The eleventh month of my Year Of Firsts

Hi Gary,
Today is Tuesday, September 17th, 2013. In one month, it will be one year since you left me.

Here is song to let you know how this feels for me here...

Harsh Realities

 

 

When I was in SD, MN and CO earlier this summer, I was preoccupied.  Not that I didn't think of Gary all the time, but I was planning trips, dates, where to be when, and making doctor appointments. In other words, there were people to see and places to go.

Now I am back and recovering with this shoulder and I have been obsessed, yet again, with moving away from here. In 2003-2007 when I  lived and worked here, I spent only a few weekends here alone to save money from either Gary or my travel costs. Those few quiet weekends alone here were BORING. I watched TV, did laundry in the apartment laundromat and looked ahead to the NEXT weekend when I could go back to California to be with Gary.

I keep remembering the feeling of anticipation when I would see him for the first time after being away from him for a week or two.  If he was coming over to Phoenix, I would call him and get his ETA so I would know when to expect him. At the approximate time, I listened for the truck door to shut and the footsteps on the walk or stairway, keys jingling as he put them into his pocket.
I remember that delicious long hug(sometimes I had to wait until he got out of the bathroom first!) that followed when the door shut.  Those hugs! Me, being the short one, I could hang on to him and hug for a long time. He was always the first to whisper, "I missed you so much."  It was heaven.

Those weekends here or in California were more like vacations.  If Gary came here, we would go out for late night happy hour drinks and appetizers.  If I went over there, we went to Friday's or somewhere else for early happy hour.  It was just Happy!  Even though we talked to each other at least once a day, there was always something new to learn that had happened at each others' job that we hadn't talked about before.  Gary laughed and smiled a lot and I could see that he was truly happy.  I loved every minute of being with him until Sunday night when he or I had to leave again.

Last week, for the first time since Gary died, I actually got out and went somewhere with a local friend.  She is a new friend, a widow, who lives around the corner from me.  This lady just turned 60 and was widowed at age 48 after just having become disabled. 'Lucky' for her, being disabled meant she qualified at age 50 for widow's benefits from her husband.  I first met this widow in the dog park in our community while Gary was still here and sick. I ran into her again and she gave me her number which I misplaced.  After Gary died, I ran into her again and this time, she walked me back to my house where I wrote her number on a paper and put it on the refrigerator.  It hung there for 7 months.

Finally, last month, when my mom and I were at another larger dog park after my surgery, there was the widow with her Labradoodle. She asked, "You should call me-do you still have my number?"  I had only moved it to wipe the refrigerator off now and then. After another 2 weeks passed I  did call her and left a message.  2 days later, on a Friday morning, she called me and said "let's go to a movie-NOW"  What the heck, why not?  Its only money, right? She picked me up 30 minutes later and we saw We are The Millers.  It was funny and good, not stellar, and I was surprised she had no qualms about the profanity.
After, we drove to a local burger place and we sat and talked for 2 hours.

On earlier visits with this lady last summer and fall, I had asked her about remarrying.  She had told me, "My husband was my Soul Mate and there will only be one of him. I am not looking for anyone else because I already found my one and only."  I don't think I said anything to her, because I had no experience yet with how this feels to be without your 'one and only'.  I do know that Gary thought I should remarry. I told him I would not, but he said I should. He said he wanted me to.

So, last week at lunch, without talking about marrying or even dating, my widow friend listened to me as I vented about wanting to be somewhere else, to be someONE else, and with someone else besides the dog, I knew she would be the only one in my life that truly understands this.  She especially agreed with my statement, "I want MY LIFE back".  She said, "I like that, 'I want MY life back!"  Our lives were taken away from us as much as from our husbands.  There are three lives involved in a marriage: Yours, Mine and Ours.  We both lost two lives when our dear partners died.

My new friend seemed to be much more ambivalent toward men and relationships with men now. I can bet that she is as wishy washy as I am after 10 months and she has been at this for 12 years!  She told me, "There are a lot of stupid men out there!"  Boy ain't that the truth-especially here on the mean streets of the Senior Stronghold of Arizona!  Gary may not have been as interested in politics and current events as I am, but he was innately sharp on how to treat people and what to say and how to act around others.  He could learn new stuff very fast and was always GOOD at anything he did.  Gary is an impossible standard for any other schmuck left out there to try to measure up to.

