Dating apps, quicksand, and merry-go-rounds

I’ve been meaning to write a new blog post for a while, but to be honest I didn’t really have anything that I thought was worth talking about. Life is just clicking along. Same stuff. Different days. I stay busy working, taking care of my kids, and going out with friends, and now that I’ve added in dating for the past several months, my dance card stays pretty full, as they say. And if you’re wondering, dating still sucks as bad as it did when you were doing it. And if you are still in the dating scene, then you know. You get a bunch of texts from a person and then nothing, ever again. Poof. They just disappear even after they’ve sent you ‘good morning, beautiful’ texts for the past 6 days in a row. And you don’t know their last name, so it’s not like you can check to see if something bad happened to them. You just have to imagine things like, they must have fallen into quicksand on their way to the coffee shop. Or my favorite, you start texting someone back and forth for a while and then make the crazy suggestion to have an actual phone call or meet for a drink, and then the quicksand must have made its way to them because it’s total radio silence and you have to eventually go back to the app and see who the next possible date/quicksand victim will be. Sometimes it works out. You meet a nice person. You have dinner and a few laughs, and they somehow are able to avoid the quicksand that is apparently taking over Savannah-area coffee shops.

I’ve made a few new friends. We enjoy each other’s company, but we also know the relationships aren’t going anywhere serious—because we’ve had that conversation already. I’m not ready for that and most of them aren’t either. I would like to eventually meet someone I can travel with and go to concerts with or just meet up to check out a new restaurant, but right now, I like my space. It's just fun, quicksand tragedies aside.

I guess what makes the difference between being able to make life fun is being able to get to a place where you are not consumed with loneliness. Something I wasn’t sure was going to happen for me. I think it’s obvious I was consumed with loneliness, but maybe I did a good job hiding it. I spent most of the first year after Robby died hating to come home except to see the kids and hug them. If it wasn’t for the kids, I probably would have gotten rid of the house and found a place that reminded me of absolutely nothing. It suffocated me. And sitting on the couch alone was the worst part of it. I did it every night and I hated it. I would just sit and watch TV and feel so lonely. I would watch my phone and see if anyone was going to check on me and the kids, and when they didn’t, I would try to come up with excuses to call people just so I had someone to talk to.

I had my monthly tele-therapy session the other day and I said something out loud for the first time. It was a little shocking because I had not realized what had changed in my life these past five months until the words came out of my mouth. My therapist said, it sounds like you’re doing really well right now. And I said, yeah, I’m just in a good place where I’m happy to be alone at home. She gasped and said, what did you just say? You’re happy to be alone? And I started laughing. I said, yeah, I really look forward to getting home after work and being able to be alone on the couch and watch TV by myself. I actually get a little annoyed when people are calling to check in on me—especially when it was the season finale of Dexter!

It doesn’t mean I don’t ever feel a little lonely. I just don’t have that heavy weight in my chest all the time, wondering if I’ll spend the rest of my life sitting on the couch alone. I think one of the hardest things about losing someone is you feel like everyone else’s lives just keep going while your world just stopped, and you worry it will be that way forever.

I picture it like one of those old metal merry-go-rounds at the city park--the kind responsible for multiple bruises in grade school and causing second degree burns in the summer. Any way, you are standing there on the ground while all of your friends are going round and round on the merry-go-round. They are laughing. You’re yelling to them to stop or slow down so you can jump on, but they just keep spinning and laughing. Your feelings get hurt because you think they don’t care, but really they are just having fun and don’t realize how you feel standing there alone. Then you finally get the nerve to start running alongside the merry-go-round until you finally reach out your hand and grab the metal bar and jump on with everyone else. It takes a minute to get your feet under you and steady yourself enough so you can look around and feel the wind in your hair. And then you smile and take a deep breath because you made it and it wasn’t as hard as you thought it would be. And it doesn’t seem like a big deal to anyone else. They are still laughing and spinning.

There are still days where I wish I could take a small timeout in life and disappear into that quicksand that seems to be devouring the men I meet on dating apps, but those days don’t happen as much. Luckily there are more days where I just fall into my couch at night, turn off my phone, and sit alone in the dark listening to my record player. And it’s not because I’m depressed this time. It’s because I’m finally finding that peacefulness that comes when you decide to stop standing in the grass and you make the decision to run alongside that merry-go-round until you can grab hold of that metal bar, jump up, hang on tight, and feel the wind in your hair.

 

 

Goodbye, Brewster. Hello grief.

Our dog Brewster died this week. He was a rescue, so we guess he was about 14 or 15 years old. He was Jude’s birthday present when he turned 7 and they quickly became inseparable, best friends. I’ve never lost a dog before. He and Buddy are the first dogs I’ve ever had, and Brewster’s absence has been suffocating so far. He was always a shadow, following all of us around the house and checking in on each of us during the night while we slept. He would meet me at the front door with one of his stuffed animals in his mouth every day when I got home, a comforting gesture that has gotten me through this past year with Robby being gone.

