Wearing My Years Like an Old Carhartt Jacket

For quite some time I have framed getting older through the deterioration of my body.  The stiffness, the soreness, the slower recovery, and lack of stamina.  I realized on my recent beach time something else about growing older.  Not everyone gets the opportunity to do so,  and bitching about this malady or that one is probably focusing on the wrong bits.  The world spins fast, faster than we want it to most days.  But we keep chasing the things we think are important.  Y’all, not everything needs chasing, there is meaning in the mundane parts of the day to day of our lives.

I am starting to see part of me more clearly than I used to, and I thought I saw it all.  Some of it stuck, some of it didn’t, and some was just noise I carried around longer than I needed to.  I feel like I need to start wearing my years a little more these days.  Not like a weight or burden, but like something that finally fits.  Kinda like that old Carhartt jacket Bride bought for me a hundred years ago.

We often played the game of talking about what we’d be doing had we never met.  Kinda like making up stories about other people when we were people watching, only with our own lives.  That game always made me realize the beauty in the things I missed.  The roads I did not take, the decisions I did not make, they all led to a life that never happened, and I was glad they didn’t.  Playing that game cemented for both of us that a completely random set of lived experiences led us to each other, and we would not trade any of the pain of the journey, because the journey led us to us.

Key bits of our lives, especially the mundane, drive our journey, and so do the big things.  Sometimes it’s the smallest, dumbest moments that end up mattering the most.  For example, had either one of us not ended up in the Navy, our paths would have never crossed.  For me, I skipped school that day in 1982 when I was a junior in high school.  Me and a couple of my buddies were sitting in the front yard smoking pot and drinking Old English 800 through a straw.  Up pulled a little K-car with “US Government” stenciled on the side.  Turns out he was lost and asked how to get to Springfield from here.  My drunk and stoned dumbass said “ya can’t get there from here”.  He jumped out, I thought I was about to get my ass kicked but instead I got talked into joining up.  How fucking random is that?

For Bride, the most courageous woman I have ever met, at the age of 28 she decided the best way to detox from cocaine was to join up and detox in boot camp.  First of all, going to boot camp is hard at any age, but doing it at 28 is really hard.  Layer on detoxing at the same time, holy shitballs Batman, that is courage and perseverance in action.  That is how she lived her whole life though, so looking at it now all I can say is “of course that’s how she detoxed”, there could be no other way for her.  And sometimes I have to stop right there and think about what kind of courage looks like over a lifetime, it was quintessentially her.  And somehow those two random things, 4 years apart, are what allowed us to meet.  That is just nuts.  

That younger version of me still shows up sometimes, cocky and filled with false confidence.  Maybe it was reckless hope, cocksure when I had no cred to back it up.  It’s funny to think back on that kid, and later the man I became.  He still shows up sometimes with his bullshit.  I still listen to him, but I don’t let him drive anymore, mostly cause he was a dumbass.  Don’t get me wrong, I am forever grateful he was the dumbass he was, it led to a life well lived with the most amazing woman ever.  

Time hasn’t taken anything from me, not really.  Not in the ways that matter most.  Time, it’s been refining me.  Softening the edges, slowing me down just enough to finally see clearly.  Finding peace in those places I never stopped in, or simply walked on by on my way to somewhere else.  There was a time when I didn’t know myself nearly as well as I thought I did, I guess that is probably still true now.

My Beautiful Bride saw the loud parts, and the quiet ones.  She said to me on more than one occasion she wished she could know that younger and wilder version of me.  She also appreciated the man I was, the confident version of me and the one still trying to figure my shit out and she was always there to help.  She knew me better than I knew myself, and rest assured better than anyone else knew me, and somehow that never felt like a bad thing.

Ya start to realize something after living a bit of life.  Looking back, it lines up in ways I didn’t see while I was in it. The mess, the dumb decisions, the wrong turns, they all ended up pointing me to here and I would not trade a moment of it.

And yeah, there’s a price that comes with understanding all that.  When you’ve been known the way I was known, when someone really saw you, all of you, and stayed anyway… that does not just disappear, it sticks around.  It shows up at the oddest times, middle of the day, nothing special happening, and it just hits.  Not as loud, not quite as overwhelming, just this quiet steady knowing that we had something real.  

It’s different now, but not gone.  Not really. 

And here is what took me a bit to understand in the fog of grief, our love story doesn’t empty me out.  It fills my heart with love and warmth, even with her absence and I like that. 

New rule, Smitty is going to be wasting a lot less time on things that don’t matter.  Just don’t have the energy or desire to do it anymore.

She was a hottie in white polyester.  She was receiving her Navy Achievement Medal here. 

