I know I sort of discussed this a couple days ago, but I really am having a difficult time getting past this weird feeling of loss as 2015 ends. Okay, yeah, I know, obviously...loss. But I don't mean Leslie exactly. Or rather, I DO mean Leslie, but I mean that it feels like Leslie is a part of 2015, like her memory is rooted to it. Like when 2015 ends, that door closes. It's really...disconcerting, and sad. And so I'm struggling with it, because I know that the door isn't closing...it just is difficult to get past that feeling.
I think because putting the old year behind me and looking forward to the new year has become so ingrained in my psyche, I feel like I somehow am also saying goodbye to Leslie all over again as this year draws to a close, like a barrier goes up when I open the calendar to January.
It's just another day, and I keep reminding myself of that. But everything moving forward always seems so tied to that, "first day of the new year" label, that "start here" mindset, that somehow starting new means ending old. I just have to wrap my head around it. It's just another day. It's just another day. No endings and no beginnings.
----------------
On the subject of New Year's Eve...and New Year's Day. I was talking to a couple friends about their plans. NYE always seems to be a bit of a disappointment. I don't know if it's because the evening itself is so romanticized, but I suspect so. If you're not on a marble dance floor gazing lovingly at the "one who got away" about to have your first kiss as snow gently falls outside, and the big band plays Auld Lang Syne while confetti dusts her long lashes...then it seems disappointing. It's just another day. It's just another day.
On the other hand...it seems like a natural drinking day. Drinking to good memories. Drinking to luck or fortune. Or even drinking to try to get rid of the foul taste that the previous year left in your mouth. It seems like a night that lends itself to going out.
I don't know. Do you go out on NYE? Do you enjoy it? Or is it always a bit of a disappointment?
-----------------
My sister is coming over tonight to HABLAB with me and we'll watch Dick Clark (Seacrest now? Or is that the other network) and the cavalcade of lip syncing pop stars du jour entertain until the ball drops. I'll probably have a shot of something expensive. That'll be for Leslie. But not two...that'll be for Lily. Because Lily's inner clock does not recognize my hangover's authority. Never has. And just like this morning, I have no doubt that I'll hear her softly stirring around 5:30 tomorrow morning. And I can't really parent her properly with a hangover.
------------------
Expect to read more from me in 2016.
I hope the New Year brings you peace. I hope you never forget 2015. Everything that happened then brought you to now.
Our true life adventures...
Thursday, December 31, 2015
Monday, December 28, 2015
2015...On the shoulders of giants
I think a lot of people had shitty years in 2015. I know reading Facebook I certainly see a lot of that. And I'm tempted to tell 2015 not to let the door hit it in its ass on the way out to 2016, but I won't. There's a lot of 2015 that was amazing and awesome, and a lot that sucked. And overall, I think 2015 was probably a GOOD year. And I think that probably will surprise a lot of people reading this, so I wanted to explain a few things about 2015 for which I am IMMENSELY grateful.
Those are some of the big, headliner type things that happened in 2015. The obvious, unspoken big baddie also happened in 2015. But man...those other things. I've mentioned before how grateful I am that the family was able to be there with Leslie at the end. Holding her hand, listening to that horrible christian station she loved, telling her we loved her and we were proud of her.
We still talked in 2015. She held my hand. How can 2015 be a bad year when I know that 2016 can't offer the same. Nor any year.
---------------------
I've said before how this wasn't the way Leslie's story was supposed to end.
I read a lot. Or I used to. Before I grew up and became the man who falls asleep rereading the same paragraph five times before closing the book in disgust and turning out the lights, I was a younger man who devoured books like Galactus devours worlds. I read very few books where the hero died before the end. I wanted to read more about Leslie. I wanted more adventures with her. She was a character I could really get behind. She was authentic. She had a lot of integrity. She made the other characters in the story better than they were.
