Moonlight and Momentum

I drove home tonight and looked up at the moon. As I saw the moonshine cast upon the fresh snow making my path home sparkle, my heart felt heavy. My heart is always heavy these days. But as I noticed the moon, it became even weightier. I wondered if I would ever look at the moon with joy again. Now, when I see the moon I am taken back to that night. The night I drove to the hospital in the back of my Audi, with a policeman driving. I stared at the moon. We were following your ambulance. I hadn't cried yet at that point. Adrenaline was surging. When I'd seen you wheeled out of our front door, on a stretcher, they'd said you had a faint pulse. There was hope. I stared at the moon. My mind raced. I thought of so many things and somehow also nothing at all. I clutched something. I don't remember what it was. My purse? My phone? Your wallet? Kevin's hand? A stone? I don't know. But I know I was looking at the moon. I know I was praying to the moon.

Now, I go days without opening the blinds in our bedroom. I turn my back on beauty because it hurts my eyes. I still say my gratitude prayer, like we did nightly while we admired the view from our room – but I can't look anymore. I avert my eyes from the glittering citylights, the acres of pines, and the moonlit scape. The beauty taunts my heavy heart. Some nights I sleep in another room, distancing myself from the comfort of what it felt like to be so loved.

It's been four months since you left this Earth. It's been four months of daily tears, barely coping, chasing my tail in slow circles, and living in a womb of confusion. Not a day goes by when I don't walk into our bedroom and expect you to be sitting casually between the sheets. My ignorance irritates me, but I guess somehow I still live in disbelief. You would have a book in your hands and a tired, sly smile on your face. You would pat the mattress to your right – my spot. I'd bounce into bed and kiss your cheek, lovingly. Reaching over and flirtatiously removing the book from in between your hands, I'd dogear your page and set it down on your nightstand. As you laid down on your back, I'd slide on top of you. You'd reach over your left shoulder and flick off the light. The sounds of our love would be the last noises we'd make that night. The moon would cast silent flickers on our walls from between the slivers of blinds – the night's voyeur.

And yet, every time I walk into our bedroom, you are not there.

I know there is no set pace for grief. There is no seven-minute-mile that I can train for to speed up this pain. But, honestly, I think this is a process I don't want to speed up. Some days, I'm all grief. Head to toe, can't get out of bed, immoveable sadness. But most days, I'm all over the place – neither here nor there. Sometimes my arms are stretching forward but my feet are stuck in quicksand. Sometimes my body is full-speed ahead, but my heart is pumping backwards. Sometimes I dress myself up in a pretty package – sparkly paper, bright red lips, stiletto Louboutins, and a bow on my head – but the box is empty. I've never felt so off-kilter and I've never felt so slow.

I used to feel an emotion and know what it was I was experiencing. It's something we learn as infants. I get pricked, "Ow!" I feel pain. I see a smile, "Yay!" I feel joy. I am given a hug, "Aw!" I feel love. I am spooked, "Ah!" I feel fear. But now, my emotions are a snowball. I can no long decipher one emotion from another. I am hurt. I am not just upset, instead I feel all the feelings. I am given a wonderful gift. I do not feel just gratitude, instead I feel all the feelings. I drink three glasses of wine, now I really feel all the feelings. It's exhausting to not be able to pinpoint your own emotions. Particularly because you and I used to communicate so clearly about the way we felt, what we were experiencing, and why. Now, I know nothing. I just know I am sad, I feel gratitude, I feel love, I feel panic, I feel anger, I feel loss, I feel fucking everything. This is the first time in my life when there are days when I think, 'Damn. Can someone just give me a pill so I stop feeling so fucking much?!'

It's been four months. People ask me big questions. Where will you go from here? What's next for you? Today, I moved a pile of your stuff from the den to the studio. I saw your drum kit and I fell to the floor. I crawled to your throne and I pulled myself onto it. I sat behind your kit and listened to the sound it made when my tears hit the snare, then the tom, then the snare, and then the tom. As I sat, listening to my percussion beat of sadness, I struggled with frustration. I am used to moving with momentum. I'm used to accomplishing tasks with determination and pace. I'm used to answering the big questions with gusto and knowing. But now, in this place, I can't. I'm moving in slow motion and I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing. I don't know anything. And I can't answer any questions, theirs or mine.

I moved three things today – a pile, a box, and a rug. And that was accomplishing a lot. Because with each movement comes reminders of what was and what will not be.

I moved the pile and had to confront the drum kit.

I moved the box and discovered what was inside – hundreds of old letters, notes, and cards. You had saved over two decades of correspondence. I got lost in your world. It made me sad because I wanted you to be able to be there with me, telling me the stories behind each letter. I read love notes from teenage girlfriends who I can't remember if you ever told me about. I wanted to read those love notes and hear your subtext. I wanted to hear about where those girls are now and smile because they loved you in a time before I knew I loved you. It makes me happy to know you were loved. I thought about the decades of love notes that I had planned to write to you and that you were supposed to save in those same boxes... and then more boxes because you would run out of space in the box you had. I saw all the letters your mom sent you. She wrote you at camp when you were a kid. She wrote you a poem when you graduated high school. She sent you birthday cards each year. She sent you letters just because. But now that you're gone, she can't write you anymore. I thought of all the boxes that would go unfilled.

