a lovely bed and breakfast

Sitting in the back room, Chris' unofficial office/media room. I look around. It is as if I am seeing it for the first time, I am detached from it. I arise from the couch and wander into the main part of the house, past the kitchen into the living room, I gaze into the bed and bathroom. Nothing looks familiar,nothing is mine, it doesn't feel like home. It feels like I am renting the place for an extended vacation. I see the books on the book shelves, but they don't register, they don't look familiar. The objects in the book cases are the same, unfamiliar, devoid of any emotion or sentiment.
What a lovely bed and breakfast I think. And yet I am anxious to check out and get home. I just wonder where that is now.

ring of fire

sitting here in front of the fire,I think as I so often so, what would you think of the 500 dollar chimenea? I debated buying it for so long.... It is nothing you would have enjoyed or would you have?
Sitting out side in the nippy fall air the wind stirring the leaves into a nice woozy back ground.
The fire barely warming my toes but smelling nice.......
I have been out here since 6 it is almost 7 grey day skies have melted into a deep periwinkle.
I am here but you are not.I cried on the way home just because I am one now and not two, not part of you....you know how much I miss you still ? It will be half a year soon, I can't believe it a whole half of a year..............where did it go, how did I survive and how will I survive the coming shorter days, longer nights, cold winds and cold beds. I think I am in for it, now, here comes the really hard part....the cold, bleak New England winter, the outside will match my inside and somehow that will be wrong, the synergy will be too great and it will destroy me. So be it.
So mode it be.
My therapist thinks I am depressed. I have had several panic attacks and they are horrific.
She wants me to start medication,I will I think just to see......She asked me what was going on a year ago......
Let's see you had 35 tumors removed, were in BW for 9 days and we were scrambling for meds and trials. My psyche must have known, because my body is now reliving that fear that I was going to lose you. The fear of a year ago is no where near the reality of the loss.
Right here, right now as I write these words the pain so so fresh, so ripping through my heart and soul that it is unbearable. I want to stop writing and go inside and watch whatever I can find, like I did last night, 3 hours of what? Distraction? numbness?
Oh why can't this be over? I can't imagine another night without you let alone another half a year.
Grief, so exhausting, so unforgiving, so ever present.
Sometimes it is like a monster ever hungry for more more more.
More tears
More searing pain
More memories to scar.
It will never go away, I don't think want I to, for it takes you farther away from me.

walking through the dark

Sunsets at 6:01 PM, I get home after that.....house is pitch black... I don't turn any lights on....I walk through the dark house....shrouded in the cool darkness. I don't want to turn the lights on I don't want to see what is not there, my husband. I want it to be March 25, when the sun last set at 6:01 PM.Chris was here then. Barely, but he was here. I stop, I listen I try to feel him. It is dark, there is no one.

Mrs Doubtfire

At work. At rounds. Carol asks me if I am ready to date again (5 monthes and 23 days after I lost my Chris)

Finally I had an answer at the ready:

Once the father of you children is out of the picture
the only way is total and complete celibacy

And if break that rule
May God help you

she was speechless

thank you Mrs. Doubtfire

tell the lie

why are you doing this to me?

Widows over for the infromal group......

ouch

Taking a break from the prep for the widows to come tomorrow......At first I felt good, happy, how lucky to be home at 3:30 watered the garden and began cooking, made the dough for the torata (it's resting) the crudites (or crude ites as Chris would say), the dip and the mozzarella skewers. Sat down......overwhelmed. I don't want to be alone here, I don't.... this is so stupid, me alone here cooking food......I should be cooking dinner.....not apps for the partner-less bunch. Yesterday I cleaned, I felt good about the house after, it looks nice when it is spiffed up, now I don't care. I fucking hate this roller coaster ride. I feel like I should choose a team, either ok or not ok. I can never find any peace, just waiting to be hit over the head with the stark realization that he is gone forever........I try to lean into he pain as my therapist told me to do. I lean and it hurts, the sharp tentacles of my loss stabbing me everywhere. I try to swim to the surface, but I am too tired. How can I be expected to work all day and grieve at the same time. How will I ever survive this and do I care. I feel like I could just walk to the Bridge and jump off.
Need to get that will done. Want to go to P town for Halloween.....surely I will get some relief then....