Leslie's sisters (have I told you this story before?) were (are) very talented. Her older sister is an amazing singer. Her younger sister was (is) very smart. Leslie loved telling the story about how she blindsided her mother by asking her, "Danette is such a good singer, and Lauren is so smart, what makes ME special?" And her mother's reply, "You make people smile" was something that Leslie and I enjoyed talking about. It's a perfectly valid answer, but not, I think, what young Leslie was hoping for when she asked the question, so we would often trot it out as a joking consolation prize...I know you completely wrecked this risotto...but at least you made us all smile.
But I think looking back on Leslie, if there was something that really made her special it was that she made the people around her better. Better friends. Better parents. Better people. She cared. She was genuine.
When I think about my life moving forward in the context of the continuing story that develops when the story of how "Leslie and Jim" ends, I think about the phrase, "On the shoulders of giants". I think about who I am and what being Leslie's husband for 15 years did for me as a person and a parent. I feel like I rode piggy back and watched what she did, and now a lot of who I am and how I parent is the direct result of that 15 year piggy back ride. And I feel like I can do it. But I feel like my ability to see that horizon is because I'm standing on Leslie's shoulders to get a better view. She made me better than I was before I met her.
Somewhere along the way the Jim's story analogy breaks down because it feels dismissive to think of Leslie in terms of "supporting character to Jim's story" even though I suppose each of us is in some way a supporting character in the novel of someone else's life. What I meant to communicate wasn't that Leslie just had a supporting role, but that where I am as a character in my own story is so different than it would have been if she hadn't touched my life. Our lives. Anyway.
She'll always be a part of our story.
----------------------
Emma and I were watching "Good Luck Charlie" this weekend. It was an episode where Amy Duncan decides to throw herself a "surprise" baby shower for her 5th kid. She invites a bunch of people who she thinks will give good gifts, but talks shit about them in front of her three year old, who then regurgitates the information to the invitees during the shower and causes them all to leave.
Emma said, "Did mommy have friends like that?"
"Like, you mean friends she didn't really like that much but she sort of tolerated?"
"Yeah."
I thought about this.
"No. She really didn't."
Leslie didn't use people. Leslie didn't tolerate people. If you were friends with Leslie it was because Leslie wanted to be your friend. She didn't befriend you because she needed stuff from you. She wasn't in it for the perks. She just...liked you.
------------------------
Christmas was nice. We did pretty well. The big things seem more manageable to me. They always have. The little things sucker punch me, but the big things we've been good with.
2016 is coming, and although I personally have argued that January 1 is an arbitrary time to start "the first day of the rest of your life" it feels convenient under the circumstances. I have resolutions, but I still have stuff to clean up from 2015. So I'll start then.
I have to learn who I am without Leslie. I'm old enough now that I feel like maybe I can do that without letting my baser instincts govern me. For instance, right now I'm frustrated by my inability to do all the things I want to do. I want to get fit. I want to learn to play the guitar. I want to write. I want to read. I want to have a drink. I want to go out with friends. And I can't do all of that at once. And I have to decide...what's more important to me? How do I make it happen?
At night I think...okay, the kids are in bed, I'm free to do what I want...what'll it be? Get on the treadmill? Read a book? Pick up the guitar? And some nights the answer is...just go to bed.
I'm learning that when I don't sleep enough my mood and patience both go down the shitter. I'll have a really bad day, where I'm "blue" or depressed or whatever, and I just don't have the patience for the kids that I typically do, and then I'll get a good night's sleep and it's "fixed" and I'll remember that the previous night I only slept for 3 hours. That light bulb has gone on a few times. I'm starting to remember it.
I also know that sometimes when I'm feeling the most wrung out, stepping up on the treadmill and getting my blood pumping ALSO makes me feel better.
I feel lonely in a way that can't just be fixed with company. I miss "sharing time", even if that time is spent watching TV or reading a book in the same room in silence. I miss wordless communication or just knowing she was my safety net to tag out in case I started to lose my temper with the kids. That kind of loneliness isn't fixed by hanging out with friends and family or by dating. And dating is sometimes lonelier than NOT dating, though I know at some point I'll re-enter that fray. We knew all of each others stories. We were comfortable in each others' space and silence. Eventually getting to that point with someone else seems daunting.
