As time inexorably moves me away from the time I shared with Michele I start to gain fragments of clarity. More and more I have the sense that her time here on this plane of existence was meant to end when she moved to Colorado ten years ago. The chance meeting we had online in December 1995 altered her orbit enough to give us this time together, but the gravity of our love wasn’t strong enough to completely alter her destiny.
Do I rage and bemoan the shortness of our time together or should I rejoice the laughter and warmth we shared? As humans we are constantly balancing feelings and thoughts. Eastern philosophy talks of yin and yang, and I believe that my responses to her death are in line with the duality represented in that concept. I move from sadness, sorrow, and bitterness to laughter, new energy, and hope.
Our time together in this lifetime was fleeting. Michele moved through all the lives she touched like a meteor shower across a summer sky. I know that when I leave this lifetime for the next that we will be together again. And knowing that allows me to continue on here.
For the first time in over three weeks I slept more than a handful of hours last night. I’ve been struggling with either a seasonal allergy or some kind of sinus thing for about 10 days, and last night I tried some Benadryl, which seemed to work. It also made me drowsy. Shortly after 8:00 o’clock I was in bed asleep.
Although I was awake twice in the night I was able to go back to sleep quickly both times. I didn’t wake up until 5:00 o’clock this morning. While I’m no where near 100% yet I am feeling better this morning than I have for a while.
Life goes on.
A while back I saw a knee surgeon regarding my knees. Both hurt from time to time and produce a crackling sound when moved through a normal range of motion. Since then I have been following a regimen of Aleve (2 at a time, twice a day) to reduce inflammation, and liquid Glucosamine (2 tablespoons twice a day) which has eliminated nearly all my pain. Now my knees only hurt once in a while.
My right big toe, however has continued to hurt almost every day. And in the past few weeks my right elbow (injured years ago in martial arts training) has been quite sore too. So I made an appointment to see a chiropractor last week. The results have been amazing.
She pointed out that the heel spur I had reduced through ultrasound treatments the winter of 2000/2001 most likely involved the tendon that anchors on the front of the heel and the base of the big toe, traversing the arch in the process. My arches have fallen putting stress and strain on this tendon. As the tendon is stretched it pulls on the big toe resulting in the constant pain I’ve had for some time now. Over the weekend I purchased a set of arch supports to wear inside my work shoes. The difference is amazing. My toe doesn’t hurt. The pain is gone as if by magic.
The chiropractor has also been working on the soft tissue around my elbow, particularly below the elbow in my forearm and also on the muscles on that side of my neck. While my elbow is still slightly sore, the overall discomfort level is vastly reduced from where it had been. I know that many people view chiropractic with skepticism, but for me the active nature of the process seems to work wonders.
Like ever other person on the planet I have some control issues. Each issue represents a boundary or limit that I am uncomfortable with having violated. Some are fairly minor, almost insignificant. Others, to me at least, are show-stoppers that leave me reeling when crossed. One of the aspects of my relationship with Michele that was very powerful and also soothing for me was being able to talk openly about the feelings of helplessness, rage, or displacement that occurred when my control issues were stepped upon.
As I sink further back into the normal daily ebb and flow of work I am finding myself increasingly frustrated at no longer having a safe place to sort out the immediate (and often times inappropriate) response I want to have when I feel my limits or boundaries tested. Gone is the refuge of stepping outside for a call to Michele, gone is the safe place to fall and to let the hidden hurts be comforted and healed. I have only myself to rely on now.
I have never felt more alone and more isolated than I do right now. And the bitterest irony is that I want to call Michele and talk to her about it so I can bring myself back to solid ground.
It’s funny how your perspective changes over time. For the past eight, almost nine, years I have viewed Monday with a certain depression. Monday meant that the weekend was over, my uninterrupted time with Michele was over until the next weekend. Before I met Michele, and before she moved into my life, weekends were something to be endured. I was socially introverted and more comfortable the painful isolated existence I’d setup for myself than with breaking down the walls of my own making in order to be with other people.
By the time I was in my mid thirties I had developed a highly structured routine that filled the empty spaces in my life with activities or planning for future activities. In the words of a friend of mine, I was a human doing not a human being.
