Christmas Eve

I've been feeling ashamed of what I've been doing, and what I continued to do and mostly finished this morning.  I've moved Jerry's clothes and shoes out of the bedroom closet and dressers and his coats out of the hall closet.  I've kept a few things, but everything else I've put into bags and boxes and moved down into the cedar ("snedar," he'd say) closet in the basement, to wait for his kids to go through them if they want to.  Why ashamed?  I don't know.  The whole time I was doing it, I was constantly apologizing to him out loud, constantly reminding him that I love him, occasionally pointing out to him that I certainly had never seen him wear that shirt... Sometimes I'd pull out a shirt I'd seen him wear a million times, and feel a pang at the idea of giving it away, but then always the thought comes back: I can look at the shirt as many times as I want, I can hold on to it with all my might, but he will never come back into the room and put it on again, and that's the part that matters.  Yes, I am keeping a few things - some things I just love the memories of too much to part with.  But most of them will go.  Keeping them won't bring him back.

Possibly I feel ashamed because I'm afraid what I'm doing somehow makes it seem like I'm just fine, that everything is okay now, that I'm "over it," I've "moved on."  Into that shame category, I guess, falls the fact that I took my wedding ring off a number of weeks ago, along with the Claddagh ring I bought myself in Ireland 17 years ago and had worn constantly since then.  I still have Jerry's wedding ring on the chain around my neck, but wearing my own suddenly didn't feel right.  I was so astonished to realize I felt that way.  I always imagined I'd wear that ring for the rest of my life.  I always imagined it would feel right.  And then suddenly it didn't feel right to me to wear it at all.  As if I were pretending something that's no longer true.  I don't feel like a married woman anymore.  I don't know exactly when that happened.  Somewhere in the tumble of travel, football, new job, friends, Prozac, family, Sugarland, all those things I mentioned in my last post, the feeling of being married slipped away.  If I were less Prozacked-up, I wonder if I'd be desolate about that.  I don't know.

So I continue to surprise myself.  I remember reading about widows feeling skin hunger and thinking, That's so vague - I can't imagine ever feeling a longing to be touched by anyone who isn't Jerry.  And now it's different.  Now I know what that's like - after eleven years of living with such an affectionate, warm, loving person, I'm now dropped back into a solitary life - and to be blunt, it sucks.  When I'm with friends and family, they'll hug me, and it's nice, but it's not the same thing.  I miss being held.  I miss having someone to hold.  I miss Jerry, needless to say, but I'm surprised to find myself hoping someday there will be a man in my life again.  Remember back in the early days, how angry I became at the lawyer who told me I'd meet someone else?  Timing is everything.  If someone told me that now, I'd smile at her optimism.

I feel ashamed to want that.  I haven't mentioned it in the blog, y'all will notice.  As if I'm betraying Jerry.  So many ways now I feel like I'm betraying Jerry.  By continuing to live, continuing to move on, hoping to live, to thrive without him.  To want someone in my life that won't be, can't be him.  And I don't know if it'll ever even happen - I didn't meet Mr. Right until I was 36, after all, and if it were to take another 36 years until I met another Mr. Right... well, that would be a long time.  I don't know if this world even holds another Mr. Right-For-Karen.

Sorry.  Not sure this is coherent.  But that's how the mind is operating today.

It's snowing again, which is fine - a white Christmas, plus I don't have to drive to work until Monday morning.  No plans except to brave the post-Christmas hordes on Sunday to do some shopping errands, light bulbs and trash bags and bananas and almond milk and such.  Plan to wrap up in blankets on the couch and catch up on taped episodes of Friday Night Lights.  Watch bits of A Christmas Story over and over again on TBS (without Jerry here to roll his eyes - oh, not this same scene again! - I wish he were here to complain about it).  Listen to the four Sugarland CDs that just came yesterday.  And make the most of the last week of damn-the-torpedoes before I start counting Weight Watchers points come New Year's Day... because I am going to rein this in.  A week until this most horrible of years is done.  It's ending in a far better way than I expected it could have, half a year ago.  But I'll still be very glad to see the last of 2010.

Belated Happy Chanukah, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year to all y'all.  Thanks for being there.  (P.S. I didn't send out holiday cards this year.  And I certainly couldn't fathom doing a holiday letter.  Hope to do better next year.)