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pegkerrThis has been one of those weeks where it has been a bit difficult to pin down exactly what the week has been about. What has been top of mind? I didn't have anything particularly extraordinary happen. (For St. Patrick's day, I made mashed potatoes laced with corned beef and cheese. Whatever).
I realized that I have been fighting a slight strain of melancholy and I put it down to the fact that I have been pushing forward with the decluttering/Swedish Death Cleaning. I am continuing to go through Rob's stuff (OMG, aftereight seven years, aren't I done YET? But no, I am STILL pulling legal files out of the garage).
Going through Rob's stuff will never stop being painful. I am confronted by memories with every box I open, every piece of paper I reread. God, oh how I wish he had not stuck me with this burden. It feels like being trapped in the past. My sense of time gets hosed up when I am doing these tasks. I am about to turn 65. I am on the brink of retirement, and could conceivably figure that I am 2/3 through this life or more. Yet each box lands me firmly back in the past. And that is both intoxicating and so very painful.
Going through his things, thinking about the house, continually rubs my nose in the fact that this house used to be for a family. I lived with other people I loved. I ate meals together with them. I celebrated holidays with them. But now I live alone and it feels so wrong. When I get together with my siblings (whom I dearly love), I enjoy spending time with them, don't get me wrong. But they are all married, and I feel that difference in our situations so keenly. They are all with the partners with whom they have spent years, with whom they had children. And the ghost of Rob beside me is like a phantom limb, aching with pain.
Yes, I am keeping company with Eric, and yes, I love him and we are committed to each other. But there are very good reasons why we are not living together, why we will probably never have the deep history together that my siblings have with their spouses--someone with whom they have lived with for decades, someone with whom they have had children. The history I had with Rob.
I don't want to spend the rest of my life with my neck cranked over my shoulder, looking back longingly at the past. I feel so acutely the empty parts of my life here in the present.
I want to look forward toward the future. And yet I recognize that my future is an increasingly smaller and smaller portion of my life. Yes, I do know that there are things I can still anticipate with pleasure. I am, after all, welcoming my first grandchild this June.
But when I am going through Rob's boxes, the collision of past, present, and future is uncomfortable and painful.
God, being a widow just sucks.
Image description: A view of a range of mountains. Lower center: a bright spot at the confluence where one slopes down as the other slopes up. The downslope is labeled 'Past,' the slope behind the bright spot is 'Present' and the upslope leading away is 'Future.' An arrow points to the bright spot with the text 'You are here.'
Past, Present, and Future
Click on the links to see the 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.
I realized that I have been fighting a slight strain of melancholy and I put it down to the fact that I have been pushing forward with the decluttering/Swedish Death Cleaning. I am continuing to go through Rob's stuff (OMG, after
Going through Rob's stuff will never stop being painful. I am confronted by memories with every box I open, every piece of paper I reread. God, oh how I wish he had not stuck me with this burden. It feels like being trapped in the past. My sense of time gets hosed up when I am doing these tasks. I am about to turn 65. I am on the brink of retirement, and could conceivably figure that I am 2/3 through this life or more. Yet each box lands me firmly back in the past. And that is both intoxicating and so very painful.
Going through his things, thinking about the house, continually rubs my nose in the fact that this house used to be for a family. I lived with other people I loved. I ate meals together with them. I celebrated holidays with them. But now I live alone and it feels so wrong. When I get together with my siblings (whom I dearly love), I enjoy spending time with them, don't get me wrong. But they are all married, and I feel that difference in our situations so keenly. They are all with the partners with whom they have spent years, with whom they had children. And the ghost of Rob beside me is like a phantom limb, aching with pain.
Yes, I am keeping company with Eric, and yes, I love him and we are committed to each other. But there are very good reasons why we are not living together, why we will probably never have the deep history together that my siblings have with their spouses--someone with whom they have lived with for decades, someone with whom they have had children. The history I had with Rob.
I don't want to spend the rest of my life with my neck cranked over my shoulder, looking back longingly at the past. I feel so acutely the empty parts of my life here in the present.
I want to look forward toward the future. And yet I recognize that my future is an increasingly smaller and smaller portion of my life. Yes, I do know that there are things I can still anticipate with pleasure. I am, after all, welcoming my first grandchild this June.
But when I am going through Rob's boxes, the collision of past, present, and future is uncomfortable and painful.
God, being a widow just sucks.
Image description: A view of a range of mountains. Lower center: a bright spot at the confluence where one slopes down as the other slopes up. The downslope is labeled 'Past,' the slope behind the bright spot is 'Present' and the upslope leading away is 'Future.' An arrow points to the bright spot with the text 'You are here.'
Click on the links to see the 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.
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Date: 2025-03-22 02:17 pm (UTC)K.