Michele changed all of that. She was spontaneous where I was carefully charted and planned. She was resistant to routine just for routine’s sake where I was comfortable ordering the same dish from a restaurant every time I visited. She always took the unexpected and unplanned as a sign of life, I always viewed it with trepidation and fear. Over the course of our time together I slowly learned to be adventuresome, spontaneous, and open. One of the greatest gifts Michele ever gave me was the safety of her love. It was never judgmental or critical, she placed no conditions on my behavior. I learned that it was okay to be outside the box.
With her death just three weeks ago I am once again plunged back into a world where weekends are vast empty wastelands of time to be filled. Evenings too, are voids were before there was enjoyment and purpose. I have worked hard to continue my daily activities as I know she would want. I allow myself to be flexible about what to eat and when, about where to go or to not go. I know that I have been filling my time with chores and errands simply because I don’t want the quiet where she used to be. Eventually I will be ready for that quiet, eventually I will be strong enough to express the pain I sense when I acknowledge the emptiness she left behind.
For now it is all I can manage to move forward through the day, eating, working, sleeping, and existing. The shock of this event is still wearing off and I know that the impact of her loss will continue to impact me for a long time to come. But I also know that I am taking care of myself, husbanding my emotional, mental, and spiritual strength for the long dark days ahead. The thing that would disappoint her most would be if I reverted to the hermit like half life I had before I met her, and I do not want to disappoint her.
Acknowledging her contribution to who I am, recognizing that I was able to grow and evolve as a result of the love, compassion, and generosity of her heart, gives me the courage to face each day. She showed me, by forcing me to see who I really was, that I am strong, that I can be “normal”, that I am worthy of love, respect, affection, and peace. Honoring the process I began when I pursued her all those years ago means that I will continue this life, that I will continue to grow and evolve, and that I will continue to allow myself to be loved, respected, cared for, and at peace.
I spent some time today transferring most of the postings Michele had made to her site to the new format. Rereading some of her thoughts was painful at times, satisfying at others. One of the things that happens when someone you love suicides is that you begin to question every thing you believed about that person. This variation on the “what if” game is just as destructive and difficult to manage.
Michele and I prided ourselves on having an open and honest relationship, and I still believe that we were as open and as honest as any two people could be, but now that she is gone, and I review our time together I have begun to question myself. I have begun to doubt what I know, or what I don’t know about her.
My wife was intensely private about many things in her life. I learned early on in our relationship that she was fully capable of hiding her true feelings or thoughts, particularly if she felt exposing them would be dangerous to her. Growing up in a household filled with violence and abuse taught her some painful lessons about protecting herself. I never once felt like she was maliciously keeping information from me, but I was aware that she managed the information she shared. Not that it wasn’t shared, more when it was shared and how.
For example, she rarely talked about her mother in the months after Virginia died. I know that she thought about her mom and their relationship a great deal. There were times when she would talk about certain aspects of her grief, but it was largely an inner process. Much of my work is inner as well, so I recognize and accept that mode of processing. Again and again in our relationship Michele would sacrifice herself to prevent me from being hurt. I know that she only metered information about her thoughts and feelings to ease the burden on me.
Still, in the final analysis I find myself wondering what she was thinking and not sharing in the final days of her life.
The name for this site, zanshin is used in the martial arts, which is where I learned it. I studied karate-do for almost 9 years achieving the rank of nidan before I stopped physically practicing. Cross country moves, new jobs, and a delight in my marriage gave me higher priority activities than the regular practice of kata, kihon, and kumite.
With the sudden gapping hole in my life left by Michele’s death I have decided that I need some outside activity to occupy myself. Naturally my thoughts have turned back towards the martial arts, two in particular. I have always been fascinated with kendo, and I have never forgotten how much I enjoyed karate-do.
During the past two weeks I have been scouting various dojos trying to find one that felt right to me. So far I have been unsuccessful in tracking down any of the active kendo groups in the area. But I did visit a traditional karate dojo on Saturday and liked most of what I saw. My plan is to return on Thursday evening and sign up for a month of classes and see what happens. With my past experience I think I’ll know whether this dojo will be a good fit for me or not in that time frame. In the meantime I plan to keep scouting other locations, maybe even tracking down a kendo group.
