An Improv Life

I know that I’m not failing, but I am sometimes still struggling. It’s difficult to explain how much I do not care about “frivolous” things like weeds, opening mail, cleaning the toilet, paying bills, sometimes even eating, after losing my partner. I do it all, but more than half the time I’m pretending. Playing house. Acting.

I’m living an improv life.

Sometimes I try to pep-talk myself by saying “there are others who have it worse” and I’ll listen to and watch true-crime documentaries to back up that statement. Tiny windows into lives that are, by the documentaries’ accounts, seriously more fucked up than mine.

But that only lasts for about 30 seconds after the credits roll. Comparing lives doesn’t really work for me. I’m more driven by my own thoughts, goals, and accomplishments (or failures), and comparing present day self to who I was a year ago, or five years ago, than whatever any other human has going on in their life. After the shock of what crimes people think they are going to get away with wears off, I usually just end up feeling dismayed at humanity. It’s not a great treatment plan.

I’ve come out of the fog of the first six or eight months of widowhood. Mostly. Many weekend mornings, I still lay in bed for a long, long time. Doze in and out until the anxiety of Not Being Productive forces me up. I feel like I at least now have more bearings in a way that I didn’t for a long time. I hated that feeling of limbo, like standing in the middle of an expansive rope suspension bridge that frays by the minute. But I also hate this new feeling: Facing the truth–this is actually my life now.

It’s not entirely dreary, though. I am finally enjoying doing things with people again. My visits and activities are much shorter than in the past, but what I can sustain has been fun and it’s a relief to laugh freely. People have asked me if I feel guilty being happy, when I’m happy, because that’s a typical talking point around grief. I don’t feel guilty, but there is an undercurrent of sadness because it highlights the gaping hole next to me. Often after I’ve gone out with a friend or hung out with my kids, I’m alone again and the sadness steps up a notch. Not because I’m alone, but because Joe is not here. There is a big difference.

The truth is in my face every single minute and yet still so hard to believe he’s just not here.

I went out to listen to some live music last night at The Purple Fiddle. Joe and I would make this drive quite often out to Thomas and Davis, two recovering coal towns that have become destinations and the beautiful Blackwater Falls State Park. We actually lived in Thomas for a month or so when we first moved to West Virginia–it was the first town I “met” and when I saw an enormous pride flag on the main street I thought, “this is going to be okay”. Of course it’s not indicative of all the towns or population of WV, but it is indicative of the fact nothing is what it seems from the outside. A reminder to not rush to judgement.

But as I drove alone last night, chasing the sunset into the mountains, I had this urge to pull over, climb a peak, and scream Joe’s name from it. If I did that, maybe he would finally hear me and come home. My brain knows he’s gone, but my heart has still not quite caught up.

Last summer, as we inched to the end of August, Joe and I had to accept we were facing our last days together. Accept is a complicated word. I suppose I had to fully accept it because the next two months of care were going to be intense and I knew it. I needed to be calm, prepared for anything, and it basically felt like cramming medical school into a matter of days. But I also wanted to just curl up next to Joe and have him tell me it was all going to be fine. But it wasn’t. And we couldn’t have many of those deeper conversations I longed for because of the nature of his cancer. Many cancers create issues with salivary glands and excess mucus and with esophageal cancer it’s a major issue. We all get runny noses and extra tears and all sorts of messy when we cry. For Joe, his cancer made it a thousand times worse and would result in him being physically ill. So for two people who have always shared and planned and cried together, we were cut off for the first time.

It sucked for both of us. We’d get emotional over the fact we couldn’t be emotional together–it was an evil catch-22. And as the weeks and days ticked by and he slowly reverted to a more childlike awareness, I had to accept my partner was gone before he was even gone.

Most of the time I don’t dwell on those memories, though it does help me to understand some of the reasoning behind the stupor caused by loss. And the level of pretending you must commit to just to get through a day both before and after that loss. Some days I want to do exactly nothing except rot in my robe and watch reality TV. In theory that is a choice I can make, and sometimes need. I have given myself the grace to do what feels right on any given day. But long term, who is going to allow it without consequences? Not my dogs, not my utility companies, not my boss, and frankly, not me either.

When Joe was sick, there were so many beyond exhausting days. I’d fantasize about completely falling apart. Maybe lose my shit in a Walmart, throwing over clothing racks and swiping everything off the shelves, to be checked into a psychiatric ward. Or maybe become a true crime documentary–The Bank Robbing Widow–so I could be sent to jail. At least I wouldn’t have to cook. I thought about Thelma and Louise-ing my car off of one of the many massive bridges between mountains into a deep ravine. Dark, I know. I didn’t do any of those things, and I wouldn’t. It’s just kind of crazy what your brain comes up with as an alternative to pain. I know well enough now, I’ve had enough painful experiences, to let myself have the dark thought. Cry. Laugh at it if necessary. And then continue living.

So that’s where I am. Living.

Sometimes living is trudging. Sometimes it’s improv. And sometimes it’s a warm, rainy Sunday morning when you’re finally able to plunk out a few hundred words and find yourself again.