24 December 2010

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.)

18 December 2010

Strange But True

Things that have made me happy this year:

Always and forever, my family and friends come first.  You've pulled me through, you've held me up, you've waited it out, you're still my support and my rock.  The family I'm related to and the family I'm not, the friends I've known since forever or last year and the friends I've never met.  Those of you whose views I share on everything, those of you whose views I share on nothing, those of you in between.  Those of you who knew Jerry and those of you who never had that immense good fortune.  I love you all, I'm grateful to you all, I thank you.

Sugarland.  I am listening to The Incredible Machine every single day to and sometimes from work, that is, when I don't have the 1976 St. Martin-in-the-Fields recording of Messiah going instead.  If you've never heard the voice of Elly Ameling singing "Rejoice Greatly," I suggest you go remedy that - you'll be glad you did.  If you don't have "Stuck Like Glue" stuck in your head, I don't know whether to feel sorry or really really happy for you.  Just went and ordered all the rest of Sugarland's CDs from secondspin.com (great used CD site) the other day and am anxiously awaiting their arrival.  (I know.  CDs.  Not downloads.  Luddite tendencies.)

Shoes.  Yeah, I know, it's my new addiction.  Shoes and Auburn University football.  No surprises there for anyone who's been reading this blog lately.  Cam Newton and his smile have made me very happy this year.  The luck of having been sucked into Auburn football this year, of all years, is pretty cool.

Banana-mayonnaise sandwiches.  That motorcycle ride in Auburn. The entire visit to Auburn, and the trip to Huntsville, and the conviction now that I'm going to move to Alabama someday.  The joy of having a destination, a goal, something to aim for.  Sacred Harp singing, oh, forever Sacred Harp singing, voice or no voice, laryngitis or no laryngitis.

Archie Panjabi.  The accent is a bit wobbly, but every time I see Kalinda I want immediately to put on tall boots and a short skirt and wear lots and lots of makeup.  Probably had a lot to do with my becoming girlified and buying way too many shoes this fall.  And for all I know I'm way into mutton-dressed-as-lamb territory by now, but by God I showed up at work last week in a short black skirt, black tights and black knee-length boots.

Getting a job.  Getting a job in which I get to edit material for a newsletter, work on assembling the newsletter, and still have the journal to learn about, too.  Yeah, the commute is horrid, but otherwise it's working out so far.  The editing, the being involved in publishing something, is exactly what I would have chosen to do if I could have chosen anything.  And it fell into my lap in the 2010 economy.   Amazing. All I need to do is convince the recently relocated organization to up and move to Alabama and I'm all set.

Pedicures.  Google chat.  Did I mention Auburn football?  The Toomer's Corner cam on the auburnalabama.org website that shows me it's light mornings in Auburn when it's still dark here.  The fact that in a couple of days the days will start getting longer.

"Single Ladies."  "I Gotta Feeling." And Lady Gaga.  Swear to God.

Anyway.  Another week gotten through, and I'm more comfortable at the new job, learning more and more, becoming more familiar with everything there (not the acronyms, though.  There are so many acronyms, most of the time I have no idea what any of them mean).  I'm working on my nefarious plan to be efficient and quick and pleasant and to become indispensable as an editor/proofreader.  Had a bad moment one day this week while researching medical device providers as potential exhibitors for the annual meeting and came across a familiar name, the manufacturer of Jerry's mediport, which took my mind spinning straight back to that hellish hospital room and left it there a while.  But I'm doing okay.  So far, recently, when the dark moments come, they aren't as dark, and they leave me with the awareness that they'll pass, and that better times are possible.

The next three work weeks will be shorter ones - four days of work next week, three the week after that, and four the week after that.  Then comes 2011.  Which, based on the unexpected improvements the end of the Year of Suck, 2010, has brought, I can only hope will be better and better... for all of us.

13 December 2010

Half a year

It's six months.  Half a year.  13 June was six months ago.

I find I don't really know what to say about that after all.  My life has changed so many times since that day, after having changed so many times in the months leading up to that day.  Yeah, I know: life is change.  This year has certainly been lively, then.

