I'm gonna spray my pee at you, oh yeah

Well, I bet this one got your attention.  I have been going through lots of physical testing and it's been trying.  I've had back pain for 6 months and the doctors decided to rule out lots of stuff, some involving pee which, while I was waiting for the urologist to perform this most unpleasant procedure, I was giggling at this most unusual gift I received from a friend who hasn't seen me since Larry died and who wanted to make me feel better.

I am friends with some pretty conservative people, mostly moderate liberals and then some really radical artists.  This friend falls in the radical artist category.  He and his 5-year old son made some beautiful wood block prints for me only they were all really violent.  So there's one of a monster screaming, "I hate you" and another of two monsters, one proclaiming, I'm gonna spray my pee at you oh yeah and the other responding, I'm gonna spray my blood at you.  The urologist didn't get the irony.
But I thought it might be good to share something funny and I'm considering the feng sui (sp?) aspect of hanging these up.  They're pretty cool looking and the friend is pretty significant to me.  Will I energetically be chasing the few people who will brave being with me alone in my home away?  I say brave because people seem to be afraid of what it might be like to be with me or maybe afraid they will say the wrong thing.  I don't want to speculate so much, it's hard work to get people into my house.  Maybe it's the dogs.

My business has increased.  I was feeling like a successful business owner but then I took on two new clients and now I feel like a pinball machine on tilt.  It's HARD!  I work very late hours and get up very early in the morning and I am just not having much fun. I hope to rectify this soon.

Well, based on my last post, I'm off to Olive Garden with someone who will brave talking to me.

Handyman

I hired a handyman.  For the first time in 2 years I can lock all of my doors.  With the pit bulls, it didn't much matter but nobody's going to purchase a home where not all the doors lock.

Also, after going through quite a few medical tests, nothing is seriously wrong with me. 

When I miss Larry and other musings

I have this rule with myself to never work freelance past 9 pm.  First, I get up extremely early to start work and secondly, I have had fatigue-related health issues in the past and this is one way of keeping that from happening again. It is getting increasingly hard to stick to this.  When Larry died, I had two main clients.  I now have five and I thank the universe for that, but it's got it's challenges.

I started reading this book called Evolution Angel loaned to me by a friend about a ER physician's experiences talking with spirit guides.  It kind of explains why people have to die etc. and it has been comforting.  These spirits place a great emphasis on good deeds and so I have begun to volunteer 15 minutes per day at the local animal shelter to work with a happy (but slightly obnoxious) little dog named Bunny.  She wasn't too interested in my training methods until I brought hotdogs.  I also volunteered to help a program I belong to called Suppers which helps me maintain healthy eating. 

So here's the opposite of my last post, I am starting with the good and moving on to the bad.  I am VERY busy and it is becoming clear to me that my new lifestyle will not support having a house and all that it takes to maintain that house so will definitely be moving out of a house and into townhouse or condo but not for a while - at least another year.

 There have been a few moments when I miss having my friend around.  The worst (and it really was the moment I felt the MOST sorry for myself since Larry passed) was I have recently needed to have a lot of medical testing done.  I went for a CT scan.  I was nervous, there was huge drama over my paperwork and precertification number to get the insurance company to cover it, delaying the scan and now having to squeeze me in.  I watched an older patient as they wheeled him into the radiology department.  The nurses were talking to him, but he was dispondant.  I wondered if he had any family looking after him.  I wondered who will look after me if I become ill.  My parents are older and I have one sibling left (the other died young) who lives across the country and probably would not be too keen on taking care of me.  She has always been a bit of a fun-loving gal and not as good at facing tough emotional situations.  So stuff went wrong and I'm a needle phobe anyway and the tests  I'm having done are to rule out cancer,  I asked someone to come along with me but they couldn't and it just felt very lonely.  I made it through the scan without much incident (did have to stop them because I was going to faint but I did not!).   

The other moment was a storm that hit Tuesday night.  I get really nervous about being alone for a natural disaster and having another human in the house just kind of calms me down. Anyway, the storm was really intense for about 15 minutes but then subsided.  Branches fell, some large, none hit the house. 

The other thing that I miss about Larry is having someone take me out for a good meal.   I haven't quite figured out how to navigate that one.  Saturday I try to cook a fancy meal for myself but it's not the same as being waited on and tasting good food you didn't have to work hard for.  I don't know, singles, got any strategies?