Turned Up Too Loud

So, I flew back home to Lincoln Friday, and I have been struggling with a lot of different feels.  Some tied to that, others just showing up like they got something to say.   That’s probably not random at all.  Just part of the process.  Either way, they are here and they are loud.  This is by far the most intense the feels have felt since my Beautiful Bride passed.  Today, everything got cranked up to 11, I’m old and don’t like music that loud anymore.

I want to say this first, I felt incredibly supported and loved over those two weeks.  The kind of love and support that only old friends can give.  Some of these folks go back to the early 90’s, Navy days.  I remember their kids being born, and now those kids are grown ass adults.  One day we were smoking ribs, hanging out and I had to go sit on another room.  Just overwhelmed from sharing space with so many folks I love. 

Sharing space like that, chosen family all in one place, is something I haven’t found yet in Lincoln.  And this time it hit different, because it was just me.  No Beautiful Bride.  She was always the life of the party at those sorts of events and that showed up hard.  She loved a great party.  Always quick with a story, or even quicker with the most amazing laugh when other stories were told.  It just felt weird and I feel lonely in a way I hadn’t felt before.   

That led something I wasn’t expecting, guilt.  Which is weird because I don’t really feel guilt, never have, and she figured that out early.  Guilt is an emotion I don’t have much experience with, so it is hitting harder and sticking around longer than other ones I have been cycling through since her death.  I caught myself feeling weird about how long it took for it to show up this strong.

I know grief is a fickle bitch, but I was not expecting it to show up and punch as hard as it has.  It is almost like it picked the one emotion I have the least experience with and decided that was my weak point.  This isn’t to say this hasn’t been hard.  I am only saying I have more experience processing almost every other emotion or feeling.  So maybe it is just an opportunity to practice, which pissed me off because I don’t want to practice on that one, I have lived the better part of my life not feeling guilt and I am not sure I want to start now. 

I also started feeling some guilt about these blog posts.  So much about me and not about her.  Seems silly to think about but that is what is going on in my head.  And one thing I have learned through my time on the journey, we cannot control how we feel.  Best we can do is control our reaction to those feelings.  I also felt a bit of guilt about writing so much about how I am feeling, it sorta feels like I am wallowing around in it.  Intellectual Smitty knows that is not the case, but emotional Smitty ain’t so sure right now.  I know this is part of the process but damn it Jim, I am not a guilt dude!

It’s a funny thing, our feelings and the emotions that are connected to them.  In my brain, the intellectual part, I know this is part of this journey.  The emotional side of my brain cares little, that dichotomy is a cruel joke the universe plays.  It isn’t just grief either, it has been around for a long time, at least with me.  Like guilt I guess, it is the universe saying here is something to test you, to test your mettle.  Like all things in life, we get the test first and the lesson later.  Seems backwards to what it oughta be but that’s what it is, at least for me.

Aside from the guilt bit, I also came away with an awful lot of uncertainty about what the next chapter is.  I am super fortunate to be in a position that I can really do anything I want to, well within reason.  I just don’t know what it wants to be yet and if I follow the lessons from the rest of my life, the universe will put something in front of me when its time.  In some ways I just wanna get on with it, and in others I know forcing things never produces good outcomes, at least in my lived experiences.  So, in addition to everything else that seems to be swirling around me, there is that quandary too.

Whether I like it or not, this thing does not come in a straight line.  That whole turned it up to 11 feeling, as much as I hate it, it doesn’t feel like going backwards as much as it does something new showing up.  It might just be the next layer deciding it’s time for you to deal with me now.  This seems to be the part where it stops being something I understand in my head and turns into something I must feel and experience.

Being around folks, folks who knew us when we were all still trying to figure life out, that was different.  It wasn’t just missing her, it was missing us.  Who we were together in those spaces.  That version of me is still in there somewhere, but it is just off balance and unable to get firm footing.  It’s kinda feels like I’m carrying half of something that used to be whole, and I just don’t know what to do with that.  And that uncertainty sits heavy on me.  I know this next chapter, whenever it arrives, will probably have something to do with figuring out how to hold onto that part of us without getting stuck in it.  All that while I am also learning how to be half of what I once was.

And maybe, even the parts I don’t like, especially the guilt, aren’t wrong.  I don’t have to like all the parts, but I also don’t think any of them are mistakes.  They are just part of the system that is Smitty trying to reset after the most massive overhaul to date.  I damn sure don’t feel ready for any of it, I don’t even like the test first, lesson later arrangement, never have.  But most likely this isn’t about doing it right or even doing it fast.  Maybe just doing the dang thing is the thing to do, whatever the hell the dang thing is.  That intellectual side of my brain knows this, the emotion side… yeah, that bastard is still telling me something very different.  Damn it.