At grief support we talked about the idea of wearing your wedding ring even though you're no longer technically married. I told them how it'd already caused one socially awkward situation (Happy Hour). Taking the ring off seems unspeakably sad to me. I told them I would most likely move it to my right hand. Taking it off entirely seems too sad. Thinking about a time when taking it off doesn't seem too sad ALSO seems too sad. Moving the ring...I'm okay with that, I think. One woman wore hers around her neck on a chain. Another man was still wearing his. Day to day. I was thinking about doing that in 2016. It seems like a sad way to begin a year, but really it'll be sad no matter when I decide to do it.
2016 goals...
Learn who I am without Leslie
Write more
Read more
Sleep more
Weigh less
Easy.
- In 2015 my wife's suffering finally ended.
- 2015 was the last year in which I was able to hold my wife's hand and tell her I loved her. And it was the last year she held mine, and told me she loved me too.
- 2015 was a year in which people, near and far, known to me and also unknown, showed how important my wife and our family was to them, and offered their support when we needed it the most.
- 2015 was a year in which I proved to myself and my family that I could do it alone* (even if I didn't want to)
Those are some of the big, headliner type things that happened in 2015. The obvious, unspoken big baddie also happened in 2015. But man...those other things. I've mentioned before how grateful I am that the family was able to be there with Leslie at the end. Holding her hand, listening to that horrible christian station she loved, telling her we loved her and we were proud of her.
We still talked in 2015. She held my hand. How can 2015 be a bad year when I know that 2016 can't offer the same. Nor any year.
---------------------
I've said before how this wasn't the way Leslie's story was supposed to end.
I read a lot. Or I used to. Before I grew up and became the man who falls asleep rereading the same paragraph five times before closing the book in disgust and turning out the lights, I was a younger man who devoured books like Galactus devours worlds. I read very few books where the hero died before the end. I wanted to read more about Leslie. I wanted more adventures with her. She was a character I could really get behind. She was authentic. She had a lot of integrity. She made the other characters in the story better than they were.
Leslie's sisters (have I told you this story before?) were (are) very talented. Her older sister is an amazing singer. Her younger sister was (is) very smart. Leslie loved telling the story about how she blindsided her mother by asking her, "Danette is such a good singer, and Lauren is so smart, what makes ME special?" And her mother's reply, "You make people smile" was something that Leslie and I enjoyed talking about. It's a perfectly valid answer, but not, I think, what young Leslie was hoping for when she asked the question, so we would often trot it out as a joking consolation prize...I know you completely wrecked this risotto...but at least you made us all smile.
But I think looking back on Leslie, if there was something that really made her special it was that she made the people around her better. Better friends. Better parents. Better people. She cared. She was genuine.
When I think about my life moving forward in the context of the continuing story that develops when the story of how "Leslie and Jim" ends, I think about the phrase, "On the shoulders of giants". I think about who I am and what being Leslie's husband for 15 years did for me as a person and a parent. I feel like I rode piggy back and watched what she did, and now a lot of who I am and how I parent is the direct result of that 15 year piggy back ride. And I feel like I can do it. But I feel like my ability to see that horizon is because I'm standing on Leslie's shoulders to get a better view. She made me better than I was before I met her.
Somewhere along the way the Jim's story analogy breaks down because it feels dismissive to think of Leslie in terms of "supporting character to Jim's story" even though I suppose each of us is in some way a supporting character in the novel of someone else's life. What I meant to communicate wasn't that Leslie just had a supporting role, but that where I am as a character in my own story is so different than it would have been if she hadn't touched my life. Our lives. Anyway.
She'll always be a part of our story.