Disappointed

I haven't blogged for almost one month.  Partly because I have a big video project keeping me busy.  Partly because I haven't known how to say something without hurting feelings.   Sometimes, I think life should be bigger, sweeter, kinder than it is and I've been very disappointed that some people just didn't come through for me in the way that I wanted them to after Larry died--particularly Larry's friends.  I didn't want to blog about it because I was afraid someone would read this and think that I was talking about them personally.  I don't want to make anyone wrong, but I can't deny that I have been feeling disappointed.    We're almost at the 6 month mark and so the world kind of expects you to function as normal and I am still far from normal.  I am better, however, much better.  There are a lot of good things happening.  I've alluded to one of them but wanted to wait until I felt more sure that it was happening.  I made friends with some puppeteers from a class I took and they are going to help me make a 15-year dream of making a "Sesame Street for wildlife" come true. 

You wouldn't expect this, but there's still so much to do to settle everything.  I still have finances to rearrange and transfer and PSE&G wanted to charge me an extra $500 to put the account in my name so I decided I could be Larry for the rest of my life.  (Oh, also, when I went there in person and explained that my husband died, blank stare, no "I'm sorry for your loss".  If there's one thing I'd like people to know from this blog is that it feels so bad when people say nothing and the thing to say that is ALWAYS appropriate is..."I'm sorry for your loss." It's not that hard to say.  One of the people I've been furious at are my neighbors across the street who have never acknowledged that Larry died.  They're not so friendly anyway.  Three weeks after Larry died I ran into the wife at a garden store and she had a big smile on her face and said "Hi".  I don't know why people think that will make me feel better.  It actually made me want to hit people for a while. It feels like there's an elephant in the room that nobody was acknowledging.   How about a neutral, "hi".  It's different now.  It feel ok when people are cheery.  Nobody ever brings up Larry's name except my Mom. 

Still, I feel stronger than I anticipated.  Larry and I always felt that the world didn't really see my talents and suddenly has changed.  It feels like everyone sees what I can contribute.  Feels very good to be happening in conjunction with a giant loss.

A Week to Recover

I have been frittering time away over the past two days playing an internet game called Jewel Quest.  When I play it, I don't have to feel anything and sometimes, that's what I want.  Today it's been a little hard to break away from it and I realized when I was able to break away on my long Sunday dog walk in the woods that it's because I am disappointed.  Last night I sang and played guitar.  First time I sang in a year, first time I played guitar in about 10 years.  I wanted it to be an A+ performance.  It was more like a B+ performance...very good, showed tremendous potential and everyone encouraged me to keep at it.  I wanted to resurface musically like a phoenix from the ashes, I wanted this to be the performance of a lifetime but how can I compare myself to people who are on stage solo all the time?  It's not fair for me to compare myself like that and the truth is that I practiced hard and it needs more work and it was good--very good.  Realistically, I'm still grieving and that saps your energy.  I made this performance mean something big and because of that, I am disappointed. And of course, everyone is a bit down after something they prepared a lot for is over.  (A few friends showed up and that was nice.)

I also wanted some kind of symbol from Larry that he was present.  I do receive what I believe are hellos or messages from him but they never come when I mentally demand them.  I wanted one on our anniversary, on my birthday, but they don't come when I want them and usually come when I'm more down than up.  Maybe it's hard in the afterlife to make them happen. 

And so I am not doing the things that need done today.  I need to pay bills and work on a film editing job and get some things ready for a first-time dog agility lesson I have tomorrow--it's far and it came with a long list of stuff I have to bring. That's what HAS to get done and yet I'm doing anything but.  I decided to write just to get away from playing Jewel Quest and feel some feelings.  If I were a friend listening to me, I would tell me to take a week to recover from my disappointment.  I want comfort foods and even though I have been trying to loose weight, I think I need to listen to this imaginary friend who is telling me to take a week to recover. I want mac and cheese and blts and steak on the grill with baked potatoes.  I would tell me that Larry only passed away less than four months ago and that there is very little harder than watching someone you love deteriorate and after all, I am paying bills and meeting client deadlines so what if I have a down week?  I don't need to meet the neighbors expectation of a perfect lawn.   

Tomorrow I am looking forward to my first agility lesson with my dog Oakley.  It's an hour that I know I won't be grieving and she's such a funny, good dog.  After driving home from the Sunday walk the dogs like to leap out of the car but I make them sit first because without discipline, these two would be pure chaos.  Oakley was already in motion when I asked her to sit and so she tumbled out of the car making me laugh.

