Sometimes I get lost in familiar places.  Today I went back to the house I lived in with John for nearly 20 years.  It felt odd like I was intruding on holy ground.  I suppose in a way I was.  Every time I go “home” I feel depressed and realize that I cannot live in this house any longer.  It carries too many memories and too much sentiment. 

Right after John died I thought living in our home would be a great comfort.  I now find it a great distraction.  I feel like I don’t belong there anymore.  Without John it is just a damn beautiful house but no longer my home.

I have to be honest and say this makes me sad in many ways.  When John and I moved in I joking said many times that the only way I was ever leaving this house was in a body bag.  Damnit, John beat me to it.  Now I feel I must leave and move forward.    I don’t want to put the house on the market because it will mean announcing another sword drop of separation from John.    But I have to sell out of sheer practical necessity but I am finding it painful.

However, I have to stop focusing on the negative stuff for awhile.  I have a new man in my life, Jim, and he is wonderful.  It wasn’t planned and I do not think either of us saw it coming.  I think maybe a cup of coffee has turned into a lifetime together.  But that scares me too.  I am not scared to share my life with Jim; in fact I am loving it but there are the ghosts that haunt and the trepidation of that I am somehow doing something wrong.  I know in my head I am not but my heart is the proverbial lonely hunter now. 

I sometimes feel I don’t have the right to be happy.  This is of course, just plain bullshit.  But it being bullshit doesn’t make it go away.  But if I dig down deep and not think too much I realize I am happy.  I have a different life now.  Not so much a better one but a different one.  I can see things differently and I feel the effect on my writing and clinical practice.  I am a different man so now I do and see things differently.

Difference is the culprit here.  Lingering sorrow and just plain missing a man I lived with for 26 years is.  Time will heal somwhat I know but time takes time and that is the hard part.

Today I realized that I am a happy man.  I also realized it is hard to be happy right now and maybe it will be forever.  The pain and sorrow of John’s death will never leave me; I do not think it humanly possible or even a good thing.  I loved John.  I still do.  But he is dead and my life continues. 

As you know I have been blessed to have found another wonderful man to love.  Jim is smart, sexy, funny and totally in love with me.  We are starting a new life together.  It is exciting and painful at the same time.  I have to “move on” in certain areas and “moving on” still feels wrong.  I actually hate the phrase “moving on” when it comes to John.  I think I can move forward and have a good life again, especially with Jim but I cannot “move on” and simply place half of my time on this earth in a box to be tucked away.

Yet, the concept of boxes and grief have an appeal.  Many of you know I have finally returned to clinical practice part time.  I am enjoying healing again.  I am being healed by healing others.  Actually I think my patients are healing me more now than they could ever imagine.

Recently, I had two patients come into see me for some minor complaints.  Not my usual clinical fair to be honest.  I am a blood and guts proivder now.  I do broken bones, cuts, and trauma.  I like it.  It allows to take someone from being in a sorry state and return them to good health.  I get to feel good and the patient does get better.  I have placed myself at a safe distance, for the time being, from my usual practice of intense primary care with injection drug users, people with HIV, terminal illnesses, and such.  I am not ready to head back down that road yet.  I know I will but right now I am still healing and the best I can do is the ”patch ‘em up guy”.  But two patients insisted on seeing me and I couldn’t figure out way.  I never turn anyone away so when they came in without a broken bone or laceration I was somewhat surprised on their insistence that I had the clinician they wanted to see instread of someone else on staff.

The reason was simply painful.  One man had recently lost his wife and a woman had suddenly lost her husband.  They wanted to talk to someone who could understand.  And that I did indeed.  Both encounters were long, full of tears from both of us and filled with words and sorrows that only the widowed know.  

I know you are thinking that most of this is just bascailly bullshit, but it isn’t.  Unless you have lost your spouse the feelings and how life totally changes cannot be comprehended or described.  As the great poet Mary Oliver said to me after her partner of 40 some years died: “The world is just a very different place.”  Miss Oliver’s simple words say a lot.  Your entire universe just blows up and whatever rains down on you is a mystery.  Nothing prepares you.  Nothing could. 

But what does help is to cry in the company of others who know the meaning of finding your loved one’s hand-written grocery list and how that simple discovery can make you cry, vomit, and sometimes dysfunctional for days.

Ordinary no longer exists in your life. Orinary is relgated to others. 

I know my life is changing and growing but will never be the same even with my new found happiness.  But you know what…that is okay.  At least I am living a life.  I have Jim and I love him.  That is a small miralce in itself….So talk to me.  I want to hear from you all.

 

Ric