For a few weeks or months maybe, I have noticed a change in my grief. I still think of my friend every day, but the thoughts are mainly happy and wistful. There is the occasional instance when I come across something I would have normally called or texted her about, and I can’t call or text her, and so there’s nowhere for that desire to go, which is a sad and unbalancing way to feel. But mainly I’ve been doing better. Less sharp stabbing pain, more dull, bearable ache. But I have been having jolts of anticipatory sadness in the past week or so, knowing that the milestone of One Year Since She Left Us was coming up. And today I am really not okay. I suppose this is all normal, and you’ve possibly endured it too, and I’m sorry.
I dreamt about her last night. It was one of those dreams that feels long and endless, but of course it probably took only a few seconds. In the dream, my friend was alive and cheerful and planning all sorts of fun things to do, but I knew she was going to die before we got to do any of it. So instead of being able to enjoy the planning and the anticipation, all I could do was struggle not to cry, to try very very hard to preserve the illusion – for her – that everything was and would continue to be great. It was an awful, heartbreaking dream — not least because I was with! her! and yet I was ruining that precious time by being sad!
But of course this is how it is for all of us. We are all going to leave this plane of existence at one time or another. We will, and so will everyone we love. And we know that it will happen. And yet somehow we go on, making plans, and falling in love, and having babies, and getting crabby with one another and making poor decisions and wasting time and sleeping in and procrastinating and all the mundane, wonderful activities of a normal life, and pretending for our loved ones and ourselves that everything is fine without falling over sobbing from the absurdity of all of it. I do not know how.
::EXTREME TONE CHANGE::
Which is all to say that I am craving uplift and distraction. I think I will watch some old episodes of Real Housewivesbecause that is soothing in its ridiculousness. Maybe I will take a nap. Sunshine and exercise are curative, or, if not exactly curative, at least healthful so I plan on walking to the neighborhood grocery store to check out the selection of mums, which I drive past every day and which seem lovely and cheerful and fall-ish. Perhaps, if the store looks un-crowded, I will even dash in and buy an avocado.
What else can I do to distract myself? If you’re up for it, we could play a little game of Never Have I Ever.
Come on, it’s Friday, everything is awful. I’ll go first.
Never Have I Ever…
… gone more than a day without shaving my legs. And even that is RARE. A friend noticed the cooling weather with relish the other day, saying she was excited to stop painting her toes and shaving her legs. Do most people do that? Go all winter without shaving? It sounds very freeing, but itchy. I have been shaving my legs since sixth grade, if I remember right (I certainly remember being teased by other, more sophisticated girls for how hairy my legs were) (to be fair, they were very lush), and I haven’t stopped since. Once in a while, if I don’t take a shower that day, I won’t shave. But every single time I bathe, I shave my legs. Even if I went swimming at a spa or something, back in the Before Times, I would shave my legs afterward, with those horrible single-blade disposable razors you get at places like that. Even if I forget my razor at a hotel, I call down and get a free one so I can shave. Even when I was pregnant, I shaved my legs EVERY DAY. It’s just MUCH more comfortable to me, to have clean-shaven stems. I do not feel the same compulsion with my underarms.
…eaten sushi. At least the raw fish kind. Listen, there are just some foods I KNOW I won’t like. Yes, yes, I know you are supposed to try new things ‘cuz they might taste good (TM Daniel Tiger), but I can TELL by the way the raw fish looks that it is going to be a texture I cannot abide. Plus, I have touched a lot of raw fish, so I KNOW it will be a texture I cannot abide. It is beautiful and many many people love it but it is NOT for me.
…lived by myself. I went straight from my parents’ house to college, where I shared a dorm all four years (three of those years, my roommate was the friend I am missing today). Then I went to graduate school and lived with my then-boyfriend. Then he and I moved together so he could attend medical school, then we got married, and have been living together ever since. I think the closest I ever came to living alone was the summer before senior year of college when I got a job in my husband’s hometown so we could be together… and “house sat” for a family who lived across the street from his childhood home. I slept on a mattress on the floor in one of the bedrooms and had to keep the house Show Ready for any interested buyers. There was zero furniture in the house, and it was enormous and had a scary basement. But that was three months AT MOST and I spent much of my non-working time at my husband’s house.
…broken a bone. Well, caveat, I do think I may have broken a big toe at some point in my youth. But that was never proven and therefore doesn’t count. My husband has broken a couple of bones and it seems like I’m in the minority when it comes to leaving my thirties with all my original bones, intact. Maybe I just run in a fragile crowd, I don’t know.
