection into the phrase, “Take care.” He picked up the tab, which is not a requirement of mine at all, since I am not really moved one way or the other by chivalrous gestures.

As we exited the restaurant, I turned and enthusiastically informed him that I would like to see him again if he was also interested in a second date to which he replied, “Great!” Perhaps he should have bitten down on his tongue, instead.

He offered to walk me to my car, which I perceived as very gentleman-like. I accepted the offer, as well as his request for me to drive him to his car, which I was more than happy to do.

Once next to his car, I shifted my own car into “park” and we thanked each other. He proceeded to lean in for a kiss and even though I have historically prided myself on the fact that I have never kissed on a first date, I decided to make an exception in this case. I liked him and I wanted to kiss him and he seemed to like me, too. After all, men don’t kiss women unless they intend to see them again, right? So I decided to change my virtuous ways and act charitable in the holiday spirit of giving.

Kissing him was nice. Up until last night, I had never engaged in a kiss-fest with somebody I had just met two hours before. Maybe that’s prudish. Something about this man made me want to kiss him and something about our kiss made me feel very proud of my own growth in that area. We sat in my car sharing a few moments locked in a kiss and when we were finished I thanked him for a lovely evening and he replied, “You’re welcome. Take care.”

One his way out of the car he reiterated, “Take care.”

Part Two

I didn’t put two and two together until I had driven halfway down the street. He didn’t want to see me again and he very smoothly indicated his lack of intent in no uncertain terms. My body went numb and I wondered what had just happened. He honored my wish and rejected me in one fell swoop.

I dialed Carol’s number thinking she might still be awake at 10:15 PM. She didn’t answer the phone. I drove myself home hashing out the evening’s events in my head. He kissed me, so he must have found me attractive. That ending isn’t the worst kind of conclusion. I tried to deny my way out of the rejection thinking that maybe he didn’t realize what he was saying and maybe I would send him an e-mail stating that I had surmised he was telling me he did not intend to go on a second date with me…y’know, give him a chance to clear things up and realize that he had mistakenly told me to “take care” out of habit.

Luckily, and sadly, reality seeped in and I slowly began to realize he probably didn’t find me to be a match for him. I briefly troubled myself with all of the possibilities I could dream up for his reasons, and anybody who knows me knows that any reasons I can dream up are going to be meaner and more deprecating that those of an outsider.

I arrived at home, ascended the five flights of stairs to my apartment, entered and promptly fell apart at the seams.

I wanted Chris alive again. I wanted my husband. I screamed and gathered all of my blankets and pillows into a heap meant to mirror the body mass of my sweet Chris and I held on for dear life telling him I needed him, I loved him, that his death is not fair, that I hate the uncertainty of dating and that I cannot do life without him. I thought about my future and how I could cut it short and each time my mind returned to the reality of his absence in my life, I was hit hard with another wave of the truth that smashed my body around on the reefs, slamming me against rocks and dunes and drowning me in my own endless undertow of despair. I wanted to drown. I wanted darkness to close in and take me away from the pain of living without him. I snapped.

The phone rang. It was Carol. I hate to sound so mellow-dramatic but hearing her voice last night was like hearing angels sing.

I have stopped putting all of my grief on Carol. As friends go, she has performed above and beyond what I would expect from any friend. Last night, the dam holding back my grief burst and an entire two years worth of sadness and surrender came pouring out as I told Carol that I want him back, alive and well. She very graciously offered to stay on the phone with me for as long as I needed her and I took advantage of her offer. My reaction, last night, scared me to my core and gave me some much needed insight into my level of readiness with regard to dating.

By the time I was ready to relinquish my grip on Carol, the two of us were laughing at the irony of how all I wanted to do was run home and tell my husband about my horrible dating experience.

Whether I decide to continue dating or recharge my battery for a while and find happiness in all of the other activities in my life that bring me joy, I have come full circle and realized that I was out with a lovely man, last night, who was sensitive, honest and accommodating enough to let me down easy, in exactly the manner I had requested.

Exhale.

Shneed