If I fail to perform today like I want, it's ok.  I have thrown my energy into what life there is in this house and that means fish, plants, dogs and I watched the dogs stick their heads out the window, jowls flapping in the wind.  I have spent a lot of time making my scared little creatures into happy, happy dogs.  Maybe that was the most important thing to do today. 

Don't buy fresh black eyed peas

In general, I'm feeling my energy come back, my desire to do things that are good for me...which led me to my purchase of fresh black eyed peas at the farmers market. They seemed exotic and interesting.   Tonight's dinner decision was between a vegetarian gratin (I'm not vegetarian but I don't care if I don't have meat at every meal unlike my late husband) or black eyed peas with grits.  So I'm taking advantage of things I couldn't do when Larry was alive.  There had to be meat and there had to be a sauce to go with the meat.  Back to the peas. I opted for the peas because I didn't feel like the 30 minute prep for the other dish but I was oh so wrong.   

When you see no instructions on the internet about cooking or preparing a vegetable, there's a reason for it.  It is synonymous with way-too-much-work-so-don't-even-try-it, it is not worth taking up space on the internet or it's never been done.  Pick one.  I was struggling with merely peeling the beans so I got this idea to parboil them. This helped.  Not wanting to stand and shell these and be painfully aware of the time it was taking to shell them, I turned on a documentary.  One full documentary later, I had the peas shelled. I kind of went with a recipe and kind of ad libbed but dinner fell just short of being yummy and I would have done less work with the other dish.  Lesson learned.  I long to develop a repertoire of go to recipes that I can just whip up.  Some nights this happens.  So not much about grief to report except that I am appreciating things that Larry did for us that makes my life sweeter now (such as we almost always had yummy meals) and the thoughts are not always met with a tinge of sadness.  It hasn't quite been 4 months.  I think this is excellent progress.

AAA--A Single Gal's Best Friend

You know those people you meet and you wonder how they are getting by with life because they are so not present that they leave their wallet on the counter or loose their keys or LOCK THEIR DOGS IN THE CAR WITH THE MOTOR RUNNING AND THEIR POCKETBOOK INSIDE?  I must confess that I have an artist's temperament and that I fight everyday not to be as spacey as I really am and having lost Larry, I can tell you it is a million times worse than usual.  I have lists and charts and timers and reminders to counteract the fact that I have trouble with life's basics, but yes, I locked my dogs in the car with the motor running as well as my pocketbook.  But who needs a husband when you have AAA?  Every other person has a AAA card on them and a cell phone and all AAA needs is your name and they can look you up.  Another non-event thanks to my AAA membership!

So I think I've decided that the yard is a little much for me to maintain from year to year so I'll probably move but not anytime soon.  For now I'm actually enjoying parts of being alone.  I get a lot of energy from being alone--always have.  Parties wear me out.  All that small talk is tedious.  And my new best friend is   Etsy--my source for affordable decorating.  Larry loved the ocean (as I do) and so I am transforming the room that he passed away in, into a beautiful nautical-themed room filled with antique prints of starfish and jellyfish, shells on the dresser and several shades of blue.  The jury is out right now on whether or not I will rent this room but I cannot imagine sharing space with someone right now.  I would be grouchy with even the perfect roommate so it will be my starfish guestroom for now.

Yes, folks, I am having longer and longer periods of time when I forget the awfulness of loosing Larry.  Things are good with my career.  In fact, a lifelong project is coming to fruition thanks to the graduates of my puppet class. I'll share more on that another time.  I'm still a bit incredulous that my carpe diem moment is here. Anyway, my talents are finally being recognized by the world.  The day that Larry decided to give up fighting the cancer, at the end of the conversation when there were no more words to be said, I said to Larry, if there's any way for you to help my career from the other side...I trailed off.  He emphatically said, "No worries mate" which is what he often referred to me as.    I don't know if that's what he is busy doing or if my energy is finally freed up, but I find myself more and more in front of shakers and movers in the town of Princeton and they are saying that I'm very talented in a variety of different things.

The dogs have also been a Godsend.  They are silly and happy creatures and I so look forward to coming home to pet them and dote on them.   Oakley and I will start our agility classes on Monday.  That's what I asked for for my 50th birthday because when I am training her, I do not dwell on the past, I am totally present so that's 8 weeks where I know that one hour a week, I will be pleasantly distracted.

I even cooked for a couple this weekend.  I choose a menu I couldn't mess up too badly, but the meal was good and then we all went to see the new Woody Allen movie (yawn, don't bother).

Yes, my friends, grief is easing up a bit.