And I keep coming back to the same thought.  It’s not just that she is gone.  It’s that the version of me that existed with her does not have a place to stand anymore.  And I don’t think I know how to build that footing back yet.  At some point I am guessing this settles down a bit.  Or maybe I just get a little better at carrying it.  Either way, today wore me slap out.  So yeah, everything still feels turned up too loud.  And the knob just spins when I try to turn it down. 

Two Pretty Damn Amazing Weeks

Well I just got a text letting me know my departure from Jacksonville to Chicago has been delayed.  It appears I still have an hour and 21 minutes  between gates in Chicago for my Lincoln flight.  So I decided I might try to type out a quick Oratory.  I am now at JAX waiting departure so I thought I would finish this one. 

So today I head back home from spending 2 weeks in Jacksonville Florida.  I was completely unplugged from everything, work, house, bills, and most of all my puppy, Handsome Petey Kabuki McPants McGillicuddy, more commonly referred to as Larry O.  From all appearances, he has enjoyed himself.  His tail was pointing up every time I watched, and that I know means he is happy.  Plus, he had extra cuddle time, that was a great upsell at drop off.  I am looking forward to scooping up the butt dart from the border and loving on him.  I have watched him playing every day, their camera system could you some work, I think I will suggest a trade of my expertise for boarding days. 

I shared space and a lot of meals with a lot of chosen families on my trip.  I went to have a meal with folks at places we always went to when we lived here.  Well, except Lubi’s, Bride could not stand a loose meat sandwich.  They were probably heart attacks on bun but damnnnnnn, they are good.  I shared three home cooked meals as well, and they were equally yummy. 

I watched the sunrise every morning, one of them was in Ocala and the rest were at the beach.  I love sunrise, but boy watching in a chair in the surf at the ocean is something everyone should do at least once in their lives.  I just wish I wasn’t learning how to love it again without her.  I remember back in the day a great friend of mine came down here to Florida from Ohio and we went to sunrise as his first time seeing the ocean – it was magnificent and a gift to me to watch someone see that for the first time.  Coincidently, my Niece and her family were also vacationing here so I got a sunrise with her and got to spend some time with her family.

Jacksonville is very much different and very much the same, it just does not feel like home anymore.  I’ve  always said home is where I hand my hat, but it turns out that wasn’t quite right.  Home was wherever she was.  That is what Smithlandia really meant.  All but the three hats I brought with me are still in Lincoln, and I have hundreds and that collection started all the way back to high school.  And yes, since the Beach Diner is closing, I bought one of their hats.

I got to hug a lot of necks, and that was very much needed.  There is something special about that kinda hug, the kind where nobody is really saying anything, and yet everything is being said.  Some of them held on a little longer than normal, and we both knew why.  Because for a few seconds, it filled a space that has been too damn quiet, for both of the of us. 

While I saw a lot of people, I also had a lot of alone time, that was good and bad.  Still writing down three things every morning looking for forward momentum.   Some days its three steps forward, and then, in the same day, its two more backwards.  And every morning I’m still waking up to world she is not in anymore, left wondering how that’s even real.

Overall I have moved forward but the pace is spotty.  And that is the new norm so that is just OK.  I am glad I sprinkled a few ashes as well, while not closure it did feel a bit like adding a period at the end of a sentence.  Problem was, I was not ready for the sentence to end.  I just sat there for a bit after.  It was nice to have that time when I was out of my element.  No constant reminders, no work things, no house things, no dog things, just me, myself and I.

And now for an abrupt topic change, I rented a Hyundai Sonata, it was a hybrid and I kinda liked it.  Well, I liked the efficiency and tech.  Over the two week period I put gas in it twice, and the overall average for my two weeks was 44.7 MPG, which is a hell of lot better than my truck.  Not enough to make me switch yet, but it got my attention.  The tech package was pretty impressive as well, lane drift protection, adaptive cruise, and self steering, although I turned that off after just a minute or two.  The only thing I did not like about it was it was low to ground, I’m old and fat so…  and the drivers compartment was crowded, see aforementioned note on being fat and old.

So I will be back in Lincoln tonight, and will pick up Larry in the morning, after his bath and nail trim and other pampering.  Fingers crossed the two flights are uneventful.

So I Stay, and I Keep Reading

I keep reminding myself that this is going to work out, that Smitty is going to be OK.  Even though there are days when it just doesn’t feel like it.  Maybe days is stretching it at this point.  Maybe it’s hours, or minutes or moments where it just seems overwhelming to me.  I also remind myself that I will not have the dynamic duo I had for so long.  The we, the us, and the they are gone.  I  am now just the me, the he, and the I.  It still feels weird to be using those tenses, and I stumble over them all the time.  I guess that will be the norm for a while, maybe forever and I don’t even mind anymore, small reminders of who we were together.