I also told my friend that there are a lot of deadbeats out there who have not saved for retirement, are not smart about money and have frittered away their earnings without saving.  I have a lot of mistrust when it comes to maintaining what security I have amassed because of how hard Gary and I worked for our future. I can see why one would not want to remarry.  It could spell financial ruin!  Ahhh to be 18 again and know that anyone out there trolling for the opposite sex is usually on equal footing when it comes to assets.  Because, at 18, everyone is at the same place: The Bottom.

The time spent deciding what to do next goes on and on and on for me.  Maybe I need a life coach or something. Its not something anyone but me can decide.  Maybe it is like being 18 again, and making a decision that might be a mistake, but being able to say, 'No biggee, we'll just try something different next time'.  I think about that when I want to sell this house but I know that right now, I could never realize what I/we actually have INTO the house.  It might sell for what I need, but the damned realtors fees and closing costs would eat up so much, I'd come up short.  My grief counselor told me on his final visit with me that I need to keep remembering what Gary would advise me to do.  I know that Gary would say, "If it doesn't make sense to sell right now, then DON'T"  And so, as this Arizona summer grinds on and on with its monotonous 108 degree days, my wishful thinking goes on too, as to when and where my next step will be...

In the end, everyone ends up alone

Losing him, the only one who's ever known

Who I am, who I am not, who I want to be

Dear Diary

It has been so long since I have written that I'm sure you must have thought I abandoned you. But no, I have thought about you nearly every day for the last 110 days. I missed writing to you.  I have ideas that come into my head and I want to document them in your electronic pages, but I never get to this computer to do it.

Just some of my lame excuses include:
1) computer doesn't work reliably, shutting down unexpectedly nearly each time I use it

2) I have a tablet, but anyone who has one knows it is not conducive to typing out ideas and dialog and mostly only allows for pecking short sentences without punctuation adherence.

3) It takes, on average, 45 minutes to start up the computer and get it to this site. Ohh the agony of it all!

So, an encapsulated, albeit, dry update is due.

May- I left with my  Sioux Falls friend and Robbie to drive up to Sioux Falls.  We stopped halfway in Colorado Springs for one night. It was so cold, but so refreshing to get the hell out of hell.
We arrived in Sioux Falls on my birthday. Robbie and I stayed at my Sioux Falls address, ie, my mom's house. Robbie was quite pleased with his new surroundings there.  His face gave away his thoughts: Grass! Cool Weather!(It had been well over 100 for a month when we left AZ) And best of all-Squirrels!

June- My mom and I flew to Denver for a baby shower and on the way home, on June 1st, standing in the Denver airport with THREE bags on my shoulder, I felt a very odd feeling that I knew was not good.  This shoulder has been bothering me for over 2 years. First it was injured when recovering from my broken heel bone and then it became 'frozen' for about 7 months.  I then fell on it after moving to our new house here in Peoria. For those 2 years Gary told me to 'get to a doctor' about it, but I never did and after he got sick, I had NO time to get away for myself. I did get a cortisone shot in the shoulder on April 1st. By June 4, the shoulder was in such pain, I went to an orthopedic urgent care.  X-rays, and a week later an MRI confirmed that the rotator cuff was torn clean off. Surgery was the only option. I told them that I had to get to Denver by the end of the next week to dog sit for my sister so I could not have surgery in Sioux Falls.  I started out for Denver in excruciating pain that was impervious to any pain killers. After stopping in Kansas City to see the grandkids for a few hours, I was on the road again to Denver. I toughed it out with the help of prescription painkillers until early July when I decided I would just go back and have the surgery in AZ. Too bad for Robbie, because he was in love with Denver's weather too.  He got to meet his 'cousin' Sadie and I took them both to the dog park where they could run with abandon.
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July- After arriving back at the house, Robbie was visibly BUMMED to be back in this heat.  He is not a desert dog.  His tail droops and he lags behind on walks.  He hates going outside to do his necessary stuff. I got into the surgeon with my MRI CD showing the tear's extent. I had to jump through the hoops of getting a physical for surgery and finally scheduled the surgery.  I had to schedule far enough out so that I could give my mom enough time to book a flight down to babysit me after the surgery. Amazingly, during this month, the pain disappeared and I could move the shoulder freely, but it was just very weak.

