For no particular reason yesterday, other than wanting something to fill the day, I watched the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy. Extended version of course. Weighing in at a svelte 682 minutes running time (that’s eleven hours and 22 minutes), the extended edition more than filled the day for me. I didn’t get started until shortly after 8:00 in the morning, and I had breaks for meals, showering, and a phone call or two. By 10:30 in the evening I was within an hour of the conclusion and determined to complete the film in one sitting.
It is just as good as the last time I saw it, and the first time too. Like a legion of fans I am eagerly awaiting Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit to complete my Middle Earth collection.
Today has all the earmarkings of a lousy day. I was awake at 12:30, 2:30, 4:30 and finally 5:40 this morning. A series of two hour naps does not make for a good night’s sleep. Being awake at 5:30 on a Sunday morning really sucks. There’s nothing to do except sit around and wait for it to be 8:30 or 9:00 in the evening so you can lay down for another series of two hour naps.
Deciding that breakfast out would at least cause me to eat, and maybe fill up an hour of the day, I set off for my favorite greasy spoon. On the way I knew I’d pass the car wash and decided to wash the car too. After only one pass around the car the laser guided marvel at the car wash quit working. The car was covered with thick foamy soap so I couldn’t really see where the machine was or why it wasn’t working. I waited several minutes before pulling the car out of the bay and into a manual bay. I rinsed the car off, but since it was only 6:15 am there was no one there to complain to or get my money back from.
Setting off for the restaurant again I realized that I was boiling mad and any attempt to eat would on result in my having to throw up in the bathroom. So I turned around and came home. Fully enraged by the time I got home I slammed the garage door several times. It’s solid metal and makes a very satisfying boom with the garage as an echo chamber behind it. I bumped into the trash can knocking it over and had to give it a full-power roundhouse kick. It is made of stern stuff as it didn’t break, and the dent popped out almost immediately. My big toe is a bit sore now, however, and the pain has cut through the cloud of mad I had going on before.
It isn’t even 7:00 am yet and all I want to do is crawl back into bed and sleep all day. I still have the Xanax Michele was given the day she got her diagnosis, and I remember how sleepy and dopey a whole one made me. I am sorely tempted to take one and just drift away on it today. My fear is that I’ll grow to like drifting away and will want to nothing but more Xanax, so I won’ take one.
It all just sucks.
It’s going around, and while I haven’t been official “tagged”, I thought I’d play too.
Four jobs I’ve had:
Four Movies I can watch over and over:
Four places I’ve lived:
Four TV shows I love:
Four places I’ve vacationed:
Four of my favorite dishes:
Four sites I visit daily:
Four places I’d rather be right now:
For the past few months I have been using the keyboard that came with the iMac as my primary input device. Through some nifty software to allow one keyboard and mouse to control two computers with dedicated LCD screens. The arrangement has worked very well for me except for the keyboard itself.
I find the keys unresponsive to my style of typing. There is not a good tactile feel to the key when it is pressed and I often mis-key as a result. In particular the shift key is problematic. I would venture to say that a third to a half of my shift strokes are botched as a result of the mushy keys on this keyboard. I have been looking for a new one for some time but two problems stand in the way. First, there aren’t a lot of after market Macintosh specific keyboards to choose from. And, second, there are only a couple of stores selling them locally in which to try them out.
Last evening I wanted to try one that had “laptop style” keys thinking that since I was quite happy with the laptop keyboard, having a full-sized desktop model would be perfect. The clerk in the store was unwilling to allow me to open the box and try the keyboard in the store. Had he done so I never would have bought the iKeySlim USB Keyboard from MacAlly. Low profile keys work well on the smaller plane of a laptop keyboard, but on a full sized layout you have to move your finger father than you expect to depress the key. Also, they did not include any kind of reference mark on the “F” and “J” keys making it impossible to find the home position without glancing at the keyboard. The numeric lock key flat out didn’t work at all. On a scale of one to ten I’d give this a three.
As for the store, well. they get a three too. Two minutes to allow me to open the box and test the keyboard there would have saved me the return trip I’ll be making after work today. And, an in-store trial run might have caused me to buy one of their other replacement keyboards. Now I feel like getting it online or from the other local computer store.
After saving my pennies for a very long time I finally reached my goal and have ordered a new laptop. In an interesting bit of synchronicity I ordered the new machine three years to the date of getting my current Powerbook. The new machine is Intel based and will run Windows XP Professional. More on that in a minute.
Having placed the order I am now anxiously awaiting its arrival. The order status page had an initial status (Processing) that changed within hours of the order being placed to “Packing.” I took this as a very good sign; the estimated availability information I had before placing the order indicated it would be at least two weeks before the machine shipped. Along with the “Packing” status the estimated ship date was set for today, 1.25.2006. I have been checking the status page every day (more like a gazillion times every day) only to see the same information every time: Packing. How long does it take to pack a notebook computer into a box?
The computer itself is a new Lenovo (formerly IBM) ThinkPad Z60m. This is the first wide-screen ThinkPad every offered, and sports a maximum resolution of 1680x1050. A 1.86 GHz chip, 512 MB RAM, DVD+/-R CDRW, and an 80 GB hard drive round out a very nice machine. I’ll be upgrading the RAM to the maximum 2 GB as soon as it arrives.
No, I am not leaving Mac OS behind. My professional work requires software that only (presently) runs on Windows OS. I’ve got a couple of older Intel machines that aren’t quite up to the task of running the suite of applications I want. Nor are they portable, something that has become increasingly important to me after three years of laptop ownership. With the ThinkPad I will have the best of both worlds in roughly 12 pounds of traveling weight.
Time to go reload the order status page again. Maybe it’s finally changed to “Shipping.”
