All I'm Left With

All I’m left with is my life of routines and rituals. My stupid self-care habits and chores, eyedrops, eyelid scrubs, herbal supplements, exercise and activity, mandatory walks, housecleaning, pet feeding, flower watering and lawn mowing. And TV shows and movies.

Yeah, it’s a pretty fluffy hell, but imagine no emotions, just routines. Endless routines. And hours to fill. Choices to be made. Path A or path B, neither one leading to a real sense of fulfillment, just different ways to waste time. The things that mark time are the things that break, rot or fall apart and die. The things that end.

Even my TV shows and movies are just temporary distractions. They end. The next thing needs to be done. Brush my teeth. Go outside. It’s Sunday, so no mail to be checked. Check Facebook. For what, I dunno. Habit. I am on strike, refusing to like anything, even if I do like it. Have to keep up my image of the pouting sufferer.

I still have my grief, but I wonder if I lose that too, what will be left of me? This disappearing act is frightening. I’m a Cheshire grumpy cat and all that will be left will be my frown. Until that too, disappears. I’ll still have my self-criticism and doubt, I suppose. Of all the things I’ll probably never give up, I’ll hold onto these useless traits even after I’m dead, if that’s possible.

I can’t be sure that I will get away from myself by committing suicide. I might wind up with all my bad traits hanging on into the afterlife, if that’s even a thing. So with infinite potential, I’ll be the everlasting procrastinator-slacker and I’ll just never get around to creating a decent heaven for myself. I’ll get stuck with the off-the-shelf hell version of existence that I currently reside in. Not quite bad enough to be damnation, but insidiously unfulfilling enough to not be heaven.

Just plain, old, boring me.

I'm going to import some older word docs that should have been in here or not

The dates may be off, but I'll try to put the original date on the top of each one.
I recently came across Sharon's blog from the 09-12 era. I can only say that it is way more toxic than mine, so she wins again. I can't even be the meanest, nastiest person in the relationship, although to read her stuff you'd think I was.

**I've found a way to integrate them by editing the "published on" date. I'm just trying to make the timeline more linear and less of an afterthought. 

I've Been Withdrawing

I have been absent on Facebook lately. I can’t say that I haven’t lurked, but I haven’t interacted or reacted or participated for a while now. I don’t want to keep going on about my present state of mind or my troubles. It is torturous just being me. I don’t want to infect anyone else with my negativity.

I’ve been here before, but it’s worse now. I used to always have at least one real person in this world who was here for me. One who actually knew me and cared about the little things that constituted our life together. Even though I was the caregiver, I feel like she actually cared more about me than I was even capable of. It came naturally to her, whereas I feel that I am missing an empathy gene or something.

I don’t share much on Facebook these days because I would rather people imagine a more favorable version of me. Any one from the past will do, the one you remember that made you want to even be my friend in the first place.  I want people to think of me as someone who is wiser or stronger than the miserably failing human being that I have become. I am not learning my lessons in life and am stuck in a rut of my own making.

I don’t share my feelings of weakness on Facebook because I don’t want to elicit the usual round of  “thinking of you” “so sorry for your loss” “prayers and hugs” “sending love your way” and the like. If anyone has sent them, they didn’t get here or maybe I just missed them, too subtle for my perception. I am pretty thick, so it’s possible. I need someone to throw a brick with the words “I love you, dummy” written on it and hit me in the head.  I know I would at least feel the brick.

The last eight years have taken me down quite a lot. I have lost my ability to feel joy. I don’t know that will ever get that back. I can say “I had fun” or “I enjoyed that” if I attempt to engage in some activity that is prescribed to make me happy, but they are just words. I experience pain, sorrow, loneliness, fear and the range of negative emotions in their rawest, purest form. But happiness and joy are just cardboard cutouts, unreal ideals to me.

I don’t share these things because I want people to think I’m better than this. That I’m not a self-indulgent, depressed person who is unable or unwilling to fix himself and get on board with life. Truthfully, I don’t want to move on. I just want to curl up and die and it’s not happening fast enough. I am too cowardly to hasten it by deliberately doing myself in, so nobody go calling the cops or anything. They’d most likely be of more assistance in actually hastening my demise by filling me with bullets for reaching in my pocket or failing to comply with some command.

I think of Sharon, how she clung to life and appreciated it even when it seemed everything had been taken away from her. For the last two days of her life all she could do was breathe in a panting, labored struggle. But she kept on for as long as she could because, why? I don’t know. Life wants to live? Then what would make me want to give up so easily? Am I just that unappreciative of everything that I have and the things that I can still do? I feel like I’m already dead inside or at least crippled to the point of non-recoverability.