I know this is not my forever, this is a chapter and thank goodness chapters come to an end and a new one begins, that is the way of things in the world.  If I span across the whole journey, this chapter is the one I like the least.  It has been the most difficult, I think because I was so used to having a partner in the game.  Someone who would listen, encourage, support and love me, just like I did for her.  It feels a little isolating to be thinking about this and working my way through it without her, I miss her wisdom in moments like these.

I still have to fight the urge to treat this moment like the whole story.  It feels so large and heavy that it is sometimes hard to see over or around it and recognize that this is just a chapter in a much larger story.  The story we created was simply amazing by any standard.  I knew that and so did she, but I don’t think I understood the magnitude of how amazing we were together.  Spending a couple of weeks here in Florida, surrounded by chosen family, has been a great reminder of that, and I am grateful for each of those reminders, spoken and implied.

Somewhere out there, there is a version of me who made it through all of this.  In some ways I wish I could time travel forward to that dude.  Other times that feels like cheating.  I don’t really know how to explain that part.  I just know it hits wrong.  I just know there is something about skipping ahead that feels wrong, like I’d be missing some ugly part that was necessary to help me become whoever I am supposed to be after this chapter.  I don’t like that, not even a little.  But I also know I don’t get to only read the good parts the story.  So, I will keep moving through the pages, wherever the story goes and however difficult to read, until I get to that future me, who will have been forged into that future me by the journey itself. 

Realizing I’m no longer the one writing this story is really messing with my head.  It is disorienting in a way that does not make sense to me, her absence just turns up the volume on all of it.  It’s like the whole thing gets louder when I try to make sense of it.  I feel like most of that comes down to how badly we want to believe we are in control, like if we just try hard enough or think clearly enough, we can simply negotiate with the page to say something different.  But that ain’t how this works, not really.  Letting go and just being feels wrong, almost like I am violating some of the base code I am programmed with.  Every thing in me wants to push back, rewrite a few lines of code, to do something other than just sitting with it.  Submitting to the page I’m actually on is hard.  Real hard.  It feels very much in conflict with my fight or flight instincts, the ones that have been baked into our DNA since before we made it to the top of the food chain.  All I have is how I show up for the page in front of me, even when showing up sometimes feels like the hardest thing I have ever had to do. 

I don’t like this chapter.  I would not have chosen it in a million years.  It kinda like in book club having to read a book that ya don’t like.  You read it anyway, out of respect for the one who selected it.  This is the book that has been selected for me, and not reading it is not an option, that would be disrespectful of Beautiful Brides memory.  So here I am, slogging away, slower than I want to be moving and this book appears to have a lot of pages to turn.  Some days I make progress, other days I have to go back and reread the shit I didn’t like the first time I read it.  I just keep showing up, and that counts! 

Somewhere in the middle of all of this, I found myself on the same beach where we said our vows again at 20 years in.  Sunrise, the same kind of quiet, the same sounds of the ocean doing its thing.  Only this time it was just me, well technically just me.  I had carried her there and did the only thing  I knew how to do, I let her go into the place we loved.  I don’t know if there are words for that moment that actually do it justice, I had nothing but tears then, and now as I type this.  It did not feel like closure.  It did not fix anything.  But it felt right, the kind of right that comes with absolute certainty.  It felt like one small way to honor the story we had, in a place that knew us well when we were still a we.   I stayed long enough to feel it.  Then I walked away without really knowing how to feel about it.  

Somewhere out there is a version of me who has already read the whole book and knows how it ends.  I don’t get to flip ahead to that part though, I have to read it the way it’s written, page by agonizing page.  Regardless of how many times I reread a page, I am just trying to make it all make sense.  Not every page lands, not every chapter is fair, and it’s still my book to read.  Fair, that reminds me of something she used to say, fair is what ya pay to get on a bus and where ya go to get a funnel cake or corndog.  So I will just keep turning pages, trusting that something will shift along the way and trusting that when I finally reach the end of this chapter, I will understand why I had to read it in the first place.  So I stay, and I keep reading.

The Contacts you Never Delete

So, a couple of months in and I have not yet turned off Bride’s phone, and I am not sure when I will.  We shifted to consumer cellular a couple of years ago and it is only about 20 bucks a month to keep it active so...  We both have the same code to get into our phones and iPads.  I had never looked in her phone before she passed, and I don’t think she ever looked in mine, even though we both had the codes.  I have been checking her phone daily for calls, voicemails, text messages, Amazon activities and any other form of communications looking for anything that needed attention.  There have been a few things that needed to be addressed in those first few weeks but nothing lately.