I just don't even know what to say.  Jerry's been dead for half a year.  It's just unbelievable, "inconceivable!" as he'd say, quoting The Princess Bride, one of his favorite movies.  I'm writing about Jerry being dead and I'm smiling, remembering the way he'd say that, "Inconceivable!"  I'm just so baffled by myself these days: I just seem to be way ahead of schedule in so many ways.  I was sure I wouldn't be able to smile at memories of Jerry for a long time, and yet here I am, at "six months out," as the widowed say, and I'm smiling.  Who am I?  Why am I coping?  Why do things seem to be getting better?  Are they really?  Is it all going to come crashing down?  Is it all an illusion?

I did shed a few tears this morning.  It's not all sunshine and daisies and Cam Newton all the time.  But it is sunshine and daisies and Cam Newton for far more of the time than I thought would be possible at this point in my journey.  Is it the Prozac?  Is it the Prozac, too, that's got me waking up every single night between 3 and 4 a.m. and lying there unable to go back to sleep for what feels like forever?  I can't remember the last really good night's sleep I've had.  It's still worth the tradeoff if it's the Prozac that's responsible for a lot of how well I seem to be doing.  I hope it's not just the Prozac, though.  I really want to be doing this well for reals, as the kids say.

My parents were here for a visit this past weekend, and they got an up-close-and-personal look at what a new convert to Auburn football is like (and I'm still walking around free, so they must have taken it all okay... even after I had us watching the entire long drawn-out Heisman ceremony coverage on ESPN Saturday evening). Yesterday we went to a sing-along Messiah in the next town northwest of here, my third time doing a sing-along Messiah (first was at Lincoln Center when I lived on 73rd Street in the late 1990s, second was when Jerry and I went to the same little one as yesterday, I don't remember what year).  This year I was struggling with remnants of the laryngitis I had in Alabama - my speaking voice is back, but my singing voice is still iffy, but through a combination of 1) sage advice not to sing at all in the days leading up to the sing-along and 2) Cepacol lozenges, I was able to sing... but I have vowed that next time I do that I will know all the alto parts of all the choruses (even the ones they skip!), and not have to guess at half of them!

I'm doing okay.  I think this is the conclusion I'm drawing at six months out.  I didn't expect to be.  But I am.  I can't help but be afraid that it will all disappear and I'll be back in the black nightmare of the summer and early fall, which I'm really in anyway but just don't realize it.  But meanwhile I'm... doing okay.  I posted on Facebook today that I think Jerry would be proud of how I'm doing in a world without him in it.  And I think he would be.  He'd be amazed that I now have an idea where Touhy and Mannheim are, that I'm driving on I-90 every weekday, that I've driven by myself twice to and from Alabama now, that I'll be moving there someday.  That I'm making plans.  That I've survived.  That I want to survive, and do more than survive.  That I want my life to be worth living, that I already feel like it is.

I'm not without guilt at feeling better.  Not at all.  I even feel sad that I feel better, as crazy as that may sound - that I'm going on living and feeling better without Jerry here, after witnessing Jerry suffer so horribly, after watching my sweet honey die.  I never imagined "better" would be a word that would in any way apply to me, ever.  It does, now.  And how is that possible?  I must be a hell of a lot more resilient than I ever imagined.  I don't feel resilient.  But I'm still here.  And still moving forward.  And finding who I am again outside of the wrecked shell in that photo I posted on 21 June.  I'm not that person anymore.  I'm grateful not to be that person anymore.  And I have a sneaking suspicion that having lived with Jerry for 11 years, having been his wife for 10 years, having been loved by him and loving him, have been hugely responsible for making me the person who can now see herself with a future.  It occurred to me the other day that no matter how bad I might ever end up feeling about myself - and I think most of us have moments when we're not so fond of aspects of ourselves - no matter how down on myself I might get, I need only remember that Jerry Enright loved me - and that being so, there must be something worthwhile and basically okay about me.  Because Jerry Enright was an incredibly special, especially worthwhile person.  And his love was something I'll treasure for as long as I live.