I’m having a hard time convincing myself that anything I do is worthwhile. When Sharon was alive, I guess I had a purpose. If I did all the little things in a day that sustained her, I could say I was doing something meaningful. But see how that turned out? The end was inevitable, nothing could have kept it from happening eventually. So why does my life have to keep trudging onward? Can’t we just call it, already?

Light and love to the other side

RIP precious angel. I can't hear or see you anymore in this world. Light and love. I mean it. I want so much to know you are ok and still exist somewhere. This worked in the past. At least, I convinced myself it did. Please send a message back to me. Please, I'm missing you.

Checkmate vs Stalemate

It isn’t checkmate yet,

Although, a lot of moves are no longer possible.

Previously used tricks to get me back to a happy place,

Whether crutches or prescribed wisdom,

Just don’t have their effect,

Or worse, carry within them a worse problem than the original affliction.

Case in point:

I used to drink to dull the pain of my thoughts,

I did so in moderation, but it was an insidious addiction that always led to saturation.

It gave me health issues, which increased my level of depression.

I had relied on it for years, to the detriment of my liver and other previously unknown and

Underappreciated bodily systems.

So, after it got acute I had to quit.

Check.

I had other moves.

I had quit smoking weed for health reasons, too. A good case of
bronchopneumonia left

Me unable to ride my bike for a while.

Bike riding was my one satisfying joy at the time.

I could get good exercise, fresh air and eventually my mind would get
out the way of my

Having a good time.

So I made the choice to abandon my lifelong crutch, marijuana,
because it just made sense.

Now, an eye condition keeps me from enjoying much bike riding.

Or much of anything.

Check.

The weed also exacerbates this condition.

Check.

As does watching too much TV,
Eating too much comfort food,
Cleaning my filthy house,
Getting too much sun, or humidty.

Check. Check. Check. Check. Check.

I’m running out of moves.

I am doing a lateral crab dance with death.

If I do nothing, I’ll deteriorate and he’ll win.

If I do the wrong types of things, like, umm, everything I’ve tried
up to this point,

I’ll go down one of many paths which have levels of suffering
which make them very

Unpromising, to say the least.

So, I do a little of this, a tiny bit of that.

And I think of my dying wife every day.

She ran out of moves.

And she was the consummate advocate of playing the game
until the end.

When we would play Monopoly, I could always see the point
in the game where it was

A tedious, unwinnable torture.

Not her.

I saw her lose the longest, most torturous game a person could
ever conceive of.

She had everything stripped away from her that she loved.

And in the end she clung to only breathing.

For two days. Just breathing.

And she didn’t want to give that up.

But she had to, because she was out of moves.

I’m not there yet.

It’s a stalemate, and I see already that I can’t win.

And the game is soured because of that.

What Do I Do?

“What do I do?”

It was one of the last things she said to me.

When it began to sink in how sick she actually was.

“I’m really sick, aren’t I?”

“Oh, now you tell me?” I tried to feign sarcasm.

“What do I do?”

“Honey, you have to get those antibiotics in you. And fluid. And nutrition.”

“Ok,” she said but was not able to do it.

She couldn’t bounce back.

And I can’t accept that she’s now gone forever.

And I’m not bouncing back, either.

What do I do?

All my friends and family don’t really get it.

Their prescriptions don’t work.

Grieve. Don’t grieve. Think about her. Don’t think about her.

Think positive things.

Do positive things.

Get out and get some exercise.

Play music.

Write down your pain. That’s a good one. I’m building a time capsule of misery.

I’ve revisited some of my past time capsules and don’t find them too refreshing.

Make new friends.

Spend time with family.

Hug your pets.

Help someone else who is hurting.

None of these things are getting to the point.

I have a big hole in my heart and I can try to patch it or plug it or sew it back together,

But it is not bouncing back,

Nor do I really want it to.

I feel like my work is done,

And all I’m doing now is watching the rest of my life slip away.

I wish I could feel better,

It’s what everyone says she would want.

For me to keep going,

Not forget, but move forward,

Honor her memory by not fucking up the rest of my life with torturing myself.

But what do I do?

If I hear birds singing I think,

“The birds are really going to town” is what she always said.

And it made me cry then because she could hear the birds, but couldn’t see them.

Or go outside.

Or do anything.

