What I'd like to tell Jerry today

So many things every day I wish I could tell Jerry.  I spent our life together telling him most things that came into my head - which probably drove him a bit crazy ("He played John Henry in The Sarah Connor Chronicles!" "Ugh, really cramped today..." "I never had my hair cut until I was 19... oh, I told you that already...?  Four times...?").  But he was so patient... let me prattle on and either listened or didn't, but never complained.

I want to tell him today that I had a lovely trip to Rhode Island over the weekend.  The weather was mostly nice - rain on Friday, but mostly sun the rest of the time, cool, New England-y autumn.  The trip to the spa in Warwick on Friday for facials was fun (thank you again, Lynne!), visiting with friends was fun, the New England Sacred Harp Singing Convention was well-organized and mostly really really good (five anthems sung on Saturday was five more anthems than I would have liked, and the one really annoying man who, as he always does at every singing I see him at, insisted on repeating the number and often the name of every song called whether the number needed to be repeated for people who hadn't heard it or not - and there's no need to say the name, period - was just as annoying as he always is - and of course he led one of the anthems).  You were remembered there with fondness, Jerry, I'd tell him - during the memorial, Kelly mentioned the light that shone in your eyes when you led, and I just love that other people saw that in you too.  And of course I cried, not during 77t but right after it, and during the memorial, and strangely enough when someone led 178 on the Sunday, and I know you were tired of 178 and I don't associate that song with you, but I cried anyway, and then the next song led was 300, and that's the song I called at the New England Convention when it was in Rhode Island last, four years ago, and I had you come up to lead it with me and you ran away with it, which was so endearing, you just couldn't help but lead it the way you do, with such energy and enthusiasm (I had to be alert to stay out of your way).  And I cried in the airport yesterday while waiting to board my flight back to Chicago.  I'd actually noticed that in the days leading up to the trip I hadn't cried, and thought it was, well, interesting.  But as ever, being at a Sacred Harp singing loosened things up.  Which was good.  It's good to feel, even though feeling so, so sad all the time is exhausting.  I do look forward to a time when it won't be all the time.  I can't imagine I'll never not feel sad without you, but feeling other things without always being sad - that's what I want.

I sang bass with my father for a bit on Sunday - I'd only sung the bass part a few times, in the songs with no alto part or on one or two songs where the alto part is just way too boring or I've sung it too many times and I was curious to try bass instead of tenor - but this was the first time I sang bass for song after song, and it was really fun.  The bass does swoop a lot from low to high or vice versa in ways the alto doesn't, and sometimes I just don't quite get that interval right because it's not going where I expect it to, and my sight reading is more like sight guessing.  But definitely fun.

I liked being in Providence.  It's a nice city, and I'm wondering if that too might be a possibility for a place to live.  Something to consider.  Huntsville, Providence... everything is so wide open.  And I just don't yet feel ready to make any decisions.

Sunday night I felt pretty awful - definitely a cold coming on.  I feel like my body somehow convinced itself not to get sick from the time Jerry was diagnosed with cancer - as if it knew I just couldn't afford not to be there for him, as if it knew that his health was the important thing.  I was just surprised I didn't collapse physically right after he died.  But anyway, Lynne convinced me to take Boiron Oscillococcinum, despite my extreme skepticism about homeopathic medicine... and damned if I'm not feeling better than I was Sunday, ever since yesterday morning.  I'm still what Jerry and I called "shnortigated" (yes, we were just too cute for words, I know), and my throat is a tiny bit sore, but I'm downing mug after mug of Lemon Echinacea Throat Coat Tea and more of the Oscillococcinum (and I have not the first clue how you pronounce that) every six hours or so, and so far I seem to be warding off worse symptoms.  (Is that a chill I just felt?  Hmmmm....)

Next trip planned so far is down to Alabama again in November for a longer stay, to see more of Huntsville itself.  It looks like I'll be going to an Auburn football game, too, which, in another example of something I'd definitely want to tell Jerry, I'm getting very excited about.  (He might, again, think I'd lost my marbles... but actually I think he'd have found it exciting too.)  Not sure if I'll insert another trip into the calendar before then.  To be seen.

Now to work on getting over the feeling that my reward for getting through all these months of sadness and confusion and chaos is going to be Jerry coming back to me.  Because my brain has been indulging in that idea recently.  That all I have to do is get through it and there he'll be.