We had recently replaced her phone with the latest iPhone Max, the big one, the $1,500 one.   Before that, her phone was older than mine, an iPhone 7 from around 2017 or so I think.  We both hang on to them until they started giving us problems, so we always tried to get the newest thing they had out.  I have the Galaxie Note 20 Ultra that I got in 2020 and I’m on my second Otter Box case.  It still answers phone calls and texts along with email, when I feel like using it for that.  I have looked through her pics and email and what not, mostly because I saw the .99 cent charge for cloud storage come in.  I am working on getting that stuff moved off her account so I can at least stop paying that 99 cents a month for storage.  

Along those lines, this morning I was reviewing her contacts to see if I needed to transfer any of those to my contacts.  I found some and sent them over to me.  One thing I was not really prepared for was finding contact info on friends no longer with us.  My Mom and Dad were there, as was Debbie, Carol, and a couple of others.  That one stopped me for a moment, and pushed me to look through my contacts to find who all I still have in there.  It was too many, and now Bride sits on the top of that list, and that fucking sucks.  So do Lyndon and Alison, my two oldest friends.  I met Alison when I was 4 and Lyndon when I was 5, she died in 2013 and he died in 2015 and I still miss them both.  If you type in Mom, Dad, Lyndon, or Alison in the little search box up in the top left corner you can read some words I wrote about them.

There was Grady, and Cary, two friends who decided this life wound up to be too hard.  I was mad at both of them for a long time, but I think with age I have learned to accept that was the choice they made.  My Mom and Dad are still in there.  There is Bob, Bishop and Brian.  Chris,  Debbie, and Don.  Doug, Eric, and Jimmy.  Ken, Larry, and Mark.  Michael, Pat, and Peter.  Randy, Roy, and Russ.  Tim, Tracy, and Wayne.

Twenty eight names in total, just sitting there in my contacts.  People that I have simply kept their contact info in my phone, even though some have been gone for decades.  It was funny because at least a few I must have transferred their contact information from an address book.  For those younger folks, that was a cardboard bound binder with places where we put people’s names, phone numbers and addresses, along with any other pertinent information.  I always picked green ones, although I cannot recall why now but there must have been a reason.

That’s when it stopped feeling like just a list. A contact list isn’t just for finding folks, it’s also an archive of the ones who shaped our lives.  Keeping someone in our contacts feels like a small act of defiance.  Kinda like we’re just not willing to let them disappear.  We spend years, in some cases a lifetime, building connections to those who end up being in our circle of humans.  We used to memorize the numbers of those closest to us, for example, I recall Lyndon’s number when we were kids being 513.663.6382. 

Now when their name pops up on our device with a text or call, we associate it with a voice, a laugh, or some memory and our heart does a little dance, especially if we have not heard from them in a while.  Deleting that name can feel like collapsing all of that history into a single, final button mash.  Leaving it in there lets the relationship breathe, exist in a different state, not active, but not erased either.  Just different.

It lines up with how memory actually works, at least for me.  Grief is not linear, and connection isn’t either.  Some days I don’t even think about them at all, other days their name pops up unexpectedly via some random trigger.  When they pop up, it can bring back a flood of memories I didn’t even realize I was carrying.  Seeing their contact does not anchor me in the past, it just keeps the electronic door open for me.  Not to stay there, but to revisit from time to time, long enough to share a laugh or even a cry with them, like what happened to me as I looked through it today.  The relationship changes, it goes from talking to them to pondering about them. 

There is something real about how our contacts list keeps growing while some of those names will never be called again, a pretty stark reality for a “contact” list.  Life keeps adding chapters but does not delete the old chapters.  Those old chapters just take on a different weight.  It almost becomes a map of all the intersections in our lives, showing where we met that first friend and how the list grew from there.  The map is also marked with the moments in time and place where folks got off our ride.  Keeping them in there acknowledges that those relationships did not end in importance to us, they ended because they ended in time.

Maybe most of all, it’s about control in a moment where so much feels out of our control.  Choosing not to delete a name is a deliberate act, as is deleting one.  I don’t think it’s denial at all, I think it is more about choosing what stays.  It is a decision they still belong in our world, even if the way they exist in it has changed.  Their name sitting there when ya scroll, as hard as it might be, shows how much that particular human meant to us when they were here.

Maybe there is a right time to remove someone, and for me I guess I learned that time is never going to be right.  Keeping them in there isn’t about reaching out, it’s just not being ready to let them go.  Who do you have in your contacts?

This is Bride's phone

Where the Ocean Takes Over the Quiet

Turns out there were a couple of things that I seem to have forgotten about sunrise at the ocean.  Maybe not as much forgot but maybe things I simply had taken for granted since I have experienced them so many times.  Either way, 55 days into my new chapter, I wanted to share some words about the ocean that I somehow had missed.  The first is that transition from the world to the beach that happens on the walk from the car to the ocean.  This stretch of ocean is not new to me, I have taken this walk more times than I can count over the 25 years Bride and I lived here, but it does not feel the same now.  

