Three days at home by myself is driving me nuts. And like a fool I agreed to be here today so that the idiot water delivery guy could come and get my empties - so I can’t leave and escape my cabin fever.
I used to look forward to every minute at home, I relished having long unbroken stretched of time away from work. Now I spend my weekend looking forward to Monday morning and the return to work. I miss the socialization of being around people. Being here by myself is awful. My frustration builds and builds until it bubbles out in the form of anger - usually at one of the cats. Which isn’t fair to them and always leaves me feeling like a heel.
For years I used to think that working from home would be great. And it might have been if I was here with Michele. Now, you couldn’t pay me to work from home. I’d go mad in a week.
I may blow off the water guy and go window shopping this afternoon. I need to get out of here.
Ok.
So once again I’m behind the curve on automating some part of my webblog. After allowing link rot to infest my links page for far too long I’ve upgraded it to use del.icio.us. I’m sure I’ll be tweaking the list for some time but at least all the links work again, and they are all site I visit on a daily (if not more frequent) basis.
The Network Solutions domain record for zanshin.net shows that it was originally registered on February 20, 1996 - ten years ago. Here’s a list of things from the last ten years in honor of the occasion.
Another late 1980s drama, this time about spies and secret agents. No Way Out has a nice twist to it. I also thought Kevin Costner did a better job of acting in this than in many of his later roles.
Rating: Dated now that the Cold War is over
One of my Netflix picks this weekend was The Presidio, a late 1980s crime drama with Sean Connery and Mark Harmon. Although a little predictable it’s an enjoyable hour and a half.
Rating: Worth renting but not owning
A sexy precursor to the style of Ocean’s Eleven in that the crime committed is merely the backdrop for the story. Details you’d like to have answered are omitted, and maybe that’s why the movie is fun.
Rating: How does he fold the Monet into a briefcase?
I’ve been savoring Steven Johnson’s Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software for some time now. It’s a fluid look at the ideas behind bottom up organization and self organizing systems. Our lives are filled with self organizing systems and yet we are blind to most, if not all, of them.
As a developer of automated systems I find the insights gained from self organizing ant colonies or human cell biology key to my better understanding of the applications I develop. As a person I am thoroughly enjoying a fascinating look into how our world really works.
Rating: Read it slowly, thoughtfully
One of the undercurrent emotions I’ve been surprised to deal with in the midst of my grief is envy. In retrospect I suppose it isn’t so surprising, after all, every where I look there are people who have what I don’t.
Companionship.
It’s in the lunch time conversation about the difficulties of traveling for work and having to spend evening meals alone. I spend all my meals alone; sometimes I skip a meal just to avoid Michele’s empty space.
I’m jealous of the birthday dinner a coworker is having with their family. Living apart from a family that doesn’t go to any effort to celebrate birthdays, and now living alone, means I am now faced with spending my next birthday alone.
Envy rears as I watch couples together in the bookstore, or movie, or grocery store. And that envy turns to anger when I see them acting rudely towards each other. Don’t they know their connectedness is fragile and precious? That what is here in this minute can be gone in the next?
I am envious of all of you who have some one to love, some one to hold, some one to be with.
Events seem to be conspiring against me these days. Friday morning as I was arriving at work my cell phone rang. One of my best friends (and perhaps Michele’s best friend of all) had just lost her brother. With my own grief still prominent in my daily life learning of her loss was tough. I talked to her again this morning, and I hope my feeble efforts to comfort her help to ease her way through this toughest of transitions.
I also had a call from my parents today. My mother’s lung cancer, it appears, has returned. She has been having trouble with shortness of breath lately and a chest x-ray revealed a new mass in her lung. She is to have a MRI Monday, and will likely start a new round of treatments this week. Because she has never pursued prognosis details from her doctors no one has any real idea about her true condition.
Just shoot me now.
In the days that followed Michele’s death I started a diary, most of the entries in it are ragged, but upon rereading them tonight one caught my eye and I’ve decided to share it here. It was originally written on Tuesday, October 11th, the day after she completed suicide.
October 11, 2005 10:45 am Over the weekend leading up to Michele’s death she had two near death experiences. The first occurred Saturday morning just after we had gotten up and come into the living room. She was sitting in the big chair and I was sitting across from her while we were talking. All at once her breathing became rather ragged and strained, and she seemed farther away. I moved to her side and held her hand and stroked her hair and face as her breathing became shallow and less strained. She looked at me and told me that she loved me and that she wanted me to continue my life. She then said it was very peaceful. I continued to hold her hand and tell her that I loved her and that it was okay if she left.
Once or twice it seemed like her breathing had stopped only to start again. After about 5 minutes she seemed to ease in the chair and she felt closer again. More time passed and she appeared to be sleeping very deeply and peacefully. I stayed by her side until she awoke about an hour later. Her experience was one of moving away. She said there was a light off to the side but that whenever she turned towards it, it moved away.
On Monday morning we both woke up about 5:00 and lay in bed talking for a time. It was a loving, tearful, joyous conversation filled with memories, laughter, and talk about the upcoming days. Again I became aware of her seeming farther away, her eyes weren’t focused on anything any more. I stroked her hair and face and told her that I loved her dearly, that I always had and that I always would. Her breathing was so shallow that even with my hand on her side I could barely feel each inhalation. This time it was longer before I felt her coming back towards me. And this time she slept for a couple of hours before waking again.
Her experience was one of being in the light. She talked of seeing her mom and dad. She also said that she saw my sister, Amy, and that Amy asked her if she was really ready to leave me. When Michele couldn’t answer she said she came back here.
Both of these episodes left her peaceful and calm for a time. I think her fear was that going to the hospital for the bone scan would have caused them to discover her condition and intervene. The last thing she wanted was to be kept alive or subjected to medical interventions that artificially prolonged her life.
I remember asking her during the start of the second one if she wanted me to call an ambulance. She said no, that she wanted to be at home where it was peaceful and quiet, with me. One of the greatest lessons she ever taught me was the importance of not taking care of yourself by imposing your will on others. Loved ones who plead with the doctors to do anything to save a dying person are really trying to take care of themselves, perhaps against the true wishes of the person. I have known for a long time that Michele didn’t want any kind of artificial, or heroic measures taken to prolong her life.
I am largely at peace with her death today. I know that her spirit has moved on to the next plane of existence. Further I know that the pains and sorrows that fill this life aren’t a part of that next existence, so she is finally free of her nightmares, her bleeding and dysentery, and her fears of the world.