Yikes, still

When things are lousy, it’s hard not to feel like there’s a countdown happening behind the scenes. How much time do I have left to be honest with everyone about how much this hurts? At what point do even the most patient friends and family start to think, Yikes, still?

Because yikes. Still.

You’ve been so patient. I appreciate you. I’m sorry that I’m still writing more often of what hurts than what heals. It bleeds into everything, this loss, the lie of our life together. And it’s hard to imagine a time when each tiny decision of daily life won’t remind me of him.

We used to talk about our brains’ different ways of processing. He’s a brilliant compartmentalizer. Take what you need in the moment, shelve the rest. I’ve been shelved. It’s like I never happened.

I envy this. My brain is a thick rainforest full of sound. A tangle of organic material, living and dead, growing and decomposing and fertilizing, everything part of everything else, everything feeding on itself. Nothing goes away; it just changes form.

Ten years of thinking as a we, as an us, becomes an awful habit to quit. I don’t shop at certain stores because I can see him too clearly in the aisles, making all his usual stops as we hunt and gather together. I don’t buy gas at certain stations, because I remember too well sitting in his passenger seat, waiting for him to climb back in and tell me just how much we saved at this pump. Indian food, can’t do it, know his order by heart, might never be able to eat garlic naan again. World Cup? Nope, never. Tour de France? Breaking me, even the briefest mention of it. Last summer, we were in Door County so he could do a half-Ironman. The Tour was en route, so each morning at the inn, we’d snuggle in bed and watch highlights from the next stage on his laptop. He was impressed that I knew all about the pelotons and the polka dot jersey. Maybe that sort of thing should have been a warning, all the times he seemed surprised that I knew about the things he thought of as only his.

I want to Eternal Sunshine it all away now. I don’t want to remember anything. I don’t see the use in it. I’d like to trade in my jungle brain for one of the card catalog brains, please.

How long will it take before I wring out the last of the disbelief? I’m still soaked in the but this isn’t us. But my understanding of our life together was not a shared understanding, so I don't know what I don’t know anymore.

I always used to tell him it was hard to surprise me: another thing that turned out not to be true.

In November, he bid on a trip to Tuscany for the two of us, at an art auction I’d donated a painting to. It was his idea, not mine.

It’ll be fun, right? he said. We always wanted to go to Italy.

My oldest stepson took a photo of us later that night. We’re at the kitchen island, looking spiffy from our night out. I’m leaning against his shoulder in the most wifey way. My smile is wide and relaxed. He looks tired but happy.

We’re going to Tuscany. Your dad bid on the trip and he won. I know, can you believe it?

The next mention of the trip showed up in a ledger from his attorney. I could have the trip, if he could keep my old Subaru.

The shortest, cruelest distance between two points: November to July. I’ve been dropped by the peloton and this climbing stage is a real motherfucker.

Yikes. Still.