When I get out of my car, the sounds of the world exist.  Rumbling of cars driving around, the hum of air conditioners, the honking of horns, or maybe the screaming of a siren.  The pitter patter of runners, joggers and walkers and occasionally the dude who asks ya for a few bucks.  There is like a 50 foot stretch on the walk to the ocean in which the sounds of the world start to die down. They are slowly being drowned out by the sound of the ocean. 

I love that transition almost as much as the sunrise.  In those few feet, the transition is also working on my mind, my mood, and I slowly transition to the anticipation of seeing my old friend, the Atlantic.  The drowning out of the day to day of things, and the roaring up of the ocean.  It is almost like two dimmer switches operating in tandem, one going down and the other going up in perfect synchronicity.  Like an emergency generator slewing its phase to  that of the power grid before seamlessly switching back when power is restored.  I had forgotten how much I loved that short bit of the walk.

The spot I went this morning had a huge tidal pool between me and the ocean.  They are funny, and I have no idea how they form.  I am sure the google could answer that for me but sometimes I simply don’t need to know.  Sometimes they are inches deep, other times feet deep.  Today was about 18 inches, almost getting my cargo shorts wet as I walked through.  They are also very cold, I guess that is more from the overnight and the lack of connection to the warm water of the ocean.  The contrast hits harder than I remember. 

It is similar to the feeling of the sand in the morning after a rain.  The sand is cold and  mostly hardened, not the dry warm sand of the day.  I had also forgotten what a natural abrasive the beach can be.  A daily walk on the beach would not doubt save folks thousands of dollars of grinding and polishing our heels and feet before pedicures, which I am getting another one of while I am here.    

Even in winter the water here is always pretty warm, a product of the gulf stream zipping by no doubt.  The first day I was here I sat up on the dry sand, I didn’t even have a towel yet.  I resolved that by immediately buying a folding chair, like the ones at a tailgating party.  I also bought a beach towel, just in case.  Sunday and today I sat in that chair in the surf, both days the tide was coming in.  Generally I would wait until the water was deep enough to hit my butt before sliding back a bit.  Not wanting to be soaking wet, I slid back when it got half way up my calf.

There is absolute relentlessness to the tides, on the way in, it churns pebbles, sea shells and coral into sand.  On the way out, dragging seaweed, kelp and shit dumbasses leave on the beach back into the ocean.  A constant cleansing, grinding up of what was and a renewal of the beach itself by depositing new life.  And the rats with wings keeping all that in balance, I watched this morning as one snatched a small crab up and ate it.

I was surprised how different the transition from the noise of the world to the sound of the ocean hit on these first couple of days.  This beach holds more than sand and ocean for me.  Bride and I actually got remarried here at 20 years in.  There are a lot of memories here for me.  Ya can’t spend that long in a place without it holding pieces of life that ya can’t quite set down.  It was a reminder that the world has not slowed down a bit.  People are still driving too fast, worrying about meaningless things, going to meetings that feel important in the moment, and seem irrelevant five minutes later. 

And I am still in it, doing the dang things that just feel different now.  But somewhere in that walk, there is a subtle shift.  The noise fades just enough, just enough for me to actually feel what’s hidden there.  It’s not louder, just clearer.  Grief has not really shown up for me when everything is loud.  It shows up in that 50 foot window, when things finally get quiet enough that I can’t avoid it. 

And what I am realizing is that I can’t live in either place all the time.  The noise lets me function in the world, and the quiet allows the space to feel all the feels.  That short walk is where both exist at the same time.  It feels like the closest to balancing all of this I have found so far.  Not fixing anything, not escaping anything, just learning how to move between the two in a way that might become manageable.  Kinda like my own two dimmer switches trying to stay in sync, even when the system underneath is rebelling against syncing up.

I also noticed how the tidal pool this morning felt a bit like my grief.  The tidal pools are disconnected from the whole, left behind as the tide goes back to its normal place.  Some are shallow, some are deeper than we expect in the dark, and they are always colder.  That cold hits hard and lingers as we wade through.  Sure, I could have probably walked around it, maybe even picked a different spot on the beach to avoid it, but sooner or later you just have to step on in, without overthinking it.  I don’t understand why some moments hit harder than others or why the water is colder in some areas than in others.  I don’t need a clear explanation for them, how they form or why they stick around or move, I simply accept that they do.

The abrasion bit, that one is real too.  The whole thing is wearing me down in slow, almost unnoticeable ways.  Or maybe not wearing me down as much as forming me into something new. Not anything catastrophic or all at once, just a constant knocking off of the edges and maybe even a bit of polishing.  The routines, the memories, and all the little mundane things that used to be automatic now seem to take more effort than before, all the history always popping in to remind me of my loss.  In some ways I know it’s not all bad, this is a part of the ride for all of us. 