----------------------
Emma and I were watching "Good Luck Charlie" this weekend. It was an episode where Amy Duncan decides to throw herself a "surprise" baby shower for her 5th kid. She invites a bunch of people who she thinks will give good gifts, but talks shit about them in front of her three year old, who then regurgitates the information to the invitees during the shower and causes them all to leave.
Emma said, "Did mommy have friends like that?"
"Like, you mean friends she didn't really like that much but she sort of tolerated?"
"Yeah."
I thought about this.
"No. She really didn't."
Leslie didn't use people. Leslie didn't tolerate people. If you were friends with Leslie it was because Leslie wanted to be your friend. She didn't befriend you because she needed stuff from you. She wasn't in it for the perks. She just...liked you.
------------------------
Christmas was nice. We did pretty well. The big things seem more manageable to me. They always have. The little things sucker punch me, but the big things we've been good with.
2016 is coming, and although I personally have argued that January 1 is an arbitrary time to start "the first day of the rest of your life" it feels convenient under the circumstances. I have resolutions, but I still have stuff to clean up from 2015. So I'll start then.
I have to learn who I am without Leslie. I'm old enough now that I feel like maybe I can do that without letting my baser instincts govern me. For instance, right now I'm frustrated by my inability to do all the things I want to do. I want to get fit. I want to learn to play the guitar. I want to write. I want to read. I want to have a drink. I want to go out with friends. And I can't do all of that at once. And I have to decide...what's more important to me? How do I make it happen?
At night I think...okay, the kids are in bed, I'm free to do what I want...what'll it be? Get on the treadmill? Read a book? Pick up the guitar? And some nights the answer is...just go to bed.
I'm learning that when I don't sleep enough my mood and patience both go down the shitter. I'll have a really bad day, where I'm "blue" or depressed or whatever, and I just don't have the patience for the kids that I typically do, and then I'll get a good night's sleep and it's "fixed" and I'll remember that the previous night I only slept for 3 hours. That light bulb has gone on a few times. I'm starting to remember it.
I also know that sometimes when I'm feeling the most wrung out, stepping up on the treadmill and getting my blood pumping ALSO makes me feel better.
I feel lonely in a way that can't just be fixed with company. I miss "sharing time", even if that time is spent watching TV or reading a book in the same room in silence. I miss wordless communication or just knowing she was my safety net to tag out in case I started to lose my temper with the kids. That kind of loneliness isn't fixed by hanging out with friends and family or by dating. And dating is sometimes lonelier than NOT dating, though I know at some point I'll re-enter that fray. We knew all of each others stories. We were comfortable in each others' space and silence. Eventually getting to that point with someone else seems daunting.
At grief support we talked about the idea of wearing your wedding ring even though you're no longer technically married. I told them how it'd already caused one socially awkward situation (Happy Hour). Taking the ring off seems unspeakably sad to me. I told them I would most likely move it to my right hand. Taking it off entirely seems too sad. Thinking about a time when taking it off doesn't seem too sad ALSO seems too sad. Moving the ring...I'm okay with that, I think. One woman wore hers around her neck on a chain. Another man was still wearing his. Day to day. I was thinking about doing that in 2016. It seems like a sad way to begin a year, but really it'll be sad no matter when I decide to do it.
2016 goals...
Learn who I am without Leslie
Write more
Read more
Sleep more
Weigh less
Easy.
Monday, November 23, 2015
'Tis the Season
I know the last post I wrote (a month ago) I said I was going to write about our wedding day. And I will. But that's not what I'm going to write about in this post.
And it's not all doom and gloom. But there's some gloom. I don't know why I haven't written lately. It's starting to get jumbled in my mind...the things I've written and the things I want to write. Sometimes I'll catch myself writing things in my head and think..."I should write this"...and later it's hazy to me whether I wrote it, or just thought it.
Anyway, there's been so much already written (by me) about grieving and processing and life without Leslie that I don't want to play like a broken record. But this is it. This is THE time of year I've been dreading. The holidays are upon us.
