Landmines in plain sight

I guess by definition landmines are hidden, but sometimes you see yourself approaching them from miles away.  (And can I just add here that my editing brain just cannot turn itself off: here I am, metaphorizing about something very painful and serious, and I was starting off writing "sometimes you can see them coming from miles away," when I thought, "Landmines don't have feet, they're not 'coming' at all" and almost laughed out loud.  What a warped brain...)

Where was I?  Landmines, not hidden at all.  Such as today, a Sunday the 13th.  It's the first Sunday that's been a 13th of a month since June 13, 2010, the day the world for some reason didn't actually end.  It's eight months since Jerry died.  Tomorrow is, of course, Valentine's Day.  Next day, I'm six months away from being one year away from being 50.  Believe it or not, I'm pretty sure I wasn't so frakking obsessed with my age before eight months ago.  But having gone from being the 20-years-younger wife to the exhausted, burnt-out widow has done that to me.  I look in the mirror and see more and more white hairs, my face looks grey and drawn, and so often it looks just so bleak.

One more date: a week from Monday would have been Jerry's 68th birthday.  Doesn't that look like a nice big number?  As if, you know, he had a full life, I shouldn't be so sad that he didn't get to live longer.  There was nothing about Jerry, except for health issues, that said "This is a man approaching 70."  Yes, we knew there were twenty years between us - we knew he and my parents were born within three years of one another, we knew he was old enough to be my father - but it never was a thing in our relationship except for a source of occasional humor (he had to explain who Froggy the Gremlin was, for instance - and when he did, I suddenly remembered a Froggy the Gremlin toy that had been in my grandparents' house in Queens when I was little, I guess having belonged to my mother or her sister. I spent years trying to find a decent Froggy the Gremlin toy on eBay to get Jerry for a birthday, but never managed it).  We were just us.  Sixty-seven years was not enough.  Knowing Jerry for twelve years was not enough.  Having only ten wedding anniversaries was not enough.

And of course no matter how many years he had had, it would never have been enough.  From the time we got married I told him he had to stick to the contract, that I was insisting on a Golden Wedding Anniversary.  Then I upped the number and told him I wanted a marriage that lasted 65 years.  Yes, he would have been something like 122 on our 65th wedding anniversary, and I would have been 101, but I demanded it.  Very funny, eh?

I'm taking a mental health day off from work tomorrow.  Work's gotten very weird.  People keep quitting, good people, and the vibe is incredibly dysfunctional and sour.  It could be a very good place to work, but there would have to be some fundamental changes made.  So many people are frustrated and unhappy.  Public forum, won't say more, and I hope things get at least a bit sorted out for the better, but it doesn't seem likely.  I will not be the last rat on the foundering vessel, that's for sure.  But anyway, I think that, given all the stressors that are piling up on the calendar this week, a mental health day is warranted.

And I'm breaking a cardinal rule this afternoon by going out and getting a haircut while in a depressive state.  Can't be helped - I've been overtaken by one of those moods where I can't stand my hair as it is for one second longer than I need to - as a matter of fact, since my usual hairstylist, whom I love, isn't working today or tomorrow, I'm going to a totally different salon near my house, one I've never been to. Crapshoot out of desperation.

One more thing: thank you to Alicia for assuring me that not being able to remember my day-to-day life with Jerry is a normal thing that will change.  After all these months, all I can think of still is the end of his life, the hell he went through.  I can't remember what it was like to share our happy marriage every day, to do ordinary things, to fight, to argue, to laugh together, to be silly together, to listen to him mangle words in the way he loved to do.  I know it all  happened, I can think about it, but I can't remember it, and I can't feel it.  I have to listen to him talking on YouTube clips to bring his voice to my mind.  I don't know if this is supposed to be some sort of coping mechanism, my mind not letting me remember these things until it thinks I can handle them?  And given how absolutely abysmal the "coping mechanisms" minds come up with usually are (great for a moment, perhaps, but lethal in the longer run), I hope I get to have my good memories back someday soon.  I've gotten to the point where I know without a doubt that I want love again, I want someone in my life to love me and to love - but I want my memories of Jerry back too, I want them to be real and vivid and I want to remember him and our beautiful marriage for the rest of my life.  Thank you, Alicia, for letting me know it will happen someday.