Luckily Brewster was not sick long. It started that same morning he died—he was having a hard time standing up after sleeping so I assumed he was starting to get a little arthritis and once we got him some medicine he would be fine. I went to work and the kids checked in on him throughout the day and let me know he seemed OK, but just tired. When I got home that evening, he was laying by the front door, which was unusual for him. I said his name, he looked up and kind of gave me a smile and then that was it. His eyes glazed over and he never really woke up again. It’s like he was waiting for me to get home and say goodbye.

Veronica helped me track down the emergency vet and then Jude scooped him up and carried him to the car. We drove him over to the animal hospital, but he was pretty much gone by the time we got there. The doctor said his stomach was full of blood and he would most likely end up suffering like that all night until he passed on his own. Veronica made the decision to not watch, so Jude and I held each other and cried as we said goodbye to Brewster one last time, knowing he was already on his way to Robby.

I’m usually pretty good at allowing myself to be sad for a while and then shaking it off and moving forward, but I’m having a really hard time already. I kept thinking I needed to call Robby and tell him about Brewster. And then I’d catch myself and be like, WTF? I haven’t thought about calling Robby in a long time. I wake up in the morning and have to remind myself Brewster is not waiting on me to get up and take him outside. And now I’m back to having to remind myself that Robby isn’t here either.

The holidays are coming up and not having Robby here for the holidays is really hard. I feel like last year I was on autopilot so I could just keep moving through the motions, but this time around, I’m just having a really hard time and going through the motions is just not happening yet.

And I guess it’s because this is the first really bad family crisis we’ve had since Robby died and he’s not here to make things better. The kids have been great and have tried to help me, but I just feel like something is missing. And I finally realized this morning that the something that is missing is that big Robby hug that makes everything better, even when you’re still really sad. Not having him here to talk to is one of the hardest parts of every day. Having so much to tell him and just having to sit and talk to myself like a crazy person, hoping Robby can hear me. And sometimes I can hear him answer back and say, “Everything is going to be OK. You got this.” And I usually answer back, “I know. I just hate this so much.”

 

Finding the words for the final story

 I’ve been working on Robby’s obituary for his memorial next month. It’s actually kind of difficult to try to figure out what details are most important to note about someone’s life. I feel like I know so much about Robby, but I realize so much of his life happened before he met me 10 years ago. But then so much of his life was defined by those later years—being a husband, father, teacher; trying to survive his kidney disease. Some of the details of Robby’s earlier life I know from his stories but some I’ve discovered on my own through his papers and journals he kept.

I didn’t write an obit for Robby after he died. I didn’t want to advertise anything and have strangers calling or coming around trying to scam me. I also didn’t really feel like doing much more than I had to do already—go through probate, file paperwork, figure out how I’m supposed to keep going, working, paying bills. I think he’d be disappointed with me that I didn’t do one. He was never one to shy from the spotlight. I can hear him telling me to be sure I talk about his rugged good looks and charming personality. But the truth is, I’ll probably write more about his love of rare steak, wild women, comic books, and cold beer on the beach with friends.

And you really don’t have enough space in an obit to tell all of the great stories. Like the time Robby squeezed his car into a narrow spot at the Civic Center parking lot for my graduation ceremony so he could get my sister and the kids there on time—a trick he learned from driving hearses around town doing ghost tours. Or the time he drove the kids down to Jacksonville so they could see Indiana Jones in a movie theater. Or the time he talked one of my favorite authors who was in town to get in my minivan and go for drinks with us or getting Neil Gaiman to pose with a ‘Happy Birthday Mary’ sign so he could surprise her later. Or the smiles on the kids’ faces while he was driving them around in a golf cart on the beach, making their Halloween costumes, taking them camping, or renting out the fountain at Forsyth Park so we could get married.

Obits usually go something like this person was born in this place, lived in this place, worked at this place, was related these people, enjoyed this crap, died after these relatives, and outlived these relatives. Maybe they won some award or served on some board or charity. Everyone gets to know where you went to church, what school you finished, where you are buried, and where people can send the flowers. They don’t talk about how you snuck popcorn to your dogs when you watched a movie alone in the middle of the night or how you ate too many jalapeños in a contest in college to win free Subway sandwiches. Or how you went skinny dipping in your backyard pool and drank fireball shots in the middle of the day while your kids were away at summer camp. Or how you yelled out when Han Solo was killed and everyone in the theater looked at you. How you were still afraid of the dark, enjoyed grilling with a cold rum drink in your hand and Buffett on the radio, and loved to buy your wife flowers just because you wanted to surprise her for no reason.

And everyone has their own idea about the important parts of someone’s life—ten different people are going to write ten different obituaries. We all have different memories and stories. I almost feel like that’s what makes writing the obit so hard because someone will say, you forgot to add this, or you didn’t say anything about that. But a good friend recently told me, who cares what they say. Just do what makes you happy.

I can’t say writing an obit makes me happy, but it doesn’t make me sad. I actually giggle a little when I imagine Robby is trying to push me to make his obit a little salty, a little exaggerated, and a whole lot over-the-top Robby. And as Robby would always say when he made me laugh, “I’m really kind of a hero, if you think about it.” I guess anyone who can make me giggle these days really is a hero.