change

I just needed one ingredient for a recipe so I turned into the parking lot of my neighborhood store and then I saw the sign.

STORE CLOSING

It was literally like a punch to the stomach.

My first thought was "oh I have to tell Mr. T about this"

and that was the second gut punch.

Because, of course, I can't tell Mr. T anything anymore.

This store holds a lot of memories for the two of us. It's not a brand name store like Publix or Target or Walmart. It's marketed directly at tourists and the prices are more expensive so we never did our normal grocery shopping there but it was so convenient so it was often my go-to store when I just needed one or two things or I didn't feel up to dealing with driving on the highway or the crowded parking lots or a store full of tourists.

For 5 or 6 years this was the only store that carried a particular flavor of hot chocolate that I loved so Mr. T would go there whenever we were in town and buy their entire stock. And he absolutely loved their clearance table over by the frozen foods.

Once, when we were particularly broke, I went to the clearance table to shop for his birthday and ended up buying a reel of something called "magic twist ties" for him. He loved that present and used it for years. I think I saw tears in his eyes when he used the last one.

But my strongest memory of this store is that we often went there on Friday and Saturday nights because Mr. T loved to hear the "happy sounds" of the tourists in town for the start of their vacations, buying all their groceries for the week. That was seriously one of his favorite things to do, he was always up for it when I suggested it.

It hurts me to see things change, to see the world grow different from the one he knew. I wish everything could stay exactly the same as he saw it. I hate the idea of a world that he wouldn't recognize.

And I know that's stupid and an impossible wish. Change is inevitable and I can't hold on to things whose time has come and gone. 

I know there's a bigger lesson in all this...just not quite ready for it yet.

 

normal

I have had a good weekend. It feels nice to say that.

I know a lot of the reason for that is that I got to do something very normal this weekend; I got to swim and spend lots of time on our back patio.

We bought this house in 2000 right after Mr. T got a very good job, the best he'd ever had. We had sold our house in Virginia and didn't want (couldn't afford) to buy something in California where we were renting so, on a whim, we bought this house in Florida and rented it out for several years as a vacation property. All the houses in this area were marketed for vacation rental so they all have small pools in the back.

We could only spend 2 weeks a year here but when we were here, I swam every moment I could, even if the weather was not really warm enough to swim.

For the last 2 1/2 years we've been living here full-time and every weekend where the temperatures have been over 80, I have been in the pool. It's where I'm happiest. Mr. T wasn't as big a fan of the pool as I am, although he liked it, so he enjoyed my swimming weekends because it gave him a chance to putter around the house, fixing things and working on little projects. And from time to time he'd come into the kitchen where I could see him from my lounge chair. He'd come to the window and make goofy faces at me or walk outside and ask me if I needed anything. Sometimes he'd stand at the stove and cook something for us for lunch and bring it out to me as a surprise..

In early November the temperatures outside finally started coming below 90 and then below 80 and it wasn't as much fun to swim or be outside. Then the world fell apart and I didn't want to swim or do anything.

This weekend we had unusually high temperatures, more like summer, and although the water temperature was still low (62!) I went in the pool anyway. At those temperatures, you stop feeling anything in your extremities pretty quickly anyway so I found I didn't mind the cold so much. LOL

I splashed away in the pool and then warmed up again under the umbrella, enjoying a good book and the feel of the warm sun on my skin.

 

Charlie loves being outside as well and had missed it. She could spend all day out there sleeping on the chair while I read.

For just a little while, life felt normal again, just like every other Saturday and Sunday.

One of Mr. T's favorite things about this house was watching me enjoy it so much. I know he was smiling down from heaven this weekend.

 

how are you?

How are you?

It's such an innocuous little question, one that's asked and answered many times each day and yet, it's such a minefield for me these days.

Do I answer honestly? Do I say "horrible" "terrible" "I'm devastated" "I want to fling myself down on my bed and never get up."

How about "I feel like my heart is being ripped out each morning that I wake up and realize, for the millionth time, that it wasn't a dream and I have to trudge through yet another day without my best friend."

Or my personal favorite "when I think about living the next 30 - 40 years all alone like this, I feel a tsunami of grief overtaking me and I don't think I'm going to make it."

You see, no one wants to hear that. Hell, I don't even want to hear it. So I just fall back on "I'm ok" and that's all the asker wanted to hear anyway so they say "great!" and I feel like a fraud but they're happy.

