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| treasured time |
I feel like my life was interrupted and just isn't back on track yet. I look at my phone and expect to see a text from him. I wonder, briefly, if he's left work. He always called when he was on his way home, to give me a ETA in case I needed to start dinner, and just to talk about the day. I miss him calling in the middle of the afternoon because he'd had a sudden idea about some project we could start and he was so excited he had to tell me right away. I continue to expect to find him somewhere in the house, standing in the kitchen or sitting on the couch watching TV. I have a hard time moving things around because in the back of my head there's a voice saying "No, he might still need to use this." I miss his physical presence in my life.
I miss being wrapped up in his hugs.
I'm thinking about him constantly. I find the happy few minutes every day, but I'm hit with chest crushing, screaming, pounding my fists on the floor grief at unpredictable moments. I look at photos that span the past few years, from our first date to just a few days before he died, and in all of them he is so alive, so present, so full of hope and dreams and goals for the future. It feels impossible that he isn't here to carry out his plans. I cry when I think of the things he was planning to learn, because he will not have that chance now.
I miss hearing him talk about all of his ideas for the future. I miss laying in bed and talking about what we hoped we'd do in the coming years. I miss that so much that I'm constantly fighting off the feeling that if he isn't here to help visualize our hopes and dreams and goals then there's no point in dreaming big, it's easier to just give up and accept a mundane life and never try anything new again.
A friend had mentioned things he'd hoped we could all still do together, and commented that this reminds us that our time here is brief. I agree. I'd always believed there would be time, endless amounts of it, to be together, to enjoy each other's company. Time felt infinite in relation to all of our goals. There would always be time to plan for things, time to learn new skills, time to work on hobbies, time to pursue our dreams and make them come true. And of course if there is always time to do something tomorrow then there's no need to worry about it today. A belief in infinite time fed our procrastination, even though we vowed to make changes they would always be for another day. Today would be spent watching a movie or two, or surfing for another hour, or doing nothing in particular until it's time to fall asleep.
Jeff called this time traveling. Rise in the morning, do your work, eat, watch TV, go to sleep. Repeat the same routine every day without varying it, never trying to break free of that pattern, and never feeling as though you've accomplished anything. We each spent a lot of time doing this, moving through the day without making any attempt to work on our plans. This was what we wanted to break free of. We wanted to stop traveling through time and start living in it.
The desire to wait until tomorrow to start something is very strong in me, and this will be a hard lesson to work on. Between the two of us we had a lot of things we hoped to accomplish, a lot of dreams we thought we could make come true for ourselves. Some of those I will continue to hold, some will be replaced by new goals and dreams as I try to rebuild my own life from the ground up. Some will always remain daydreams, but some are attainable if I am willing to put in the time and effort to pursue them.
As I sit here Jeff is gazing at me from a dozen different frames, smiling gently, encouraging me. I'm going to try to manifest the optimism we had that we would one day be doing great things, but now I will try to couple it with action. Optimism is lovely, but unless I take action I won't accomplish much. I have high hopes that in six months I'll be reporting that I'm well on my way to achieving my goals. Time will tell. Hopefully I will make good use of it.
(cross posted from Kything NaturesZen)
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