First...Status Report: We're doing well. I'm looking at private placement for Lily next year (she graduates to fourth grade and will have to transition out of her current school situation anyway). She remains more or less unchanged by all this still.
Emma just finished a play at school. She played Juliet in "Romeo to Go". It was fun to watch. Funny. These 'drama kids' have become her clan and support network. She's doing well in school. Sad at times, but overall seems okay. She and I have been going to the "Caring Place" since late September. They have ten sessions of "group support" spaced every other week. We're going again tonight. Halfway through.
I am doing well too. I consider, as I always have, nearly every day a good day, though many days have sadness in them, there is more joy than pain. I'm slowly...very slowly...getting the house back into shape. Clearing out messes in Leslie's (now Emma's) office, and the dining room, collecting old computer equipment to put out for the garbage, cleaning the basement "weight room/dobby's room" and steam cleaning the carpets (fucking cat). I get lonely at times, but I've been reaching out to friends more than I ever did before. And I've been trying to go out more...to eat or to see a band (next week)...just getting some adult time.
There is this feeling of...being on hold. Like somehow grief and grieving needs to run its course before I can continue to live my life. It still seems like most of what I'm doing in some way is based on a reaction to Leslie's passing...and not necessarily on just...living my life. I have to really think about that. On the one hand it feels right. I still have a lot to process and work out before I'm just me. Before I'm just living my life and not reacting to Leslie's death. On the other hand it feels wrong. Thoughts and feelings about and for Leslie will never NOT be a part of my life (though I'm sure they'll change and develop), so I need to just accept that as part of "me" and move forward with it. Like I said, I don't know.
In the meantime, I'm doing little things for me. Things that aren't separating me from Leslie, but that somehow draw a distinction. Leslie liked my hair shorter, and certainly my beard MUCH shorter. She would never have said no to anything I really wanted to do, but I liked keeping my hair and beard the way she liked it. So I'm trying something a bit new with both. I started using Trunk Club for clothes to just update my wardrobe a bit. It's probably not going to last super long...because it appears to be expensive as fuck, but it helps me with ideas, and if I pick up a few high quality basics and build on it with other stuff, then it's worth it. I haven't spent money on clothes (that weren't on my birthday or Christmas) in ...decades. Seriously I was going through my closet and could pick out clothes that I knew I'd bought 15 years ago. These little selfishnesses seem minor enough that they don't hurt to contemplate or implement.
I find I'm talking to Leslie less. This hurts. I compartmentalize a lot, and maybe that's part of it. But sometimes I forget about the little butterfly monument and makeshift shrine/time capsule that the kids and I planted under the corkscrew willow. The beauty of recognizing a thing you're doing (or not doing) and being hurt by it...is you can change it.
Anyway...back to our story...
First, I want to say that I love the holidays. Well...not Thanksgiving. Fuck thanksgiving. So many reasons that Thanksgiving irritates me, but I looooooooove Christmas. And loving Christmas is unchanged without Leslie, though certainly her absence is a shitty contrast to "joy to the world".
So I had been thinking about Christmas...really I've been thinking about it since Leslie died. There are so many things that I "thought ahead to"...things like Mother's Day and her Birthday and ...Christmas, happy/fun events where her absence will make them less happy/fun and more bittersweet. And Christmas is sort of the grandaddy of them all.
Thinking about Christmas, I started planning for Christmas. And the first pragmatic conclusion I reached was that unlike Christmases past...I wouldn't have that extra set of adult hands needed to either: help decorate, help direct, organize tasks, or wrangle Lily. So I decided to start decorating a week earlier than we used to. Adapted tradition. Every year we tried to decorate the day after Thanksgiving. This year, Halloween damn near didn't go up (decorated the day before). Christmas is just too special to our family for me to let that happen. So I started dragging out the decorations yesterday.
Emma, noticing I was really beat the night before, tucked me into bed at about 10:15 that night. The result was that I woke with a ton of energy and was able to get laundry and decorating started.