That does not mean it does not suck, and it does not mean we don’t have to keep moving forward.  The friction some days feels like 36 grit on an angle grinder, just whacking away at it all.  Other days it feels like the methodicalness of 1600 grit on a whetstone with a chisel or block plane blade.  Not sure where beach sand lives on the grit scale but I know it is my favorite of grits.  Even walking on partially crushed up shells, I keep moving forward but I am aware of every step.   

The ocean does not rush it, and I am starting to see that I don’t need to either.  The dimmers are still there, one going up and the other going down, just not moving together the way they used to.  And ya know what, Im starting to think that’s not something I need to fix.  Maybe I just need to keep writing my three things, keep taking that walk, and let it find its own rhythm. 

And, all of this sucks.

 

Today, It Feels Lighter

So we had the remembrance for Sandy yesterday, or maybe it was a celebration of life or maybe it was a service.  Whatever the official name, it was getting to say a few words in front of her Friends and Family, and four of her Siblings got that opportunity as well.  Having done it now I realize just how hard that can be, I am so proud of her siblings getting up and saying a few words about their Sister.  I am also VERY appreciative of them, and one of Sandy's friends from grade school, supporting me by being here. 

Then I got up, thanked the folks who have supported me at the funeral home and the Chaplain, as well as some words for the Navy folks who played taps and presented me a flag.  I said a few words of thanks for everyone who supported me through this and how I have been lifted up by so many amazing humans I have bumped into along the way.  I also shared my gratitude for the gift of getting to spend 38 years with my best friend. 

I also talked about refusing to be sad about any of it, Bride literally gave me the best part of my whole life.   And closed with some words about not having any idea what my next chapter looks like, and that I am certain the universe will lay it out for me when the time is right, it always has.  After that I alternated between telling my own funny stories and sharing those I collected.  I think the biggest revelation was hearing the origin story of her nickname Sam.  I never called her that but most in her family did.

It was hard to get there, I probably over anticipated that though because once I got to reading the funny stories it became easier and the further along I got the easier it got.  I also started to feel some of the burden of grief starting to ease up as well.  That was a pleasant surprise, and much welcomed.  When I was done speaking, the USN navy presented me with a flag.  I always get choked up at the playing of taps and watching the presentation of the flag.  This felt even more emotional because today I was accepting that flag as a symbol of the gratitude of the nation for her honorable and faithful service while taps was played.  It was a powerful emotional moment.

We wrapped up, some of the folks I work with came and I shared some words of appreciation for them coming, it was a bit of a blur as my brain was going 1,000 miles an hour.  Things I should have said, or something I should have said differently, a story I should have told and wondering if Sandy would have liked it.  One thing I should have said is a bit of the eulogy Jackie gave for Ned Devine, or Michael O’Sullivan and if you don’t get the reference, watch Waking Ned Devine.

It would have gone like this – The words that are spoken at a funeral are spoken too late for the person who is dead.  What a wonderful thing it would be to visit your own funeral.  To sit at the front and hear what was said, maybe say a few things yourself.   Sandy and I grew old together.  But at times, when we laughed, we grew young.  If she was here now, if she could hear what I say, I’d congratulate her on being a great woman and thank her for being my friend.  And we laughed A LOT!!!

We even laughed about maybe writing some words for our own funerals, eventually tried a couple of times but it seemed so weird.  Maybe I will do that now for me, haha, she’d think that was funny. 

When I got back home that evening, sharing space with her siblings and close friend, I started to feel a great wave of relief.  I liked it but it felt weird, a lightning of the load I was not expecting.  As the evening went along, I started feeling tired, almost exhausted.  I thought maybe because it was a day I stressed over, to the point of taking one of her Xanex on my way to the service.

I finally turned in, and I slept like a baby.  Not a single wake up to pee or even a roll over, I woke up in the exact position I was in when I laid down.  That was the first night I slept like a baby since April 20^th, my last night sleeping next to my Honey.  I woke up feeling lighter, feeling  well rested and ready for the day.  I have not woken up like that for a bit.  Not sure what any of that means but life feels a bit different today, and I fucking like it!

And maybe that is enough of an answer in this moment.  I don’t need to understand it, maybe just noticing it is enough.  The weight shifted and eased the load. the air feels a bit crisper and for the first time in a while it does not feel like I am bracing for what ever comes next.   Feels more like I’m figuring out how to carry this awkward load rather than being crushed by the weight of it.   I know I will still have days that hit me in the mouth, but today didn’t.  Today felt like a gift and I am grateful for it.

