Tuesday, October 7, 2014

My Old Life

I can't tell you how much I miss my old life.  The other one.  The one when Jed was alive.  I can't begin to list all the things I miss, but the laughter and arguing, making love, discussing about ideas...and just knowing that whatever I came up with, however weak or strange or needy, whatever idea that stirred in my head, I could share with him.  And he would validate me. 

I miss making him dinner and folding his clothes.  I miss his snore. 

I've filled my bed with pillows and textiles in an attempt to take his place, but they just clutter up my bed.  Actually I've done lots of things to paint over sorrow.  I've had the trees trimmed, the deck repaired...lots of stuff to make me well.  And I am well.  I'm just lonely for him. 

I am remarkably blessed with amazing people and I'm not alone.  I'm not even lonely.  I'm just lonely for him.  We bantered with utmost confidence in one another.  We took off and explored places with abandon.  We said, "screw it" to convention and did only what we felt like doing.  Sometimes that got us in a great deal of trouble and sometimes it took us to amazing places and left us with life long stories to tell. 

I miss how he could tell a story about anything and make it believable.  I miss how he sang off tune. I miss his passion for knowledge and his often irreverent way of expressing it. 

And now, I realize how much I miss having him to make decisions about money.  I took the road of disagreeing and "I told you so," when things went wrong.  What a bitch I was.  Someone had to make decisions.  And now, it's me.  I have to decide what to do about stuff.  What to fix, what not to fix.  I always held this, "I know what to do" attitude, but then went along with what ever he said.  If it went sour, I poured it on.  If it went well, somehow I got him to agree that it was my idea.  That was a real shitty place to put him.  I wonder if he even knew?  I'm not sure I did.  Not until now, when I have to make decisions with no one to blame.

Marriage.  It's more than it seems and when its a fit, a real fit of two lives, two souls, well, it's pretty near perfect.  That's what I miss.  We had it perfect.  We fought and cried and hated one another at times.  We talked about divorce hundreds of times.  But it was always, "if that's what you want...." and it was never what either of us wanted.  We laughed and loved making love.  We touched one another to the core of our beings.  How we loved to argue.  I can see the twinkle in his eye as he would watch me get red faced and passionate about something.  He would listen and beckon me toward him.  I would  rant louder, but move a little closer.....perhaps this is too personal.  I miss my old life. 

My new life is lovely.  I don't do anything.  It's all done for me.  I don't buy groceries, I don't do laundry, I don't make breakfast, I don't make dinner, I don't even clean my toilet.  It sounds good, and it is, but it makes me miss my old life with a ache that creeps and crawls around in me till all I can do is go to bed. 

I'm okay.  Most of the time I'm more than okay.  Jed's birthday is next week and perhaps that's my maudlin cause.  Last year on his birthday we were at the cabin with Steve.  But missing something that was so good, well, it takes a bit of time.  I asked my father a few months after my mom died if he had any regrets.  Whatever made me ask such a question is beyond me, but we were in the truck going over dirt roads and he said, "only that she died."  It took my breath away then and still does, because that, too, is my only regret, that he died. 

No comments:

Post a Comment