My folks offered to watch Lily and then have us over for dinner last night, but then switched gears when it became apparent that I was stressing out over being able to get as much done at home as I wanted if we went to dinner and just took Lily for a play date instead.
And I thought...okay...this is going to be okay. And my sister took Emma to church so I started lugging all the decorations out from the basement behind the stairs to surprise her when she got home.
Having carted the Christmas tree box upstairs, I started moving the furniture to accommodate the tree. The love seat is really heavy, but also sort of...flimsy? The furniture twists a bit when you try to move it. I think it's the result of having the ability to recline. But it's shitty to move. And I literally was thinking...I wish I had you here to help me, Leslie. Like that was in my head. You should be here helping me now. And I budged the loveseat with my shoulder and it slid a bit against the carpet and uncovered a bunch of m&m's and some popcorn and paperclips...and...this picture:
And if you've read past posts you know that Leslie's friend Jen is a bit of a butterfly fanatic when it comes to lost loved ones, and I find myself much more conscious of it myself as a result. To the point where it's become an important symbol of Leslie...and transformation...and ascendance of the soul, and of her watching us and helping us. And so this stupid card that the school sent home with Lily one year to help her work on vocabulary (we told them she loves flipping through the pictures and labeling them, and we work with her on describing them) is revealed beneath the loveseat as I shoved it aside, my thoughts on Leslie and her help...and I kinda fucking lost it. A little. In my fashion. I sort of gave that half sob sound thing and my eyes welled up and I held the picture in my hands and rubbed the wing with my thumb and felt a little sorry for myself before I smiled, chuckled a bit and thought..."yeah, I know you're here to help me when I need you, baby...but I meant lifting the couch, not emotionally, ass." Leslie would have laughed at that too.
So I think I was probably already a little emotional when I opened the storage bin of stocking holders and stockings. There, put away inside the box in which we first bought it, sandwiched between foam, was the jeweled Christmas tree with "Leslie" engraved underneath for hanging her stocking. Digging further, the faux fur stocking she had glitter-written "Leslie" across. What the fuck was I going to do with that? Even my stocking had her mark on it. When we'd first started dating we bought matching stockings and wrote our names on them. Mine came out horribly. Looked like a 5 year-old had done it. We kept them like that for years, maybe even until Lily was born, and when we couldn't find a fourth stocking that matched the other three...at last we bought all new stockings and I made her write my name so it would come out legibly.
The gut punch of the stockings came as these things always seem to: unexpectedly. I really SHOULD have known this was going to prove harder than it started emotionally, and maybe that's why the butterfly 'proactively' flapped its colorful wings in my face...be strong, be ready, I'm here to help. If you believe in that sort of thing...
I wasn't really sure what to do with them. Throw them away? I had no sooner thought of it than I had discarded it. Put them up? That seemed somehow worse. In the end I waited for Emma to come home and talked to her. I nudged her in the direction of "storing them for next year." Sort of a planned familial compartmentalization until we were better equipped to deal with it.
In the end we finished perhaps 90% of the decorating before Lily got home. Some things I just don't know how to do. I don't remember how Leslie decorated the light over the kitchen table or the fixtures above the island...or the dining room in general. I have boxes of decorations, but it's like looking at a jigsaw puzzle with no picture. Except that I DO have pictures, I'm almost sure, and I need to go back through old pictures and see if I can piece it together.
I had to push Emma to help more than in the past. I don't blame her. She's usually pretty eager to decorate the trees, but if she was somewhat less eager this year, I can't really fault her.
We're going to be fine. Christmas will still be great. But it will be great without Leslie, and so that will make it less great than it could have been. But we'll manage, together.
And it's not all doom and gloom. But there's some gloom. I don't know why I haven't written lately. It's starting to get jumbled in my mind...the things I've written and the things I want to write. Sometimes I'll catch myself writing things in my head and think..."I should write this"...and later it's hazy to me whether I wrote it, or just thought it.