And those are the thoughts I bring to the half-year mark.

05 December 2010

AU Compilation - SEC Championship update!

[The video that was here seems to have been removed from YouTube!  Hmmmph!  So I direct you back to the video posted on 14 November: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKY9FhpJbSE - hope this one will stay put!]

War Eagle!

04 December 2010

Toyotathon

Thanks to WiFi at the Toyota dealership, I'm going to be able to update the blog for the first time in what seems like forever.  For a change, life took over and got in the way of my sitting at the computer long enough to update this blog - a nice thing to have happen, to be so busy, especially with my having had to leave Alabama and come back to Illinois.  But to get the Big Decision news out of the way at the start, I've come away from my 2½ weeks in Alabama absolutely certain that I will be moving there.  I don't know exactly when that will happen.  But it will.  I can start making longer-term plans.  It's where I want to be.  Which just goes to show how many unexpected, strange turns a life can take.

(My entire life, as I look back on it, has been a serious of unexpected, strange turns.  The other day Lynne and I were thinking about the many things about my life which, if you had told them to the 1984 version of myself, as she graduated from college, she never would have believed.  The latest being that the 2010 version of herself would be a widow planning a move to Alabama after having spent over a decade in Illinois.  Although, now that I remember it, the 1984 version of myself had already heard Sacred Harp singing and owned a copy of the 1971 revision of the book and was anxious to find a way to sing it herself - so maybe there could have been a way some of this would have made sense to her, how she could have ended up knowing and loving so many people in a state she had up to that time never been anywhere close to visiting, how she could have ended up married to a Sacred Harp singer in Illinois.  But all the twists and turns and events that got her here would have been unimaginable.)

Thanksgiving in Huntsville was lovely - a houseful of kind and friendly people, excellent food (thanks again, Karen, for going out of your way and making a separate dish of delicious vegetarian dressing for me!  And next time I'm sure the rolls will not be at all mistaken for Zwieback...), and love.  The next day Lynne and I actually had to brave the Black Friday hordes, because I had gotten her an Auburn hoodie in the wrong size and we had to exchange it at a store in a mall.  It wasn't as bad as I'd feared (we must have been between the early-morning rush and the late-sleeper-inners), and seeing large numbers of people walking around the mall in Auburn and Alabama regalia was fun... in preparation for the Iron Bowl, and the annual intense rivalry of the Auburn-Alabama game.  That event brought another houseful of people and more food, and the game itself provided a first half of subdued anxiety followed by the thrill of Auburn's comeback and victory in the second half.

By the end of Friday, a cold had caught up with me, and my voice was mostly gone, which carried over to the Alabama State Sacred Harp Singing Convention for the next two days in Birmingham, where I sang tenor in a lower register when I sang at all, my alto range nowhere to be found.  The Miracle of the Prozac continued, though, and I was able to accept Rod's generous invitation to sing with him for the deceased during the memorial lesson, and then lead 77t for Jerry at the very end of the convention, both without getting upset or crying or trembling.  (I think it must have stunned a lot of people who had last seen me at Lookout Mountain in August - not to mention the total difference in my appearance, as back in August I desperately needed a haircut and was wearing no makeup, and now I've come over all girlified, as Jerry might have put it.)  Saturday evening I went with friends and saw my first-ever 3-D movie, the Disney film Tangled, which was fun, but I was so tired that I'm afraid I might have slept through some of it - I know towards the end I was more focused on keeping my eyes open than on watching the screen.

Back to Illinois Sunday evening (with an overnight in Scottsburg, IN) and Monday, with the probably inevitable emotional crash when I got back to the house - not helped by a notice to Jerry from his dermatologist's office reminding him of an appointment in December, which I had to call to cancel and explain that he'd died.  I was afraid the Alabama version of me, whom I preferred so much to the sad, desolate Illinois version I'd been when I left for Huntsville earlier in November, had disappeared as quickly as she'd arrived, but the next morning when I got up for work, Alabama Girl somehow was back - not perfectly happy, of course, but not so desolate.  Possibly an ongoing tribute to the miracle that Prozac seems to be for me, but I hope it's not just the Prozac - I hope it's progress, too.  I hope it's hope.  I've restarted my new job, and so far I think it's going well.  I'm having to learn a lot quickly, as I'm going to be taking over a lot of tasks and projects for a woman who's about to have a baby and go on 6-8 weeks of maternity leave.  I've also already done some editing (among other things, saving some unwitting doctor from discussing one of the most important "tenants" of the Hippocratic Oath in an article that will be seen by the 5,000+ members of the society), and I can't help it - editing for me is a combination of compulsion, natural instinct and sheer fun, and I get very nerdily excited about getting to do it.