August- Even though I was having major regrets about coming back down here in the summer for the surgery, I managed to get through until August 14th when they finally repaired and reattached the tendons, etc. I've got the pictures that my surgeon was quite excited to show me but they don't mean squat to me.

Now it has been 1 month to the day of the surgery.  My mom left 4 days after the surgery and I have been wearing the sling, doing the PT exercises at home and of course, going to PT.  I had my one month checkup with the surgeon yesterday.  He said I am still only 10% healed.  At 4 months, one is only 60% healed!  My other shoulder needs it too.  I can feel the stinging twinges and aching when I use it.
Last week I had to cut down a tree limb that broke off in a wind from a month ago and using the Saw-zall was hard on both of the shoulders because the blade got stuck in the thick green wood. Being a solo homeowner just isn't the best at times like this.  I must use the shoulder even though the doctor warned me that I can end up back in surgery after undoing his work. I can only sleep sitting up still, since lying on one's back makes the shoulder fall back into a painful position. I can sometimes sleep on my other shoulder, but again, after awhile, the position of the injured shoulder makes it start to hurt.  Forget sleeping on the injured shoulder.  I imagine many months yet before I can do that.

Physically, I was unable to type for about 3 weeks.  My wrist/elbow and shoulder gets very tired and the whole arm aches.

So, dear diary, this, and the failing of the computer, is why you have not heard from me recently.

September

I have been pretty down lately about the holes in my existence.  I feel like I need to hurry and fill the holes as if there is some deadline looming.

Obviously the biggest BIG DAY is coming up for me: the one year anniversary of Gary's death. I think I've stated before that the day Gary died, may not be the worst day of my life.  The worst was when Gary got diagnosed over his cell phone on the way home from work by a guy who worked under the doctor who didn't have the balls to call Gary during daytime hours himself.  Tacky beyond tacky in a thoughtless uncaring way! Terrible treatment of a fellow human being.  When Gary got home, he walked upstairs, flopped on the bed and just started crying as he told me, "its cancer".
 The day Gary died was the beginning of still worse days. Just because 365 days will have been completed without him on October 17th doesn't mean that the bad times are over.

Here's the surprising fact I've learned from nearly every widow I've talked to about the passage of time after their spouse dies:  The second year is worse than the first.  I have no way of understanding why, just as I could not have guessed how I would get through the first year alone.  'They' say that the death and the fact that he is gone forever really sinks in during the second year.  I have a feeling that this may be because the loneliness becomes more pronounced after friends fall away and family have put the widow aside.

My situation is different in some ways though.  Since I have no family or friends here anyway, I haven't been invited on outings that someone cooked up just to include me.  No parties or get-togethers where I'd be the 3rd wheel.  I have been a unicycle here for almost year already.
I still feel very directionless.  I don't know what to do about that either. I have no one to bounce any ideas off of or give me opinions on my what ifs.

My grief counselor sessions ended last month.  I got 12 home visits and that's that.  I quit the evening group I was going to and I joined an afternoon grief group that is very unsatisfying.  Everyone in it, save me, is in their 80's.  The old ladies talked to me and truly want me to come back, but I don't feel any commonality with their situations. The widowers in the group are numerous, but also pretty old.  Some of them are obviously scoping out the chicks in the group to make their moves.  One of them actually said jokingly that he was looking for a "double breasted bed shaker".  That's the moment I knew I wouldn't be going back
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I have 2 things to look forward to in my immediate future, a temporary reprieve from the heat on a drive up to Sedona with friends from California, and a quick trip to Minneapolis next month.  I am hoping that talking to my friends and family can get some of my what if questions to stop running circles around my head.
I am also hoping that when the weather finally cools off in late October that I can plant some garden plants.  I have missed tending a vegetable garden soooo much. I will have to beg the guy across the street to help me get the drip system set up for the garden first.
I think constantly about next summer too.  No matter what,  I cannot/will not be here for the summer again. I can't hack it anymore.  Whether I am in California, Colorado or South Dakota, it will NOT be here in southern Arizona!
These are things that I will enjoy hearing opinion on from my friends and family.  But the decision will still be mine.  Everything is mine alone now, even if I'd rather be sharing everything with someone else.