Anyway, there's been so much already written (by me) about grieving and processing and life without Leslie that I don't want to play like a broken record. But this is it. This is THE time of year I've been dreading. The holidays are upon us.
First...Status Report: We're doing well. I'm looking at private placement for Lily next year (she graduates to fourth grade and will have to transition out of her current school situation anyway). She remains more or less unchanged by all this still.
Emma just finished a play at school. She played Juliet in "Romeo to Go". It was fun to watch. Funny. These 'drama kids' have become her clan and support network. She's doing well in school. Sad at times, but overall seems okay. She and I have been going to the "Caring Place" since late September. They have ten sessions of "group support" spaced every other week. We're going again tonight. Halfway through.
I am doing well too. I consider, as I always have, nearly every day a good day, though many days have sadness in them, there is more joy than pain. I'm slowly...very slowly...getting the house back into shape. Clearing out messes in Leslie's (now Emma's) office, and the dining room, collecting old computer equipment to put out for the garbage, cleaning the basement "weight room/dobby's room" and steam cleaning the carpets (fucking cat). I get lonely at times, but I've been reaching out to friends more than I ever did before. And I've been trying to go out more...to eat or to see a band (next week)...just getting some adult time.
There is this feeling of...being on hold. Like somehow grief and grieving needs to run its course before I can continue to live my life. It still seems like most of what I'm doing in some way is based on a reaction to Leslie's passing...and not necessarily on just...living my life. I have to really think about that. On the one hand it feels right. I still have a lot to process and work out before I'm just me. Before I'm just living my life and not reacting to Leslie's death. On the other hand it feels wrong. Thoughts and feelings about and for Leslie will never NOT be a part of my life (though I'm sure they'll change and develop), so I need to just accept that as part of "me" and move forward with it. Like I said, I don't know.
In the meantime, I'm doing little things for me. Things that aren't separating me from Leslie, but that somehow draw a distinction. Leslie liked my hair shorter, and certainly my beard MUCH shorter. She would never have said no to anything I really wanted to do, but I liked keeping my hair and beard the way she liked it. So I'm trying something a bit new with both. I started using Trunk Club for clothes to just update my wardrobe a bit. It's probably not going to last super long...because it appears to be expensive as fuck, but it helps me with ideas, and if I pick up a few high quality basics and build on it with other stuff, then it's worth it. I haven't spent money on clothes (that weren't on my birthday or Christmas) in ...decades. Seriously I was going through my closet and could pick out clothes that I knew I'd bought 15 years ago. These little selfishnesses seem minor enough that they don't hurt to contemplate or implement.
I find I'm talking to Leslie less. This hurts. I compartmentalize a lot, and maybe that's part of it. But sometimes I forget about the little butterfly monument and makeshift shrine/time capsule that the kids and I planted under the corkscrew willow. The beauty of recognizing a thing you're doing (or not doing) and being hurt by it...is you can change it.
Anyway...back to our story...
First, I want to say that I love the holidays. Well...not Thanksgiving. Fuck thanksgiving. So many reasons that Thanksgiving irritates me, but I looooooooove Christmas. And loving Christmas is unchanged without Leslie, though certainly her absence is a shitty contrast to "joy to the world".
So I had been thinking about Christmas...really I've been thinking about it since Leslie died. There are so many things that I "thought ahead to"...things like Mother's Day and her Birthday and ...Christmas, happy/fun events where her absence will make them less happy/fun and more bittersweet. And Christmas is sort of the grandaddy of them all.
Thinking about Christmas, I started planning for Christmas. And the first pragmatic conclusion I reached was that unlike Christmases past...I wouldn't have that extra set of adult hands needed to either: help decorate, help direct, organize tasks, or wrangle Lily. So I decided to start decorating a week earlier than we used to. Adapted tradition. Every year we tried to decorate the day after Thanksgiving. This year, Halloween damn near didn't go up (decorated the day before). Christmas is just too special to our family for me to let that happen. So I started dragging out the decorations yesterday.
