Here it is, Tuesday morning. Blog post due today. And I feel completely overwhelmed and fresh out of ideas.
I told a friend this week that I started 68andcounting.com to develop the habit of writing regularly, to give me something productive to do with my time in retirement, and to provide a stream of consciousness outlet for whatever happened to be on my mind when I sit down to write.
All of that is true, but none of it helped me choose a topic this week. Except the stream of consciousness thing. Usually, though, my stream of consciousness has a point, a moral, a lesson, a bit of advice that readers can take away. Fair warning, I’m not sure that will happen today.
I’m tired of writing about Randy’s death and its consequences. But that affects everything in my life for these days.
One of things he and I talked about before he got sick was getting the pool deck resurfaced or repainted and also doing something about the driveway which was once painted a peach color, is terribly worn, and basically looks pretty crappy. Out of the blue last week I got a “cold call” from a company that paints driveways and pool decks. Sure, I said, come on and give me a bid.
We came to an agreement about the work and the price, and I asked them if it was possible to have it all done before family started to arrive on August 11th for Randy’s interment at Sarasota National Cemetery. They thought it was.
Two days later, as I was driving to renew my Boca Grande Bridge Toll Annual Pass, the owner of the company called and said they wanted to start power washing in preparation for painting the next day. I had arrived at the Bridge office and when the call ended, I got in the elevator and started to choke up.
I stepped off the elevator right into the small office, looked at the girl behind the desk, and burst into tears. Embarrassed, I said to the woman (younger than me by 25-30 years), “I’m sorry, I just need a minute, I’m having a recent widow moment.” She jumped up, handed me her box of Kleenex and said, almost tenderly, “Honey, you take all the time you need. I lost my husband not long ago too, and you need to just cry whenever it strikes you.” We did cry together for a bit, then exchanged brief stories. “Fu**ing cancer,” she said.
I can go about most of the business of everyday life and be pretty fine, emotionally. Then something ridiculous like a guy calling to tell me they’re going to start a job I need done completely undoes me. I have to understand why, that’s just my nature.
In this case, it’s because there’s a lot of prep work and furniture moving needed to get the lanai ready to paint. And I had do as much of it as I could by myself (physical labor!!) and ask for help with the things I couldn’t move by myself. All by the next morning! Randy always took care of those kinds of things with good grace, manly competence, and my help when necessary. It’s just overwhelming to me.
And it WAS overwhelming thinking about it. But just as with every other thing since he died it’s overwhelming until I actually started doing it. Then it just gets done, one bite at a time. Just like Randy told me on my walk last week. And in hindsight, it’s a good lesson. I’m stronger for having experienced that little bit of panic before tackling what have traditionally been his jobs.
I wrote a while back about how I completed the obstacle course in basic training on what was, literally, a technicality. I often joke that if it hadn’t been for those rules I shamelessly took advantage of, I might never have graduated and got to move on to the “real” Air Force.
Right now, I feel like I’m again on an obstacle course, the one to find out if, as I wrote in last week’s post, I can live as half of a previously whole entity. Even now, I hope there may be some technicality I can take advantage of. My motto today (even though I sometimes forget to remember it) is the same as getting through basic training…. whatever it takes.
There are 2 places in our house that were more Randy’s than mine, the garage and the office. We had a great home office, each of us with 6 ft long desks. I don’t enjoy spending much time in front of a computer anymore. In fact, I’m happy I traded my desktop for a laptop a couple of years ago. If I have to be on my computer, I’d rather take it out to the lanai or another room in the house where the walls aren’t so close-in.
Now that Randy’s gone, I decided I need a second spare bedroom more than a full-time office. I sold both our big desks last week. I also ordered a smaller desk and a daybed (that converts to a king-size bed) from Wayfair. I plan to reconfigure that room to one more useful to Grathen’s Last Resort. You might know that Wayfair furniture comes unassembled, another job that fell on the Randy side of the household chores ledger. I looked at that project as a giant puzzle that would remain assembled and useful for a long time.
Both those pieces are put together now and the mattresses and bedding should arrive tomorrow. They were formidable projects for me. When the instructions said 2 people were needed for a particular step, I figured out a way to get it done by myself. There’s a lot of work ahead to reconfigure the whole room but I’m up for the challenge. And I feel like I’m triumphing over parts of the newly widowed obstacle course.
Along the way, I’m getting little nods, God Winks if you will, showing me that I’m gonna be ok. Two of them are the other widow I met that morning renewing my Bridge Toll pass, and a widow I met at an ice cream social last Saturday afternoon. The paint crew finished my pool deck and driveway about an hour before the skies opened up and deluged on the fresh paint. I worried for days about that outcome but the company who did the work is fixing it without a fight. My friends are really looking out for me and are here in a heartbeat for whatever I need.
I am so blessed. Whatever it takes, I will get through it. Maybe with some self-doubt, tears, grief, or even a bit of self-pity. But the light at the end of every tunnel is a sense of relief, satisfaction, pride, strength, and accomplishment. I can, and will, learn to live without my other half.
P.S. Last night I fell into bed so exhausted I basically passed out. I finally figured out why I’ve been unable to sleep really well every night during most of my retirement. I just wasn’t wearing myself out physically. I don’t seem to have that problem now that I have to do every dang thing around here by myself. Whatever it takes.
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