Purple Haze All In My Brain

 Entry 1    9:05 a.m.

Random Thoughts

Grief does funny things to your mind. I can't keep things straight.Yesterday, for instance, I turned the water on in one of the master bathroom sinks and forgot about it and it ran for two hours until Leiney discovered it while retrieving Willow from my room. Fortunately, the drain wasn't stopped. If that wasn't bad enough, I went to take Willow out yesterday afternoon, and opened the door before putting her leash on, something that CANNOT happen. I spent 45 minutes cursing her, cursing myself, and cursing my fucked up distraction, trying to get her back in the yard, back in the house, and ultimately into her crate. I was wearing my slippers when I made the mistake, and slipped in a pile of freshly laid dog droppings as I went to chase her. About 15 minutes in, it started to rain. Buddy, who I can use to lure her back sometimes, would not come when I called him, and ran back in the house when I dragged him out by his collar. It was madness.  When I finally tricked her back into the house, she had a glimmer of understanding and tried to bolt back out the open door. I grabbed her harness handle in the nick of time, and put her in her crate, cursing myself, cursing her, cursing this life. I am so glad she is ok, the furry galoot. I am forgetting so much, I hate to think of what I might be missing.

The house feels so empty. While I don't miss the sturm and drang of our existence together, and know that she no longer loved me, I miss Jenny so much. I miss her for me, I miss her for the kids. It hurts. It just hurts. Every holiday, every birthday is a referendum on my parenthood, I am bound to lose. Her precision and exactness, her careful planning and insistence on things being just so are gone. I just realized, as I am typing this, I didn't even bother decorating for Easter. Yes, we decorated for Easter every year until now. 

I filed for an extension on my taxes, which seems quite pointless, given that if you owe, you have to pay up front. And, you can't guess, but have to essentially figure your taxes out before you seek the extension. Whatever. I paid five figures as an estimate, which I should be happy I can afford, but still. Rather than pay a CPA, now that I know what I am into, I expect to complete these on my own when I get back from Disney. Money is flowing out so quickly, I need Hans Brinker to help me out. 

I requested death certificates a month ago. I need them to file my claims for insurance. Still nothing. I see why people go pick them up in person. You can't request them in person, nor get them the same day you request them, but when I get back from California, I will add it to the list. Its so bad that an insurance company, urgently wanting to pay out, keeps calling and asking for the certificate.

For the first time in memory, I am, we are, not flying Alaska, which is a blessing given the rolling pilot strikes. It was blind luck this happened. Blind luck.

I have spent the last few days in solitary mode. I have spoken to family, spent time with the kids, attended Abby's opening night for the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, but am largely alone. It is jarring. When Jenny was living, I was alone, but she was present some of the time, which made the sense of loneliness I felt bearable. Right now, I am just trying to get right in my mind--and considering my haziness the last few days that seems wise. Eventually, however, this will no longer be tenable. I need to switch modes back to a time some 30 years ago, when I was actually rather gregarious. 

Easter 2015
The kids are still doing very well. Leiney and Abby are closer than I remember, spending every free moment together. Abby was almost never out of her room when Jenny was living, and I can't help notice this shift and wonder what it means. Leiney is doing her best to help out. Abby is doing so, albeit somewhat grudgingly at times, and sometimes quite organically. She has started taking the dogs out on her own when they ring the bell and she is on the main floor.  It is a welcome change. We spend a lot of time talking about our trip to California, and she is gassed, stoked, and ready to go. Me, I've spoken to two people down there, studiously avoiding particular people who would love to make sexy time with me. So, we will have dinner with Alice on Friday night. My work wife at RCH, as Jenny called her, the girls adore her and are excited to see her. I will probably grab a drink with the best RN I know, my dear friend Ella as well. She was the person who kept me sane when I was away from the girls and found out Jenny was having an affair with Jason so many years ago. Now, our children our

grown, I haven't spoken to her in years, and hope to catch up.

Tonight I am taking Abby to see Sara Jarocz at the Moore. My mask will be on. Leiney declined attendance. Wish us luck.


Comments

  1. AshleyApril 6, 2022 at 6:14 PM

    Quit comparing yourself. Quit acting like you somehow arenʻt a ʻgood enoughʻ parent. YOU never ditched your kids for a lover. That trumps all the window dressing (and holiday decorating) in the universe.

    Just sayinÊ».

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Life, A Cascading Series of Disappointment

Image
Jenny has cancer.  Terminal cancer.  We learned that in late July. Jenny had  dropped 25 lbs. in the spring without trying.  She had been having vague stomach complaints since October.  As a balm for her concerns, her doctor agreed to do a CT scan for her, but told her they would find nothing.  Jenny wanted to rule out pancreatic cancer, which had recently killed her dad-in the spring of 2019.  Her mother had been sick with lymphoma since February 2020.  The day of the scan, the doctor told Jenny they would get results back in a few days. When Jenny's phone rang that same afternoon, I was in the living room with Abby, where I was torturing her by playing the Rapping Duke on Youtube. Jenny shouted from the room, "Geoff, get in here, the doctor's on the phone." "You have a four cm. mass on your pancreas,"  he said. Jenny made a sound like someone had punched her in the stomach.  "There is a spot on your liver. You have a necrotic lymph nod...
Read more

Still Muddling Through Somehow

Image
At the park, I walked my dog through the rain this morning— not really proper rain— more like air that has decided to shrug water at you out of habit. It suited my mood well enough. As I walked, my thoughts kept returning to the same small universe they often do. They are not new thoughts. They orbit the same losses. They consider the same betrayals, the same questions that never resolve. They have been captured, these thoughts, never to escape, never to be forgotten, never to burn up in the atmosphere. It is simply the gravitational field of my life now. What might seem or feel like self-pity is more like muscle memory, which tells me I need more exercise. The holidays are here, and Christmas has always been central to my life, atheist that I am. It was stitched into Jenny’s life — the love of Christmas — at least as strongly as it was stitched into mine. We carried that love forward with the kids, year after year, without ever needing to talk about why it mattered; it just did. I...
Read more

Don't Do It, Don't Do It, Oh, Lord

Image
It Hurts, It Hurts So Bad.  .  . 3:44 a.m. I walked in the door last night at just before 10 to find Jenny in a ball on the floor--between the giant ottoman and sectional--agonizing pain in her hip. I had ridden to acting with the student driver.  But, let's back up. Jenny had chemo yesterday.  Her friend Jennifer took her.  It was uneventful and she received chemo.  I, as always, prepared the house for her arrival to make sure she wanted for nothing and would be comfortable as she endures the aftermath of all that poison.  Sometime before she came home, she texted, saying the doctor suggested she try Aleve for her hip pain.  Aleve.   She asked me to pick some up for her while Abby was at acting.   During the text exchange I realized she would be alone after Abby and I left for acting.  Leiney was elsewhere and had therapy at 5 and kickboxing later, and her sister Moni had bailed on chemo because she had so much to do (Wit...
Read more