Emma, noticing I was really beat the night before, tucked me into bed at about 10:15 that night. The result was that I woke with a ton of energy and was able to get laundry and decorating started.
My folks offered to watch Lily and then have us over for dinner last night, but then switched gears when it became apparent that I was stressing out over being able to get as much done at home as I wanted if we went to dinner and just took Lily for a play date instead.
And I thought...okay...this is going to be okay. And my sister took Emma to church so I started lugging all the decorations out from the basement behind the stairs to surprise her when she got home.
Having carted the Christmas tree box upstairs, I started moving the furniture to accommodate the tree. The love seat is really heavy, but also sort of...flimsy? The furniture twists a bit when you try to move it. I think it's the result of having the ability to recline. But it's shitty to move. And I literally was thinking...I wish I had you here to help me, Leslie. Like that was in my head. You should be here helping me now. And I budged the loveseat with my shoulder and it slid a bit against the carpet and uncovered a bunch of m&m's and some popcorn and paperclips...and...this picture:
And if you've read past posts you know that Leslie's friend Jen is a bit of a butterfly fanatic when it comes to lost loved ones, and I find myself much more conscious of it myself as a result. To the point where it's become an important symbol of Leslie...and transformation...and ascendance of the soul, and of her watching us and helping us. And so this stupid card that the school sent home with Lily one year to help her work on vocabulary (we told them she loves flipping through the pictures and labeling them, and we work with her on describing them) is revealed beneath the loveseat as I shoved it aside, my thoughts on Leslie and her help...and I kinda fucking lost it. A little. In my fashion. I sort of gave that half sob sound thing and my eyes welled up and I held the picture in my hands and rubbed the wing with my thumb and felt a little sorry for myself before I smiled, chuckled a bit and thought..."yeah, I know you're here to help me when I need you, baby...but I meant lifting the couch, not emotionally, ass." Leslie would have laughed at that too.
So I think I was probably already a little emotional when I opened the storage bin of stocking holders and stockings. There, put away inside the box in which we first bought it, sandwiched between foam, was the jeweled Christmas tree with "Leslie" engraved underneath for hanging her stocking. Digging further, the faux fur stocking she had glitter-written "Leslie" across. What the fuck was I going to do with that? Even my stocking had her mark on it. When we'd first started dating we bought matching stockings and wrote our names on them. Mine came out horribly. Looked like a 5 year-old had done it. We kept them like that for years, maybe even until Lily was born, and when we couldn't find a fourth stocking that matched the other three...at last we bought all new stockings and I made her write my name so it would come out legibly.
The gut punch of the stockings came as these things always seem to: unexpectedly. I really SHOULD have known this was going to prove harder than it started emotionally, and maybe that's why the butterfly 'proactively' flapped its colorful wings in my face...be strong, be ready, I'm here to help. If you believe in that sort of thing...
I wasn't really sure what to do with them. Throw them away? I had no sooner thought of it than I had discarded it. Put them up? That seemed somehow worse. In the end I waited for Emma to come home and talked to her. I nudged her in the direction of "storing them for next year." Sort of a planned familial compartmentalization until we were better equipped to deal with it.
In the end we finished perhaps 90% of the decorating before Lily got home. Some things I just don't know how to do. I don't remember how Leslie decorated the light over the kitchen table or the fixtures above the island...or the dining room in general. I have boxes of decorations, but it's like looking at a jigsaw puzzle with no picture. Except that I DO have pictures, I'm almost sure, and I need to go back through old pictures and see if I can piece it together.
I had to push Emma to help more than in the past. I don't blame her. She's usually pretty eager to decorate the trees, but if she was somewhat less eager this year, I can't really fault her.
We're going to be fine. Christmas will still be great. But it will be great without Leslie, and so that will make it less great than it could have been. But we'll manage, together.
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