My demons are getting the better of me this evening. I feel jittery and sluggish at the same time. My neck is a rigid bar of pain while my head feels as if it is stuffed with cotton. Emotionally I feel spent, however, there are spurts of white hot anger just to keep me (and anyone near me) on their toes.
I’m deep in the wilderness that is grief and, although I may have made some progress in the last 108 days the reality is I will be moving through the grief process everyday for the rest of my life. Maybe not as intensely as I am right now, but still dealing with it for ever. When I realize that my being here without Michele will not end until my life is over I feel utterly spent and devastated. This doesn’t end - she is NEVER coming back. I will never again feel the touch of her hand in mind. I will never again be able to reach out in the night and touch her hair. I will never again be able to hear her laughter outside of my memory. I have lost her for this lifetime.
It hurts so very badly. I can hardly swallow and my eyes burn with tears that only provide momentary release. My anger unleashes the urge to smash and rend, to destroy, and I hit the desk over and over until my hands are red and my arms ache from the repeated impacts. I have this unending tired that never goes away and I wonder if I’ll ever feel light again. Grief is a tremendous weight that pulls at you, drags you down with every step you take.
My recent spending spree has been fun, but ultimately spending can’t buy me out of this hell. There is no way to run away from my self fast enough to leave behind the pain and sorrow. My understanding of people who lose themselves in alcohol or drugs has increased tremendously in the last three months. There are times when oblivion of any sort would be preferable to conscious awareness of my life. I fill my days with activities to distract myself from the gaping wound that is my heart. Little feints to ward off the unrelenting pressure of grief that never really goes away.
I’ve heard people say, people who’ve lost a loved one, that they would do anything for one more minute of time with their lost partner, child, parent, or lover. I’ve said it myself more than once in this ordeal. However I would now like to change that statement. If I can’t be with her forever then I don’t want that one more minute because after the high of seeing her again I would only crash to a new depth, one from which I might never recover. Salvation lies in movement; movement away from the pain, movement towards a new reality that is “Mark” and no longer “Michele and Mark”. The pain comes from two places: realizing that in order to continue to live myself I must let go of her so I can move forward and realizing that I can’t let go of her yet. Even though I understand I won’t lose her memory by moving forward I can’t bring my self to release the scalding hot rock of my grief.
The pain lets me know that I am still alive. The trick is to remember how it felt to be alive without pain, and to find a pathway to that place inside myself.
One of my buttons involves my perception of some one crossing my boundaries. We all have various “lines in the sand” that when crossed provoke a response; one of mine is the demarcation between my professional life and my personal life.
For years I struggled with the issues of the work day long after I had left work for the day. It took me a long time to learn how to mentally and emotionally leave work, and all its stress, behind when I physically left the site for the day. One thing I learned that truly helped me was that no matter how much I accomplished in a day, or how much of myself I sacrificed on the altar of work, there is always more to do. So when I leave work for the day I no longer want to think about it, or deal with it in any way. You might say my boundary around work is a fairly wide and deep moat.
So last night when I got an email that was work related at my home address it upset me. Yesterday was the last day of my vacation. I was relaxed and comfortable; pleased with the past five days. So getting an email that indicated potential changes in my daily assignments, and asking for input regarding the change at 8:30 pm last evening, seemed to be very controlling, almost insulting to me. This couldn’t wait until tomorrow? It couldn’t have been sent to my work email address? Getting that mail changed my entire mood in just a few seconds. It, in effect, ended my vacation early, and ruined the last evening I had off before returning to the office today.
Although my lesser demons wanted to send a fairly nasty, passive-aggressive response, my better angels prevailed and I didn’t do anything. This morning I replied to the sender saying that it would be best if they came and talked to me in person. Still a bit passive-aggressive, but at least appropriate.
I found a bit of nirvana today; at least airport nirvana. With more than an hour to kill before my connecting flight boards I needed a place to sit, maybe eat some food, and be away from the teeming masses that surge through airports like so many lemming migrations.
What I found was a set of two chairs, off to the side, next to a working power outlet, and with a full strength Wi-Fi signal. In sight of the departure gate. So while I recharge my batteries all my toys are getting recharged as well.
One 90 minute flight to go and I’m home. Or at least down to a 45 minute drive from home.
My vacation took me to a context outside of the ones I shared with Michele. Traveling by plane was something we shared, and traveling was something we both appreciated. But going to Massachusetts was not something we ever did as a couple. In fact my trip here is a bit of a bookend, as the last solo vacation I had before marrying Michele was to this very place.
The several days I’ve been here have made me feel removed from Michele more than usual. She hasn’t left my mind, but her memory hasn’t been as strong because this context doesn’t include her. Tonight, as I prepare to return to Kansas, I am struck by a feeling of sadness and a return of sorrow. Tomorrow I return to the life that included her and is now desolate in her absence. I have needed this break from my routine, and I am ready to return to it now. Being gone has heightened my awareness of my feelings. Being gone has given me a break from the spiral of anger I was wrestling with in the days leading up to this trip. I am curious to see if my anger returns when I once again submerge myself into the routine of my life.
Of course, maybe that is the point. Maybe I should continue to alter my routine to help move me to a new set of the contexts; ones that don’t include the triggers for anger. Not a complete, immediate break from the past, but a gradual movement forward. Grief is standing still and allowing the world, life itself, to pass you by. Healing is movement, rejoining the stream and allowing your self to continue its journey unimpeded. I know that I will continue to linger in the backwaters and shallows of grief for a time yet, but through this vacation I have felt the pull of life again, and I know I can choose to rejoin that current when I am ready.
va-ca-tion | va-kay-shun | noun
1 an extended period of recreation, esp. when one is away from work while one’s co-workers are not.