…seen my husband’s office. Okay, okay, this is kind of a cheat because he has three offices. (Down from five.) But I have only seen one of the current offices. That’s kind of weird to me, considering how much time I spent in my father’s medical office – and even in my mom’s law office – when I was a kid. I feel like I should be able to picture where he is when he’s at work. Not in a controlling way. I suppose the difference is that it’s not really HIS space; he shares it, since he rotates through, so he has no copies of his medical license and diplomas on the wall, no nameplate on his desk, no framed photos of me and Carla on bookshelves filled with not his books, no trout-themed paintings on all the exam room walls (TM my former ophthalmologist). But STILL! He goes to these places every week and it feels odd to me that I have yet to see them.
Okay. Your turn.
Our first winter in this new house, when I was cold and sad all the time, I stopped shaving my legs. It was prickly at first, but soon nice and soft. It probably didn’t keep me any warmer, but it felt like I was at least doing everything I could as a mammal. I did it again the second winter, just because it was kind of neat. I plan to do it again this year! How can this be our third winter in this house already? I keep doing the math and it keeps coming out that way.
Never have I ever eaten a lobster. I have eaten tastes of lobster meat (which I was kind of meh about, so didn’t have much more because I know it is treasured and I didn’t want to waste it). But I have never been handed a lobster and then cracked it apart and consumed it.
Never have I ever been out of the country where I was born, with the tiny and does-not-seem-valid exception that when we visited my grandparents when I was a child, our route took us very briefly into Canada. But, like, we didn’t even get out of the car there ever.
THREE winters in the new house?! Yes, that seems inaccurate.
I rather think that you and I may be the same person living on different continents!
The only way that I have diverged from your list is that a couple of years ago I bought a home laser hair removal thingy – honestly, the phrase ‘life-changing’ is woefully overused but it has been revelatory! I am naturally an extremely vigorous hair grower and was shaving almost every day like you – now I can’t remember the last time I applied a razor under my arms and the result also doesn’t give you the horrible speckled look that you get even when smoothly and newly shaved. I did other random bits of me at the same time (TMI?) as well and have been equally pleased, but for some reason hadn’t included legs until this Spring. Well – at most I now do a fortnightly whizz over and am legitimately thrilled. I would encourage anyone to give them a go – so much more convenient and miles cheaper than getting it done at a salon.
Ooooh this tool does sound revelatory… I may look into it. (Although I don’t particularly mind shaving my legs.)
I haven’t shaved my legs in….5 years? I just sort of stopped after my second child was born, and never started again. And yes, I do still shave other areas regularly….but not shaving my legs has not at all impeded my shorts/skirts/bathing suit wearing tendencies. And my husband doesn’t complain, either. Now I can use the extra two minutes to simply enjoy standing in the hot water in the shower every day.
I shave 2 or 3 times a week in the summer time – in the winter, maybe once a month. Though, to be fair I am blonde and my hair is very fine.
I am trying to think of a Never Have I Ever…. and can’t
Sushi just doesn’t appeal to me. I shave probably about once a week – but I’m not that hirsute either – maybe more in the summer.
I ALWAYS shave my legs (and underarms) and paint my toenails. I mean, sometimes I’ll go a day between shaving, but usually not. I used to think it was because of yoga, but now the classes that I’m teaching in-person, I’m so far away from the students no one could tell. However, it’s like wearing nice underwear. No one else might be able to tell (except my husband, I guess) but I like it for me. I also have never broken a bone or lived alone. I don’t mind shaving at all, it’s just part of the shower. I’m a fair-skinned person with dark hair, so it’s pretty obvious.
I stopped painting my nails in the winter a few years ago, and I like that — it gives my nails a “beak” I guess? Which is probably all in my mind? But I don’t think I could give up the shaving.
Oh man, can I discuss how I basically never shave my legs?? Hahaha. It’s a problem. I shave maybe a few times a month? Less in the winter. It just doesn’t bother me at all, and I have blonde hair so it’s hardly noticeable to anyone else. Although I *do* always feel so good with freshly shaved legs, so I should want to do it more, but I just don’t! It’s a problem.
I’m on the same boat when it comes to sushi. Never tried it, never will.
I’m sorry about your friend. It sounds like a very painful loss.
I’ve never broken a bone either and I’ve only had vegetarian sushi (cucumber, avocado, etc.) My first year of college my roommate went abroad second semester and I had our double as a single for half the year. That’s the longest I’ve ever lived alone, as Beth and I met in college.