Running In Place

Jeez. What month is it? When was April??? Oh, a long time ago now. But do I really have anything new to say in any case?? Maybe.

First of all - it’s still hard. The end of a marriage is so. freaking. hard. It’s incredibly frustrating, how the grief can grab you at unexpected times and just stymie every thing you’ve been working on, working towards. Sometimes I’m grooving - I’ve got a job in a place I really like, and exactly the position I wanted - for more $$ than at the old place, in the old life - I’ve got a new vehicle, I’m living in a sweet-awesome downtown apartment, I’m starting to make friends, I’m with a guy that I truly am nuts over. But sometimes. The despair is suffocating. I think it’s all especially poignant because the kid is leaving for college in a couple of weeks - out of state. In truth, I’m really excited for him and I think he’ll be just fine - he’s a really smart kid (yeah, I know every mom says that about her kid but in my case it’s really true! And, although I’ve dealt with him living 2 hours away for the past several months, 6 hours away is WAY too far and somehow it seems like I will miss him more than ever. Let’s listen in to the last conversation we had about heading off to school:

Me: So. Have you found out what you need to bring to school?
Kid: Well, I’ll find out when I get there and just buy it.
Me: Well, I mean like, does your dorm room have a desk or do you need to bring yours.
Kid: Um, I don’t think I’m going to fit my desk in my car.
Me: Well what about Daddy’s truck?
Kid: Um, I kind of thought I would just pack up my car with what I could fit and go.
Me: WELL, in every TV show *I* ever saw, the parents take the kid to college and see his dorm and meet his roommate and help him unpack and go out to dinner and maybe then say goodbye at the very last possible minute.
Kid: Yeah. That’s not how I envision it.

sniffle

But, really, if I was him - that’s exactly how I’d do it. So I’ve got respect for that and, in a couple of weeks, he will ride off into his own next big adventure, and I hope it’s grand.

In any case, I think I really am surfacing - which may imply that I had gone under, which is not entirely the case. It’s just that it’s a process - it really is a grieving process and, being a hospice nurse, I have a pretty good sense of how that can unfold - but the knowledge I apply to my patients and their families, of course, is not what I immediately recognize in myself. Although I’m sure it’s obvious to any other casual observer. And let me pause to say this: I am not comparing the break-up of a relationship to the loss of a spouse through death - when I talk about grief, I talk about that process we go through any time we have a significant loss - from a job to a marriage to a death. I may be less sad or more sad than any other person for any reason, I’m just talking about the path that takes you from feeling irreparably broken to mended. And all of that is to say that, though there are days when I am more back than forward, I am on the track I want to be on. I love my work, my home, my man, and my cute, new(ish) little CR-V. So I say to myself - Snap the freak out of it girl!!

The important part of this is that I really didn’t reappear here to pour out all my messy feelings (though, if you spend any time with me, you’ll discover that I’ve become prone to it - yeah, I’m pretty awesome to hang around with) - the thing is that I am moving again - my body that is (not a new apartment, sweet baby jesus not any time soon!!). See I came to this hospice and they have this AMAZING fundraiser - a 1.2 mile swim across Cayuga Lake and I volunteered at it this year, but when one of my co-workers (who’s 62 BTW) came up to me and said ‘do you want to train to swim it next year?’ I was already there! So, I’ve been swimming - at the Y - and though you may remember my not so great luck with the Y in my previous location - this Y has dedicated lap time at 6 AM. So Carol and I meet, and she totally laps me like 1000 times, but I’m swimming - I’m putting one foot in front of the other, as it were. Which is more than I have previously been able to say. When I wake up at 5:15 am it sucks, when I put myself in the pool it sucks, when I take that first lap or two - before I remember that I know a tiny bit (literally) about form it sucks. Then I find a grove, and I think ‘oh, this is kind of good - I’m ok here.’ And then, after shower and primping, I drive to work and feel ready to take on the world. So it’s good. Very good.

Life goes on, per Hedwig. And I believe her. I’m pulling the wig down from the shelf.