Maybe one day I won't be lying.

photography is my life

 

 Mr. T was a photographer. It truly was his passion. He even made a living at it for a year when we decided to take a break from Silicon Valley and try living in Florida. 

That was also where he discovered that, not being much of a people person, photographing weddings probably wasn't going to be his thing. He was MUCH better at food photography. He was also much better at technology so we went back to Silicon Valley and photography became a much loved hobby for him.

He always wanted me to get into photography with him but I never did, much to my regret now. We had all these dreams about getting an RV when we retired and roaming the country searching for interesting people and stories and food. I would write about it and he would take the pictures. When he did take pictures of people, he was very good at capturing emotions, telling their stories with just one perfect picture.

It would have been awesome.

So it hurt me to see his camera sitting on the shelf just gathering dust and I decided to do something about that.

Today I attended a "cameras for dummies" course at a local store. No, that wasn't the official title but that was certainly how I came into it. Luckily I wasn't the only one. This course promised to tell us what to do with all the buttons on our DSLR cameras which was just what I needed.

When I signed up for the course it asked us to come with the battery in our camera fully charged. It took me over 30 minutes, a lot of Googling and several You Tube videos to figure out how to get the batteries out of my camera! When I finally did it, I felt on top of the world.

The course lived up to its hype. I had been intimidated by Taz's camera before, almost afraid to touch anything. Now I can change the aperture and the ISO and I even know what those words mean! And I even know when I should change them and what I should change them to...mostly...kinda.

Not that I didn't end up with pictures like this today

But I also ended up with pictures like this

Mostly it left me with a passion to learn more so now my photography journey is just beginning.

Who knows, maybe one day I'll roam the country looking for interesting people, stories and food. In honor of Mr. T.

Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day was always special to me and Mr. T. We got engaged on Valentine's Day back when we were just babies. Well, at least it felt like we were babies, we were so young and untried.

Twenty-five years later (25!??!?) we decided to recreate that moment. To be truthful, the recreation was a lot nicer than the original which was more of a discussion than a proposal.

It was such a special night, so perfect.

Other Valentine's Days have been a little more lowkey.

Like the time we went to Cracker Barrel

Or Waffle House

 And sometimes we went a little fancier

Yes, most of our special moments have included food.

The great thing is, it never really mattered where we were or what we ate or what we did. Being together was always the most important part of Valentine's Day.

And I guess that's why today hasn't been as hard as I thought it would be. Of course I'm sad that we can't be together anymore but I have so many beautiful memories so I've been focusing on them and it ended up being good day. For that I am grateful.

Charlie

That's my girl! 

I've never lived by myself before. I went from my parents' house to living with roommates (boy I hated that) to getting married and living with Taz for over 32 years.

Luckily I am an introvert and I don't need to be around people all the time but, damn, being by yourself ALL the time really sucks.

Taz and I were such chums. We were always going places and doing things. He worked really hard during the week so my mission was always to find something fun for us to do on weekends. He always called me the Director of Fun and I took that job seriously. 

All of this is to say that it's pretty lonely now and I don't know how I'd make it without my Charlie girl. She is sweet and sassy and goofy. She knows how to cheer me up when the feelings start to overwhelm.

She is my everything and I just wanted to give her a little shout out on this Saturday night.

 

What I Now Know

 I know it's been a while since I've blogged and I hate to come back with bad news but there's no getting around it.

On November 22, 2018 (Thanksgiving day) I had to say goodbye to Mr. T forever after 34 years together. I'm still pretty much in disbelief and sadder than I've ever been in my life.

2018 was the best year we've had in a long time...until it wasn't.

I have lots of thoughts and I want to share them as I make this journey but right now I want to share a few of the things I've learned in the last 3 months.

For me, it’s more like sitting in the beautiful house, a bomb goes off and when you open your eyes everything is still exactly the same, the beautiful house is still there around you just like it was before. And yet, everything is different. It’s like the oxygen was sucked out of the room. Everything around you is still in color but you feel like you’re in grayscale and fading even if other people don’t see you that way.

It’s a million different things and I think it’s different for each person. Some people detach and can’t feel any emotion. Some feel every emotion but way out of proportion. Some people crawl into bed and never want to get out until a friend/family comes by and forces them out. Some of us know there is no one there to pull us out of the abyss so we can’t even fall in.

Some people can’t stand to be at home because there are too many memories or too much silence. I’m the opposite, I take comfort from my house and love to be there. My house makes me smile. It helps that Charlie is there with me.