But she could appreciate that simple thing and observe it cheerily.

And all it does is make me cry,

Rivers of sweet tears.

I’ll never forget.

I don’t want to.

When Sharon Was Alive ‎

When Sharon was alive, all I could think about was how I was being kept prisoner by her illness.

How one day, when she finally died, I would be free.

I would pursue all my dreams that were so out of reach due to my being a caregiver.

I thought, “I’ll finally be able to go places, do things and I will never waste another minute sitting around this house.”

Yeah, and now that she’s gone,

All those dreams have evaporated.

And all I want to do is lay there in bed,

And watch golf on a Saturday.

And Sunday.

When I was working, I thought, “If only I didn’t have to work, I’d get so much more accomplished around the house.”

“I’ll be a better caregiver and housekeeper.”

“I’ll focus my energy on taking care of things here and have time left over to pursue my hobbies, like music, bike riding, gardening…whatever I like. I’ll have time.”

Now, with no job and no Sharon to take care of, it’s just me.

And I have no dreams left to pursue and I just can’t make myself care about much around here.

It all seems so pointless.

Just want to watch golf.

And sleep.

But my eyes are plaguing me.

The left one, mainly.

And sleep is even hard for me to get much of these days.

Not for lack of trying, but because I have to wake up and put eyedrops in my eyes after a couple of hours.

I am thinking now, “Maybe when I’m dead, I won’t have this or that problem to deal with and I can finally be free.”

But will I be?

Not if I’m still me.

No Answers

For as long as I can remember, I have thought that, ultimately, there were objective Answers, even  to the questions that my mind had yet to form.

Questions about life and death, truth and fantasy, who we are, why we’re here,

What meaning does it all have?

Is there a God? Is there an afterlife? Heaven and hell? Reincarnation?

Is the world of matter and physically observable reality all that exists?

Surely, there are firm truths that can cut through the myths, separating actual facts from

Made up stories.

But I’m not so sure about that anymore.

I’m leaning toward the notion that all is fiction.

Stories we tell ourselves to give us a sense of purpose, place and identity.

Events happen, we describe them and give them their form.

Consciousness is a bitch.

I wish I could experience life without it for a moment,

See if it would be better.

But then, how would I know?

TV Was On ‎

I left the TV on when I went out today.

Big mistake.

So, when I came home I heard the sound coming from the bedroom,

And, of course, it reminded me of you.

And I thought, oh, how I wished,

That I could just turn the TV on and you would be back,

Just like that.

But you weren’t there.

It was just another mirage,

Another memory that made me cry.

Not that I wasn’t planning to do that anyway.

I Can't ‎Saturday

I can’t stop this business of making myself cry daily.

I should say, I don’t want to stop it.

I don’t want to be hardened and tough and resilient and bounce back  to what’s next for me.

 

I can’t see what’s next, I can only see backward.

And backward has all the memories and the sweet pain of my  sad, sad story. Sadder today than it was when it happened, because I control the edit, the focus and the resolution.

 

A parent shouldn’t outlive their children, isn’t that what they say? I keep seeing things, all kinds of things, and I think, “I just bought that—for Sharon.” A person shouldn’t be outlived by a frozen pizza or some bag of  crappy burritos or tater tots. A person, for God’s sake, wrapped up and hauled away to be disposed of. 

 

How could I have been so cruel, not to treasure her, whatever her condition, for her essence? I was blinded by my own self-pity and forgot everything that was important in life, if I ever knew it to begin with.

 

I’m crying for her not being here, but is it for me that I do this? Am I trying to convince myself I’m a good person who misses his wife? Am I trying to cement my role as the sufferer in this world, so I can  opt out of everything else?

 

I feel lost and unmotivated, except to cry.

Yesterday's Problems

I can’t trade yesterday’s problems for today’s.

But if I could, and it would bring you back, I would.

If  I could have another chance to talk to you again,

Another chance to be kind instead of impatient,

Then I would go back with my eyes open and not full of tears,

And kiss you and tell you nice things,

And make sure you knew for sure,

How much you meant to me.

I never really knew just how much,

Until the days grew shorter and there was no time left,

For grand gestures, or even small ones.

I treated our lives like a dreary movie that I just wanted to be over,

Never realizing that over is over, and I’d have no one to even talk to

About how much I hated the movie.

But I didn’t have to hate it, I could have seen more clearly,

And I would have seen the beauty and precision of everything.

I still don’t see it, and if I ever do, who will I tell it to?

Since I don’t have you.