The commute hasn't gotten any more fun, and with today's first snowfall of the year, I imagine it's only going to get worse (in combination with the road construction all around the office building, which has already been making things annoying).  I leave home in the morning when it's still dark out, and it's dark again before I leave work in the evening.  If I don't make an effort to get out of the building at lunchtime, it's likely I won't see daylight all day long, since I'm in an inner office space without windows, and the uninspiring lunch room in the basement of the building is also windowless (I told one of the IT guys that I expect my skin to turn green from the fluorescent lighting any time now.  I've made sure to put a desk lamp on my desk to add some less harsh, lower light).  The choices for the way-too-long one-hour lunch break are to get in my car and drive somewhere, stores most likely, walk for no reason and to nowhere interesting in the immediate vicinity of the building (and, now, in bad weather), sit at my desk through lunch (which, when I've done it in former jobs, has inevitably led to working through lunch - not a good option), or sit in the lunch room cave in the basement.

But the job is interesting so far, and the people are nice, and having somewhere to go every day, no matter how annoying it is to get there, is all good.  Not to mention a paycheck!  And the medical insurance I'll have starting next year, which can't happen soon enough, given how appallingly useless the individual policy I have has turned out to be.

***************

Back at home now, earlier than I expected.  The car needs a new passenger door handle assembly, which they didn't have in stock.  The guy there told me they didn't want me to drive the car because the passenger door could open at any time - glad I didn't know that when I drove back from Birmingham, or back and forth to work four days this week on I-90.  The rear hatch lock just needed cleaning and lubricating, so that's good.  But he said the car also needs a new timing belt and spark plugs, and I don't know any better or have a good immediate way of finding out if this is true or not, so I'm taking his word for it, and will be the poorer by another thousand dollars by the time all this is taken care of, with any luck on Tuesday.  Although I have to say, I'm enjoying driving the 2011 RAV4 they've given me as a free loaner.  I know, amazing that a 2011 SUV is more fun to drive than a 1999 minivan, right?  (If this scenario went as they'd want it to, I'm sure I'd be going back right away to trade in the Sienna on a new RAV4.  Sorry, Toyota.  Not now.  Someday I'll drive something else... but not while I'm sorting out everything else in my life as well.)

Steve the contractor should be here some time this afternoon to fix (or try to fix) my kitchen faucet, which the other night started leaking water out the bottom when I turned it on.  I do know how lucky I am to have a contractor I can turn to and know that he's reliable and trustworthy - wonder if he'll want to move to Alabama whenever I do that myself!  (My father keeps asking if he does work in NYC.)

I believe that's all y'all mostly caught up. This week I heard back from the woman at the Botanical Garden in Huntsville, and I've made all the arrangements for the memorial brick for Jerry there - I was limited to two lines of fourteen letters/spaces each, and came up with IN OUR HEARTS for the first line, and J JERRY ENRIGHT for the second.  Pretty much says it all.  I don't know when it will be in place - they'll let me know when it is.

And finally... today is Game Day!  The SEC Championship Game coverage starts at 3 p.m. my time, and the Good Lord willing and the snow don't rise and cover my satellite dish, I'll be glued to the TV (I've already brushed snow off the dish once this morning).  It won't be as fun as watching the Iron Bowl was down in Huntsville (and with any luck not as nerve-racking as that game was, either), and sho nuff nowhere near as fun as being at the Auburn-Georgia game was, but I'm still excited about it.  War Eagle!  Gooooo Tigers!