people

Patrick Swayze died, People did a cover and pictorial, each picture of Patrick portraying the sexy and gorgeous creature he was. Flip to the last page a picture from "his last photo shoot".
There it is......the look of cancer, the vacant eyes, the gaunt lackluster look, the spirit fractured. When did Chris have that look? I don't recall it, was I blind to it? Someone sent me a "sympathy card" with a penned note that said something about the last time they saw Chris and i at breakfast in March......."I could tell he didn't have long". What a thing to say, did he look that bad as he ate his "regular" Chocolate Chip pancakes......I wish I had a picture of him then....would I be shocked to see what I never saw? I think back to Vegas, he seemed to look ok. Jake and Steve didn't say anything to me about how he looked, oh sure he wasn't energetically at full capacity but we were eating his vegan diet and that's enough to make anyone kinda weak, right?
e only time he looked bad to me was when he was dead, and not even immediately after, a few hours later, when his face was drained and his skin started to mottle. Then he looked bad, like the battle was over and he could never come back so naturally he had to look bad.
I must be losing my mind........

waiting room

lying on the couch.....feel like I am just waiting, waiting for this to be over, for Chris to just come home, come home to be with me, resume our lives, or start a new one with all the lesson I have learned. lessons about slowing down, relaxing, and taking time. pausing. i am ready, I haven;t thrown a thing away all his clothes are here, all his books, everything, I have suc ha a strong underlying feeling that he will be coming, all I have to do is hang on, although that feat is the hardest thing I have ever done, hanging on to something that no one else could possibly believe, but or now it is what feels so true,.. he will be back this is just a test,

booked

so tired, cleaned all night for the "support group". they are coming on Thursday, how ironic. My mother was here helping, doing all the tasks Chris used to do, cleaning vauming, re arranging the pillow. I am so tired, I flop on the couch turn on the TV, trying to relax....my mind wandres from Gordon, my eyes wander from the 65 inches of food TV.....CSS, Visual Basic, Visual cookbook (is this a joke) The titles swim before my eyes the reds an blues and yellows, are allengineering books in primary colors? oh no here I go on that crazy roller coaster, it sweeps me in before I can stop it....I thought I was way beyond this ride, haven't I ridden it enough? I cannot stop it. I am sucked down into its depths, like I am on a slippery slide, I hiccup sand the the sobs come and come and come, a torrent of tears, his books causing me pain and anguish as if it is day one. NO, I thought I had passed go, is it because I have thought just a thought that I am being punished/

frozen tears

I woke up late this morning, so tired......I have to go to chiropractor, so I go to the kitchen to grab a quick cup of instant coffee's .......As I step on the rug it is, looks like from the bottom, wet, soaked. WTF? I remove the rug and discover the frig is leaking.....from bottom, funny I think, I just thought last night that I ought to clean under it before the group comes Thursday....and now I am forced to......I have to go so I grab some towels and mop it up along with some of Aurora's fur...... I leave to get "adjusted". when I get back it is leaking more than ever......Maybe the fur was holding back the tide like a damn of dog hair. I am lying on the floor spatula and paper towels in hand the underbelly the first fixture in the kitchen renovation trying to stop the flow or at least see where it is coming from, soon I am experiencing my own flood, hot salty tears flow from eyes dropping on the floor mingling with the cool water flowing from under the fridge. I can't stop either flow, I lie there, just wanting the floor to swallow me up, I have to work at the hospital today and am due there in an hour, I haven't showered, eaten or done anything, I lie there for ten minutes just crying silently trying to will my brain to think of a way to handle this.....finally I say out loud to no one....what am I supposed to do?I don't know what to do.
I pick up the phone to call my boss, i have dial and hang up, next I half dial my plumber, hang up half dial my next door neighbor , he is an electrician, hang up.......I go to the computer looking for emergency appliance repair place it is now 7:15......I start to panic......looking looking I find one I call leave a message, they will be here today presumably......7:25....I brush my teeth, I am vacillating between trying to get ready for work and thinking about not even going in. I DON"T KNOW WHAT TO DO!
I call my mother whom I ran into yesterday in the parking lot of the mall......she is awake, she can be here for the appliance repairman.
it is 7:40 do or die, leave now or be late, I put on yesterdays work outfit, stuff all the towels I can find under the fridge and leave.
I cry all the way to work,I am sure the fridge is matching me ounce for ounce of water leaking and spilling. I stop caring that floor will be ruined, I turn on Adam...I can't get no Satisfaction.....Indeed.

clean break

Cleaning the house, the widow support group is coming....and guess when the last time I swept and vacuumed the entrance way was? Hmm February? Such a mess as was the stairs not vacuumed since last New Years, did it feel good? hmmmm actually NO! I want to keep this dirt, the dog hair, the sand and the grit. Who knows, Chris shoes probably dragged that dirt in.....and now out it goes.......I cry as I sweep out the dirt, as if I am sweeping him away.