I swapped a rug that I didn't like with one I found in storage that I did like. And for the rest of the day, every time I walk through the room, I stop and wonder if you would like it there. I consider switching the old rug back just to keep the room how it was when you were here. I am living in your catacomb and I can't fathom leaving.

Change is inevitable, but it is taxing. Movement is unavoidable, but momentum is rare. Big questions loom, but there are no answers in sight.

I drove home tonight and looked up at the moon. It was a crescent shape. I noticed how it looked like a ladle that could hold anything and just let a slow drip spill out. I imagined you, as an mischievous angel, balancing yourself dexterously on its crescent ridges. You always loved to climb things. I tried to look at the moon with something other than disappointment, 'I prayed to you and you let me down...' I tried to look at the moon the way you and I looked at it when we admired the view from our bedroom window. But, I couldn't. I averted my eyes. It hurt, as if I had stared at the sun for too long. I'm simply not there yet. Instead, I am here, feeling it all.

Fast Forward

You taught me what it was like to be still.

Before you, I always kept moving. All day, everyday, I filled my space and time with stuff. Life was in fast forward, always trying to get somewhere, to get ahead, to rush the process. And then you came. And the pace slowed down.

I didn't need to rush with you. And when I wanted to, you helped me pause. You taught me what it was like to have ritual and to have breathing room. You showed me that I didn't need to rush anymore, because I was so happy in the present. It was the first time I was actually content with everything! More than content, overjoyed! Though our paces were probably what were differed on the most. Even in our world together, I still moved at a canter next to your walk.

When we would leave the house for yoga class, you liked to walk out the door thirty-five minutes early, fifteen-minutes earlier than my estimated departure time. You didn't want to speed to yoga. Imagine that? Before leaving the house, you would prepare your bag with time to spare. You would fill up your favorite water bottle with water from our tap – because you preferred it triple-filtered and reverse osmosis, versus the studio sink. You would get a freshly folded yogi-toes and organize it in your bag. You would have a snack, a Kind Bar or maybe some almonds. You would put your mat in the trunk and call out, "Babe, ready to go?"

Like a firecracker, I'd shoot up from my chair in front of my computer and race to my dresser. I had felt the need to finish 'that last layout' or 'just this email'. I'd throw on a yoga top and bottom, without much thought. I'd throw some essentials in my purse and nearly fly into the passenger seat of the car. You waited patiently for my tardiness every day.

You would start the car and wait the fifteen seconds you always did for your engine to warm up. In my schedule, those fifteen seconds would make me even more late, but in your schedule, you had accounted for it. You also accounted for weather, time of day, and my tardiness. You planned to get there early in time to change, carefully fold your clothes, organize them in your locker, chat with the teacher or another student, get the spot you liked and my spot next to you, grab props for us both, and do some twisting on your back, and simply get present.

I haven't given myself nearly any moments of stillness since you've been gone. I'm scared that because I'm operating on auto-pilot through this devastation, I'm going to unlearn some of the most beautiful lessons you taught me, like being still and slowing down my pace. I'm trying to be gentle on myself, and to me, right now, gentleness is staying busy. And yet I'm scared.

I've had quite a few people tell me, "I can't believe how strong you're being! Many people wouldn't be able to get out of bed. Look at you! You're writing, you're traveling, you're in action, you're staying so busy!" The truth is, I'm not being strong. I'm taking the easiest way out. But let's face it, that doesn't exist in this situation.

I'm both requesting support and trying to help others through writing so candidly and publicly. That is not purely self-serving, which is maybe what I should be focusing on. Instead, I'm thinking, 'How can I be nurturing and inspiring to others through this experience?' The 'strong' way would be saying, 'I need to honor that much of this grief is a personal process,' and being more private. But to me, candid sharing is more natural.

I'm traveling because it's helping time pass and me get away from being suffocated by your absence from our house. A home I thought I was going to grow old in with you and our family. Now I don't even know where I'll be in a year. I'm homesick for a home I no longer have – because home was in our house with YOU. Traveling allows my ungrounded heart and soul to have ungrounded surroundings, a kind of balance that is very temporary (and already wearing on me heavily). Traveling helps pass time.

I cannot stay immobilized. For me, not moving would amplify this immeasurable pain insurmountably. I couldn't 'not move' when I was in the happiest moments of my life. Even then, I filled every minute of my day with something. You were helping to teach me stillness, but it was not my natural way of being and it was a process. When I'm still, the loneliness is amplified and the trauma comes back. I see my fears, my brokenness, and my imperfections. And largely, I see your death – which is still completely unacceptable, bewildering, and shattering to all that I am and what I thought I would be.

I miss being still with you. I miss being able to take three deep breaths and knowing that there was peace at end of my last exhale. There is no sign of peace. You cannot fast forward grief. So for now, I will do what comes naturally. I will not try to be strong. And when someone tells me I'm being strong, I will speak my truth and say, "No, I am not." I am only moving because I am the one whose heart is still beating, therefore I have no other choice.