Normality, Part 2

The normality starts to get to me. I find myself missing him all the more because I slip into normality, and forget he's not here. Then I catch myself and remember, and it hurts. The familiar routines become suddenly empty. I realise it is because we had arrived at the thing so many think and believe they want: he was my 'other half'. As I have said, it's not that we shared every thought, it's not that we didn't keep some things private from each other. It's not even as if we were always in perfect accord — far from it. But we were necessary to each other. And now — well I guess it's a bit like the time I went off to Texas for five weeks and left him behind on his own. Except now he's the one who's gone off. I know he is busy and full of energy. That makes me feel even a bit resentful in my worst moments. Selfish of me — because I do not wish to join him yet. I am just grudging him whatever takes him away from me, from here. Selfish and childish; I am being a petulant child. Of course I don't really want him back to suffer and struggle. He tried so hard!

But when Freya lies down with me in bed and looks for him, and purrs — but never as loudly as she did when he was here, and stretches out — but never with such complete, trusting abandonment as when he was here, I become sad.

I Behave Normally; It Feels Weird

I observe myself doing all the usual things — shopping, feeding the cats, vacuuming the floors, watching the shows I like on telly.... Part of me just can't understand how I can go on acting so normal. My friend Mo said that when her first husband died — years ago, in a sudden and shocking way when he was still young — she used to think afterwards, 'How can the birds go on singing?' What I am experiencing is not like that. I'm quite happy for the world to remain normal; it's me being normal that seems bizarre.

And yet, what else is there to do? We had arrived at quite a pleasant lifestyle, in the way we conducted the everyday trivia. It was something we enjoyed together; now I need to learn how to enjoy it when it's for one.

It does make it seem, sometimes, as if he must still be here. Because there I am, going about my usual business just as if he was.

There's Only Me (I Say Repeatedly)

... in all sorts of ways, with all sorts of permutations. So I thought to start recording a few:

There's only me.

The grapes rot

before I finish them.

There's only me.

I play music

without headphones.

There's only me.

Why do I wear

my prettiest sarongs?

There's only me.

The cats spread out more

on the bed.

There's only me.

It takes four days

to fill the washing machine.

There's only me.

But his voice in the passenger seat

still says, 'You're clear this side.'

There's only me.

I arrange the pillows

a different way.

There's only me.

I can eat all

the chocolate.

Alteration

(from personal journal)

The cats are such good company for me! Now we are settling down into a 'we three' consciousness. We stop looking for him, who was so much a part of our home, our family, our lives. We know he has moved on. We know that now it is indeed just we three. We bond together into this tighter unit.

Not that we were not bonded, of course; it's more a drawing in closer, a re-configuration of the shape of this little family that we are. We make new routines — only slightly different from the old. All is familiar, reassuring, habitual — and yet it is subtly changed. We have got past the first awful weeks of feeing the gap, the vital ingredient gone missing. Now we have seamlessly closed over that gap, so we have not a gaping hole but an alteration in the fabric, a different pattern to the weave.