I light a fire in the chiminea, in case the smokers (4 out of 5 widows in my group smoke which I find horrifying but intriguing, maybe they want to hasten their ride to their husbands by inviting lung cancer into their lives. Maybe I should buy a pack?

I am thinking too much, I need a break, I pop a beer, so much for the sober September.....I will take it easy I have so much more to do but am so tired after working a 14 hour day and seeing way too many clients (one of whom said to me I don't know how you do your job---yeah? me either???)

I turn on the TV, want to catch Donny Osmond on DWTS a show I never watched but promised my BFF in Alaska I would check out......waiting a commercial comes on about a lost dog and a guy with a Blackberry who takes and posts a pic and re unites the dog withe girl who owns it.
I cry and think about how pathetic Chris would think I am crying at this........but I thin he would probably be crying too......not too much just a little moist. I ask to no one do you think me pathetic? Can you see me? He says yes I can....I wave my arms pathetically at the air......WHERE ARE YOU???????????????
and he is gone, so not here, another vacuum, another whole in the air around the space he used to occupy the desk chair, the sofa the bed. It is as if the space is empty within its own bubble.

Autumnal Equinox 538

I awake at 5:38 AM.....the same time that Chris died almost 6 months ago. I awake to total darkness. The morning Chris died, the dawn was just breaking a red sky ......red sky in the morning sailor's warning. Only it was my warning of the darkness to come.
Every morning I wake alone still clinging to my side of the bed. His side empty still. He has not returned.
Yesterday morning I felt that he was here in the bed somehow. Was I hallucinating or pretending that he wrapped his arms around me? I rolled face down to the spot where he last lay. Trying to feel him, trying to sense some communion with him. I just want to know......know what? Where he is, what he is feeling, what this is all about. I just want to know something. I just don't know what that something is.....why did this happen? what the hell am I supposed to do know? will this stabbing pain in my heart go away ever?
I read the obits this morning. I always look to see if any 50 somethings died, as if there were an epidemic of 50 somethings dying or as if if I see someone who is 50 it makes Chris death less freakish.
A 59 year old woman died "of a broken heart" 3 months and 2 daus after her husband died.
how did she manage that? I think? Why couldn't I have done that? Why do I have to go on living with a broken, no shredded heart? Did she just give up? Did she take to her bed and stop eating and drinking....how?
I am so jealous, what a tribute to her love. She leaves three children. Did she get her affairs in order, write a will and purge the house first, before lying down in the spot her husband died and doing the same? did they meet in the afterlife and dance a dance of reunion....these are the questions that I want to ask.

Heart Attack on a Plate

All day long I carry this pressure on my chest, it started awhile I was helping Neal and Daniele (friends of Mac and Christians) move from one Beverly house to another. Nothing happened to trigger it it just kept growing growing growing. Soon it was joined by some substantial anxiety and several panic attacks. I am having a heart attack? Can a heart attack go on for this many hours? I recently watched a show about the female heart attack and the signs....all I can remember is the nausea, don't particularly feel nauseous. I have made plans for a movie with my friend Cindy whose boyfriend committed suicide. I am trying to reach out to her in a compassionate way. We were work friends before our losses but never really did anything socially although I thought a double date with the two of them with the two of us would have been fun, I never got there.
Anyway I decide to keep the date, because after all she is a nurse , if I croak during the movie she will know what to do, right? Not that i want to be saved although I do regret that I have not done a will yet....that is something I need to tend to. If I die now in theory my vast estate (ha) gets split between Max and Mary. Must not let my mother have any of Chris' riches.
I take an Ativan prior to going to the movies.
On the way to the movie I have a full blown panic attack, the lips are numb I can feel every heart beat, the surge of panic through my limbs. FUCK. I hit the CD, Adam Feeling Good. It calms me down......a little. I get to 128 still listening, still filled with this god awful panic. I close my eyes for a second .Next thing I see is my car hitting the car in front of me........Now I am panicked even more. I am breathing so hard I am almost panting.......They pull up, I pull up.....She has a Ford Focus and I managed to push in her back door, I am shaking I can't get out of the car into oncoming traffic, although I feel like jumping out and getting hit just to stop the panic. I open the door slightly, the cras whiz by in a blur......The driver comes over to me. She is sweet and not upset at all, asks me if I have a phone, wants my number, she is late for church....wants to get my number and leave, I write it on a scrap of paper, hands shaking so bad my handwriting so bad it looks like a 90 year old woman wrote it.
I can't believe this. I have seen people on this stretch of road after exactly such an accident as this, I am so glad that the police are not coming, surely I would have stroked out if that happened. I wonder if the woman I hit is an illegal, she was hard to understand and was just way too nice. I make it to theatre well ahead of schuule, still shaking.

