Thirty-Five Forever

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"Time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping into the future..."

Today, on my birthday, I become older than he ever was.  Its not natural.  Its not right.  And it doesn't make sense.  I look in the mirror and don't feel old.  I feel like I still have a life before me.  Is that how he felt that morning?  Young and alive?  Ready to take on another day?  35... or 36... is not really that old.

And yet as young as I feel, I am also acutely aware that I am old enough to die.  I've already lived longer than he ever did.  It could be my turn to drop dead tomorrow.  I struggle to wrap my head around his mortality.  My own mortality.  The mortality of us all.

It's ironic how a day that has been set aside to commemorate and celebrate birth has me thinking even more about death.  But it seems everything has me thinking about death these days.

Life, and death, seem to have taken on a whole new meaning - a meaning I am only now coming to terms with in the realization that I have officially, at 36 years old, outlived my husband.  We take so much for granted.  Like the fact that there will be a tomorrow, and that we will be there to see it.

I'm not much in the mood for celebrating this auspicious occasion.  Actually, I would rather it not happen at all.  I would rather remain 35 forever - the same age he was.  If I do not get older time does not pass.  The distance between us does not increase.  The moments he did not live to experience do not happen.  But knowing that I cannot stop the clock, I will rise again to greet another dawn.  

He's gone, but the world keps on turning.  People keep on getting older.  Including me.

Boxes

My last day of work before I went on maternity leave was September 11, 2009. I packed up my office, and had three cardboard boxes carried down to the basement for storage. When I returned to work one year later, those boxes were sitting in my office, waiting for my return. Everything was the same. Except for me. I was returning as a mother.

And a widow. 

 My life had been drastically, uncontrollably, suddenly altered. I was not the same person who had packed those boxes less than 365 days prior.

Today, more than two and a half years later, those same three cardboard boxes are stacked, still packed, against my back office wall. I’ve opened them to pull some of the important stuff out. But for the most part, they remain untouched. I don’t want to open them, go through them. I’m afraid of what I may find. Memories of an old life, an old person long ago lost.

I’ve become pretty good at compartmentalizing my life. Acting different, looking different, in different situations. At work I am the employee. Professional, business-like, in control. I am the friend. The mother. The daughter. The consumer walking the aisles at Walmart. Each role has its own set of expectations, responsibilities, rights and wrongs. And I think I adapt pretty well to each.

But hidden in between, falling through the cracks, is the one role I am really struggling with. That I have yet to figure out. That role is me. I’m like an actor who has played a part for too long, so long that they assume the qualities of the character they were playing. So when faced with those rare moments where I am alone, and don’t have to act, I don’t know what to say or do. I don’t know how to just be myself....

And then there are the other moments. When, for whatever reason, the emotions overpower the situation. When i just can't contain things, separate things any longer. That's when the tear escapes my eyes at work for no particular reason. When I avoid a certain aisle or product at the store because it reminds me of other things. When my parents on the phone ask why I am down without me offering it. When Gavin comes up to me, sits on my lap, and asks what is wrong.

There are some things a box, regardless of the size, just cannot contain.  Some emotions, some memories, some triggers that just will not stay hidden.  The old eventually will find you, no matter how hard you try to pack it away.

And as for those boxes in my office?  I think I will leave them packed.  I haven't missed their contents thus far, and it may be better not to know what is in there....  At least for a while longer.  I don't really need to rediscover that past life just yet.....

And the Word Spins Madly On...

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Woke up and wished that I was dead, with an aching in my head, I lay motionless in bed. I thought of you, and where you'd gone. Let the world spin madly on. Everything that I said I'd do, like make the world brand new, and take the time for you, It just got lost and set right through the dawn, and the world spins madly on. I let the day go by, I always say goodbye. I watch the stars from my window sill, the whole world is moving, and I'm standing still. Woke up, wished that I was dead, with an aching in my head I lay motionless in bed. The night is here, and the day is gone, and the world spins madly on. Thought of you, and where you'd gone, and the world spins madly on. The world spins madly on. ~The Weepies "World Spins Madly On"

I always knew there was a time when the world would return to its normal routine, and leave me standing in its dust, still trying to catch my breath. I think the moment I first felt that way was a few days after the funeral. The calls stopped. The cards ceased. And life resumed for everyone but me. Then there was the day, about a month later, when my parents left and I was left alone. Again, the people around me were finding their way back to normal. And I was left behind at a standstill, wondering what normal was.

Those were two of many.... Time moves quickly. The world changes fast. And it didn't take long for me to be left in its dust.

I feel like I've been playing catchup ever since that day. Not really trying to catch up to this moment. More like climb back to where I was the day before. Trying to jumpstart my life. Recharge my battery. Except I'm not even sure the battery can hold a charge any more...

I feel like the world is moving farther and farther away from me. That people are tired of waiting for me. So they have gone on, leaving me alone and forgotten. One by one, even those who have been with me since the beginning, who promised to see me through, are giving up and passing me by.

Its not that I haven't moved anywhere in the past 32 months. In fact, when I look at the me that was and the me that is, I know I have moved leaps and bounds. I've forced myself to the moon and back multiple times, all the while carrying the extra cargo that comes with my life. But I guess my moon is not their moon. Because when I got there, and looked ahead, no one was waiting. No one even left a note to tell me where they were headed. They just carried on....

Here's the thing. Whomever said that it was not the destination that mattered but the journey has never taken the trip that I am on. Or at least not in the manner I have taken it. Because this journey sucks. And I just want to get "there" - wherever "there" is - and be done with it. And I don't see an end. I don't see the promise of an end. I see more of the same. Different flavours, same poison, stretched out before me...

In my days as a Girl Guide, I learned that when you were lost in the woods you should stay put and someone will come and find you. I can admit I am lost. And so I sit, and wait. And wait. And wait. But I'm more than lost. I'm buried. There is no evidence I am out there. And there is no one who is going to come and find me.

 Not any more.  They are all too far away.

People die in the woods, waiting for their rescue parties to arrive... Sometimes it really doesn't make you stronger. Sometimes it really does kill you.

I'm losing my will to fight. To survive. I don't know if its about Kurt any more. Or me. Or something bigger than the both of us, either together or apart. All I know is that with every passing day I feel a little more isolated. I have no where to go, and nothing to turn to. I look in the mirror and wonder if I am doing anyone a service by being here.  If I should continue to exist at all, if the world would notice if I chose this moment to forfeit the journey and take my exit.

And the world spins madly on......