It’s going from being a fairly self-sufficient individual to someone who feels inadequate to the task of daily living.
It’s driving to work every day with tears streaming down your face, sometimes silently, sometimes accompanied by noises you didn’t know you could make.
It’s waking up on Christmas morning totally and completely alone. No one else is around and no one will be around or contacting you all damn day.
It’s feeling disappointed that there are no presents and then feeling small because you’re disappointed at something so meaningless.
It's having to spend Christmas day dealing with your ancient and needy mother.
It's knowing there is no one who is ever going to help you with your mother.
It's knowing that the future you had looked forward to with your sister and husband without having to deal with your mother's needs will never come.
It's knowing you never even got a chance to grieve for your sister.
It’s dreading weekends and holidays because endless hours stretch in front of you.
It’s not caring about what or when you eat.
It’s practically passing out when hunger finally kicks in.
It’s feeling physically weak when you’ve never felt weak before.
It’s knowing that no grief you’ve ever known before, not even grief for a beloved parent, feels like this or has the same impact on your daily life.
It’s knowing that no one that’s not “in the club” really understands even though they think they do.
It’s being part of the shitty club.
It’s hearing people in the club still struggling 10 years later.
It’s knowing you’re going to let down a friend by not taking a job but you know you won’t be able to physically put in the hours and that it’s not right for you.
It’s losing yourself in a book or movie and forgetting for a little while only to have it explode in your heart when you remember.
It’s walking through a place you used to enjoy together and then you smell the glazed almonds, which you don’t even like but they were his favorite treat, and you suddenly can’t breathe.
It's not being able to wrap your brain around the fact that this really happened and waiting to wake up from the worst nightmare ever.
It's knowing you'll never wake up.
It’s being at a place you used to eat together or sit together or laugh together and feeling a knife slicing through your heart.
It’s making yourself stay up too late each night, until you’re exhausted, so that you can go to bed and pass out and not think.
It’s waking up exhausted each morning because you went to bed too late and didn’t get enough sleep.
It’s rejoicing over finding pictures you didn’t remember, wallowing in them and then having to stop because it’s making him too real and it’s going to hurt too much to never see him in person again.
It’s being sad about friends that have disappeared from your life.
It’s worry about how your future is going to change and not for the better.
It’s being terrified of being homeless or ending up the unwanted relative that has to move in.
It’s wondering how you’re going to make it through the next 40 years.
It’s anger over life’s circumstances that took you from being prepared financially for all of this to not being prepared.
It’s pain knowing that you not being prepared and having to struggle was his worst nightmare and worry that kept him up at night..
It’s horrific knowing his worst nightmare came true.
It's worry that you're not going to make it.
It’s missing his cooking.
It’s apathy at ever cooking again.
It’s embarrassing to burst into tears and not be able to talk about some subjects.
It’s frustrating about needing to talk about those subjects.
It’s turning to writing, which you love, to work out the grief and then having to stop because you’re dissolved in tears and you’re at work or you’re at home and you’re scaring the dog.
It’s needing to bring more Kleenex to work.
It’s knowing that your reactions make people uncomfortable.
It’s looking up at an event and catching someone staring at the widow.
It’s wondering if you’re crying too much.
It’s wondering if you’re smiling too much.
It’s wanting to be out and doing something fun.
It’s suddenly wanting to go home.
It’s desperately needing to be home to the point that you think you might not make it there from needing it so much.
It’s talking out loud in an empty house.
It’s missing those daily phone calls on his drive home that used to annoy you because you needed to fix dinner or you wanted to keep watching that tv show.
It’s being glad you stayed on the daily phone calls and listened anyway.
It's joy that he wanted to make those daily phone calls.
It’s being happy you were able to travel so much.
It’s being angry you weren’t able to travel much the last few years.
It’s being eternally grateful for the perfect week in Carmel in September.
It’s sadness that you’ll never live in Carmel again.
It’s knowing that it wouldn’t be the same anyway.
It’s wanting to travel but feeling grief at not being able to make those new memories together.
It’s needing to make those memories for him.
It’s wanting to travel but knowing you can’t even afford the gas for a road trip up the coast.
It’s defeat.
It’s getting back up again.
It’s the day you make it to work without tears.
It’s the next day when you don’t.
It’s knowing you’ll keep trying.
It’s laughter when you do something stupid on the road and you can hear his voice.
It’s joy at a happy memory.
It's knowing that this will make people uncomfortable and feel like they don't know what to say.
It is what it is.