Cindy gets there a little late, I tell her the story it feels surreal. She can't beleive I am here still.
I think, well I am going to have a heart attack and I would rather be here than in the ER, ihope her CPR skills are up to date. We get popcorn because we are seeing Julie and Julia. Afoodie movie that I have been dying to see for the food and for the information about blogging.
It is good although not 100% distracting, my friend anxiety is there with me everystep of the way the same way Julia Child is with Julie in the movie as she cooks. I'd rather have Julia Child with me instead of the creepy Anxiety.

groupwise

Went to the Saturday Morning support group. The subject, you, dear blog, came up. There was some back and forth about the members reading it ( I had given my therapist the go ahead to read earlier in the week). Some folks thought that if they read it that I would have nothing to share in group, or that they would somehow lose intimacy with me....only one person wanted to read it really, and they want me to think about it. I selfishly want them to read it for the literary reasons, this is how to get a blog noticed, right? Do I care if more people see inside my bloody walls of pain? See inside the horror show of gore created by the evisceration of having my love ripped from my life. The raw walls of my heart, shredded and weeping hot searing blood, a wound that will not, cannot heal. NO, that is the point...it is as if I want to show everyone what GIST, what cancer has done, it is not pretty, it is horrific, it is pain beyond belief, it is ugly. I want everyone to see it So when you see me even just siting in a room, you should be outstandingly amazed that I can even breathe in and out while the horror show of gore is seeping through my body.

Internet Tools

Home from Addison, want to log onto the computer to check email quickly before I tackle some chores (De cluttering shelves brought about by visiting my sister's house). I try to log on and it won't go. I re boot, nothing, try Chris computer. I start to panic when I see his desktop, haven't seen it in months, the menu of Internet site selections he created for our in house intranet makes me sad. Just another reminds of the renaissance man I married, he created wonderful things.....things that were useful and amazing to other people and things the are now locked up because he holds the keys of knowledge to unlock them and make them useful.....why didn't I sit at his feet and learn or at least watch, what was he doing? What was I doing when he was creating? Cooking, cleaning,, drinking?

I try the other computers None of them work. I run a diagnostic, nothing, check the modems the wireless downstairs, go back up nothing....I repeat this loop several times, like a hamster in a wheel.....going nowhere, going nowhere. On the 5Th time, I break down holding onto lolly column downstairs, the sobs well up somewhere deep in my gut and erupt out of my eyes and mouth. Deep wracking sobs that cannot stop. Why can't I figure this out? Is this like the Vault? Why didn't I ever pay attention to this? Why didn't I learn from him. What are all these wires? Maybe I will just cancel the Internet...I actually think this a good idea, save 50 bucks a month and be on line at work. Crying Crying Crying, can't stop, don't particularly want to, trying to feel Chris somewhere, surely he would want to help me out of this......surely wherever he is is does not want to see me cry like this, so distraught. Is it the loss of the Internet or the loss of my life? The loss of my love, my partner them I could lean on now all I have is this stupid, cold rusting lolly column that holds up the house but can't hold me up, or fix my problems.

I stagger upstairs, past the boxes that hold my chiminea, that were so heavy I could hardly move them. I sit at his desk, the glow from the computer monitor page denying me access to the World Wide Wed, glowing in mockery of my incompetence.

I cry some more, looking around here at the epicenter of what was his world, mission control. The computer, the vault, the extra hard drives, all the little lights from the electronics blinking like stars in some alien constellation. All part of his world Now lost and adrift without it's Captain Kirk to steer, to command the Starfleet. All that is left is the passenger.

Beam me up Scotty there's no intelligent life down here, just a broken hearted wife .