Over the weekend I rearranged the furniture in the apartment. The new setting requires that both primary computers (the Powerbook and the iMac) connect to the LAN wirelessly. The Powerbook has had an Airport card for some time now, but the iMac has always been hard wired.
Imagine my surprise, and then dismay, to learn that Apple no long manufactures 802.11b Airport cards. They’ve fully switched over to the 802.11g Airport Extreme cards. This in and of itself is not a bad thing, but they changed the form factor of the cards so that the new card won’t fit into the old slot.
On the Apple site an Airport Extreme card can be had for $79 with free shipping. Airport cards can’t be had at all. A quick search on Google revealed that what Airport cards were available were all priced in the $120 - $140 range. I only paid $90 for the original one in the Powerbook. A visit to eBay revealed the same prices. Scarcity does impact price.
So I bought one from eBay, which should arrive this week in the mail. $132 with shipping. I’m not thrilled by the cost, but I am glad that I decided to enable the iMac now while there were still 802.11b Airport cards available. In another year or two I imagine their price will be even higher.
Every night now the same pattern happens. I move through the evening until I get sleepy and then I go to bed. Sometimes I lie in bed watching television until I get sleepy. Some nights I fall asleep and stay asleep until morning. Other times, like this evening, I can’t get my mind to stop racing when I close my eyes.
On nights like this one I have to stay up until I am exhausted and can’t stay awake any longer. Then I basically pass out until morning. I have some Xanax that the doctor gave to Michele for her anxiety, and on the two occasions I’ve taken them I have been able to go to sleep. But I don’t like having to drug myself to sleep.
Still, getting enough rest is probably a good idea. I suppose I should take a Xanax or a Tylenol PM. I just don’t want to lie there seeing images in my head that I can’t stop.
I had a full day today, trying to keep the aloneness from getting to me. I got it in my head this week that I wanted to move the furniture around. Yesterday I bought a swivel base for the television in preparation for the new arrangement, and this morning at 7:00 I was running the vacuum over the carpet before stirring things up.
After two hours of steady work I had made a large mess, but the desk was moved to it’s new home and the electronics were positioned as well. I took a break and went to scout a potential dojo. Their web site was intriguing and I want to see what they were like in person. Over all the impression was mixed. They are very kata centric, which I like, but the katas are all the straight line, side to side ones that I don’t care for. The atmosphere was very relaxed with no formal bowing or ceremony to start things off. Not sure how I feel about that aspect. Realizing that my objectivity is suspect right now, I think I’ll go try a class or two and see what I think.
Back in the apartment I made some egg salad for lunch (it was good) and then finished moving the furniture around. In the end I had to rearrange the spare bedroom (den) as well. Another three hours saw it 95% completed. Other than a sore lower back (the couch is HEAVY, with two recliners built into it) I am not hurting tonight. I am very tired however. Looking back at the day I think that was my agenda; to be physically exhausted rather then mentally and emotionally wiped out with physical energy to spare.
This evening I am acutely aware of how empty the apartment is without Michele physically here. Taz spends a lot of time with me, and on me which helps. And I am learning to sit on the couch or in the big chair so that Nekko will come visit me as well. Having the two of them is helping tremendously. I cannot imagine being here without any other living creature.
Yesterday also saw the completion of my transaction with the Cremation Society. I stopped by and picked up the copies of the death certificates and brought Michele’s cremains home. Her urn, covered with flowers and hummingbirds, is now on the mantle. I’m not sure how long I’ll leave it there. A part of me realizes that I need that physical presence here now but that in the future I may be less needful of it. The smaller urn with Abby’s remains are there too. This household now has three living souls and two ghosts.
Tomorrow I am planning on making a pot of spaghetti sauce. I need to get through my fear of doing things alone that Michele and I did together. She would want me to have our sauce and enjoy it. Maybe in a week or two I’ll attempt a cake.