We don’t always get to choose what happens to us, but we do always get to choose how we react to what happens to us.
Losing a spouse of 50 years is a hell of a change forced on anyone. It’s been more staggering than I could have ever imagined. Tomorrow will mark only the third month Randy’s been gone. In some ways it feels so much longer than that. And in other ways I still simply can’t believe it’s true.
My close friends and family promised not to let me make any big decisions for at least a year after Randy died. The advice to hold off on big decisions was given to me over and over and over again by those who have gone before me on this journey. The logic is that this is a time where emotion is running so high that the danger of making sound choices drops dramatically. I understand and agree with that.
What surprises me, though, is how much I want to rush to change something…anything. Maybe it’s a defense mechanism. If things don’t look so much like they did when Randy was alive, perhaps I won’t miss him so much. I don’t understand how some women hold onto their husband’s clothes for months and months. They’re not wrong, just different from me. It probably is driven by my philosophy that if you’re going to get to the same unpleasant end, you might as well do whatever it takes to get to that inevitable end quickly.
That seems to be true with how fast I wanted to sell his desk (and my matching one, too). For the past 5 years Randy spent most of his time in the office and the garage. His Our High Places community kept him sitting at his computer at that desk for 6 to 8 hours a day. He wrote and posted stories, interacted with his on-line friends, created graphics to get his points across in ways that made people both laugh and think. He also enjoyed creating an e-mail several times a week for friends and family called “Doin’ the Research So You Don’t Have To.” Much of his retirement life and purpose revolved around his on-line community.
I couldn’t walk into that room and not “see” him there. So, one of the first emotional, though not “big”, decisions I made was to sell both of our desks and turn that room back into more of a second guest room. I’ve had enough computer and desk time in my career to never care about having an office again. My goal was to have enough room for family coming for his interment in mid-August to not have anyone sleep on air mattresses in the dining room. That timeline drove me to work hard and fast to transition the room from office back to second spare bedroom. I accomplished that goal and am very happy with the result.
I’ve written before about how we learn to live with things, like clutter, and after a while, we just stop seeing them for what they are. Something jarring has to occur to see those kinds of things from a different perspective and find the will to change them.
In retrospect, I believe that happens in all kinds of things related to marriage; the things we accumulate, where we live, the way we live, our jobs, our other relationships. It’s easier to just keep doing what you’ve always done, especially if there’s nothing wrong with what you’ve always done.
I never did understand people who, for instance, rearranged their furniture every so often, just because they could and felt like they wanted a change. But while changing the office back to a spare bedroom, I looked around the house and “saw” other things I didn’t want or need anymore, things that no longer served me.
I knew if I asked Randy about selling the brown recliner we brought with us from Missouri and matched absolutely nothing in this Florida coastal themed house, he would have told me it was fine. And the 2 very expensive and well-loved Natuzzi swivel rockers that were too big to live in the same room together here in Florida just didn’t work for me anymore.
Suddenly, sadly, I didn’t have to ask anyone’s opinion about keeping them. Selling a few pieces of furniture didn’t qualify in my mind as major decisions (though they were emotional ones) so one day, on a whim, I put all that stuff on Facebook Marketplace just to see what happened. The postings languished there for weeks, and I’d almost forgotten about them. Then, surprisingly, in the last few days all three of those chairs sold within a day of each other. I guess it was time and I really was finally ready to part with them.
On Sunday night, my friend Megan came over for pizza and left over watermelon which I blended in the Ninja Bullet and mixed with a couple individual bottles of margaritas…yum! The house looks like I’m moving out with 3 large areas where lounge chairs belong. I mentioned to her I need to find something new but was thinking about rearranging the furniture in the living room. She whipped out her phone, snapped a picture and instructed ChatGPT to show me how the room would look if we moved the couch and added 2 new recliners.
Who knew ChatGPT is so stinking smart!? Like I said a few weeks ago, I’m going to write a post in the not too distant future about making friends with AI.
I absolutely love the way ChatGPT rearranged my living room to take advantage of things I never even thought would be important, like having the couch face the wall of patio glass instead of the TV which I almost never turn on. That never occurred to me before! And using ChatGPT is far easier than using graph and construction paper with cut-out-to-scale furniture to see if it’ll all fit and how it’ll look when it’s done. That’s what I was going to do before smarty pants Megan and her AI superpower sidekick showed up.
It’ll be several weeks or more before it all comes together. I ran into a problem with where the TV antenna Randy installed in the garage attic plugs in to the TV and where the internet modem router works with the new configuration. But it really got me thinking about what else in my life, tangible or intangible, now needs an overhaul.
I have 9 more months before that year it up. But it’s not too early to start thinking about things that are too big to change now. It’s time to ponder how life looks without Randy and everything associated with my marriage to Randy in it.
It’s time to re-imagine life in ways that were impossible to see before.
P.S. Just as I was finishing the edits on this post, I got a message from the young man who bought Randy’s brown recliner. When he came to look at the chair he said he has Parkinson’s Disease and has trouble getting comfortable anywhere in his house to get a good night’s rest. He hoped this chair would be the answer to his prayers.
This morning, he sent me this picture and his message said, “Laurie. Just wanted to say thank you again. It was def Gods plan for us to meet. He just used Facebook to do it. … I wanted to let you know that the past 2 nights I’ve slept like a baby in Randy’s chair. Thank you so much. ”
I can’t stop crying right now. I know Randy had a hand in this young man getting his chair. And that it had nothing to do with me just wanting to have it gone. That simple, small, brown recliner was obviously meant to serve someone else now just as it had served Randy so well.
Life, re-imagined–not mine, and in a way I almost can’t comprehend.
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