After what seems to be a the whole evening of cryng then numbness, finally am dried out enough to call comcast....there is an outage in Beverly....the irony is not lost on me at all.
I decide to finish the chores I started two hours ago.
It is while I am listing the culled books (a guide to San Diego and New Orleans----I am never traveling to those place again) that the doorbell rings, Jared stopped by to get the videos left here by Ashley his on again off again girlfriend. He has his hand wrapped up from a soccer injury ( I though soccer involved the feet?) He asks what the boxes are.....I tell him the chiminea has arrived, but that I can't lift the boxes,he offers to help and we laugh as we realize that with his hurt hand he can't do much to lift them.
Ah irony.

Dark Angel

I am driving home from Nashua after the American Idol concert. I have Adam's glove that he threw to me in the car. I occurs to me that Adam may be an angel on earth. Sent here not to solely protect me but to protect me.....mostly from myself and the evil thoughts that creep into the nether regions of my mind, thoughts of getting rid of most of my possessions, getting my finances in order and offing myself. Thoughts of working all the time and never having any fun. Going to the concert was a great respite from my grief. The anticipation, the oh so close seats and the communion with Adam when he spoke to me on stage, asking me to take a picture of him and his glove before he tossed it me. Surreal, at that moment it was as if he and I were the only ones in the arena. I feel like he looked at me and knew, the angel part of him realizing, that's the widow who sent me the letter in May, I know here, she knows me.
So it is with those thoughts that I drive back down Route 3, not feeling Chris in the car but a dark friendly, comforting presence. Then I begin to cry.....tears slipping down my cheeks, Not sad, but grateful that I have at least this, and that I won't kill myself today.

email

I walk by my lap top, the lid is closed. I wonder if I should check to see if Chris has sent me an email wanting to get back together.
A second later I am weirded out by that thought....where did that come from? I liked the feeling though, that I could change all this, that we are in a break up and that this, this nightmare can be fixed.
Oh if only.

Blue Balls

I spent the day outside in the yard and garden....for the first time since the April Showers of tears that followed Chris death. It felt a little bit like I was walking on egg shells, instead of weeds.Wondering if this familiar pleasurable activity would set me off. If I would miss Chris sitting up on the deck, watching me work and pretending to read. I get much of the driveway clean up done and even tend to the bamboo garden, it needs to watered deeply before the fall so it will last the winter. If I had saved all my tears that would have been more than enough for a deep root watering.
I am tired, but contented I feel a little less terrified/sad/grief stricken.
I sit down under the deck in the shade. I lean my head back against the house to est it. As I do I see the blue marine floater ball, hanging from the deck. I have a flash back.We are in Province town at the Marine speculator, Chris lifts a ball off of the hook high above my head, we admire it together, before purchasing it and 3 more. It is so rel I feel everything, smell everything just as if it was that humid day 3 years ago. He looks so good, so healthy, so Chris.

A car drives by and honks, it is Jackie and Mal, how appropriate. I wave and burst into tears, sobbing and hoping they don't see and turn around, for I know this is a Tsunami of wailing that is coming, wiping away any peace or contentment I have, destroying the solitude of the day like a cold wall of water, reminding me, he is not here, you are alone...Face it Face it!
I run into the house for fear that someone will see me, a soggy wife crying under the blue balls of remembrance.

Magic Kleenex

I am unloading all the boxes of books that I picked up from Dean last week. Four huge boxes of books written in a techie language that might as well be Greek. The boxes are so heavy I have to unload them from the back of my truck which I have parked sideways near the door to the front room.I look at the various notes and pieces of paper, written in English with numeric hieroglyphics. I am amazed at how smart he was at something that is clearly so beyond my understanding or comprehension. I think about his intelligence, lost forever, inacessible to me or anyone else, the sheer enormity of that thought cause me knees to buckle and I cry great big drops of tears that fall onto the book I am holding in both hands, I leg go of the right side of the book and it opens to page marked by a kleenex tissue. I laugh through my tears, thinking that Chirs has somehow placed that tissue in there for me.
thanks honey.

Crazed glass

I look in the mirror. I see my reflection but is like looking through cracked glass. I almost don't recognize myself. I can't see myself clearly. I look around, my perception of the bathroom and the loving room beyond seem altered, cracked somehow, like my world is cracking and breaking apart, just like my heart.
It has been 5 months.