Ya know, if I am being honest, today feels like something she’d be happy about.  Not the hard, not any of the shit really but the idea that I am still getting my feet back under me, laughing a bit more, and even smiling a bit more, and trying to figure out how to be in this next version of life.  The more I sit with it the more it feels less like a moment and more like something inside me is recalibrating, to compensate for the changes, kinda like the adaptive correction circuit on TV transmitter exciter.  It ain’t fixed, but it does not feel as broken either.  And for now, that’s progress.  Not perfect, but ill take progress over perfection every damn time.

BTW, the recording of the service will be on the site tomorrow in case ya missed it. Sandra "Sandy" Smith - Roper and Sons  share a memory while your there as well.

The Ocean, Sunrise, Sunset and Doing the Hell out of Everything in Between

 I left Florida for Oregon on January 20^th 2015, or 4,156 days ago.  While I miss with all my heart the friends and chosen family I left behind, being so close to the ocean is a very close second.  My connection to the ocean began when I served in the Navy.  The immense power, the immense isolation, the immense size, are all deeply felt in my bones, something that was awakened in those early days as a Sailor.  Living close to the beach in Jacksonville was a blessing as I could go there pretty much any time I wanted, although I must admit most of my trips were bright and early.

My #1 Zen spot is sitting in a cheap plastic Adirondack chair with my feet in the sand, or ocean, and watching the sun come up.  #2 was the Ponder Porch looking down at Cedar Creek, or Smith River I liked to call it.  At the beach, it was actually that hour and a half before the actual time of sunrise.  That is when the show happens, the sunrise itself is somewhat anticlimactic.  I could not even begin to count the number of times I watched the sun come up on the beach.  It was pretty dang cool watching a sunrise from a ship in the middle of the Atlantic as well.

Sunrise for me is not about the moment the sun breaks the horizon.  It is about the long quiet negotiation between blackness and the daylight that happens before most are paying attention.   The sky trying on colors before it fully commits to what it will wear for the day.  It is felt before it is seen.  The air changes, the sounds of the pelicans and sandpipers start to grow.  It is the part of the day that does not ask anything of you.  No expectations, no scorecard, just possibilities in that short window of time.

Sunrise is not about a fresh start every day as much as it is permission from the universe to try again to be a better version of yourself.  Not a single win is ever guaranteed in a day.  But for me, watching the majesty of a sunrise is the win, my eyeballs popped open and I got to experience another one.  The sunrise is also a constant for me, a steady reminder that time keeps moving on, the earth continues to rotate through the days.  Regardless of whether we are ready for them or not and that in and of itself is a cherished gift.  No sunrise promises a good day, it only promises a chance to make one. 

Sunsets are much different for me, I love them as well.  Sunsets are more about an accountability check.  That moment where the day gets to ask me, what did ya do with me?  What difference did make with me?   Sunsets are where the noise dies down, and whatever is left is the truth of our day, and our lives.  Where our life’s intentions meet reality, a score card of sorts that hopefully leaves us with a smile that comes from meeting that day and doing the hell out of it.  Sometimes the scorecard leaves us uncomfortable, even a little dissatisfied with our day and a reminder to do better tomorrow.  And to make sure we are giving ourselves grace on those days we fall short.     

Sunsets are more a harsh critic, they do not care what I meant to do today.  They only see what I actually did today.  Sunsets are also a reminder that every amazing thing has an ending, they are predictable and just part of how the universe drives all of this.  One day at a time they say in lots of ways, I guess that is a silent reminder to let go in small increments, micro dosing our way along.  We don’t get to give permission for the day to end, it just does, every day just ends.  We can’t hold on to it, we only get to live inside each day while it’s here.  That is a reminder that every moment we have is truly a gift.

Watching a sunrise or sunset in the presence of the ocean just adds a massive layer to the experience, at least it does for me.  The ocean cares not about our plans, same as the sun cares little about our pace.  But together, they help give me a frame to measure myself against, and that is pure magic.  Sunrise reminds me I get a shot, sunset reminds me of how I did with that shot.  And the ocean, it just sits there reminding me how small I am and how small my problems are, and how damn fortunate I am to simply be playing the game.

I mentioned it had been 4,156 days since I left Florida.  That number sounds big, but most of those days, most all days really, blur together if I am honest.  What sticks are the ones where I actually showed up for them and made a difference.  And try to make sure I have more of those days than not.  That does not mean I was absent of sunrises.  I watched a great many of them over Mt. Hood, and various places around Oregon.  And I got to watch a great many sunsets over the pacific, but the lesson was never about where I was standing.  It was about whether I was paying attention to how the day began and how I finished it.   

I say all of that because I am excited to be heading to Florida next week for a 2 week break from all the things.  I am so looking forward to some beach sunrises and St. John’s River sunsets.  Some time to reflect on life, on where I am, on where I am going and what my next steps are.   And to sit with the ocean again, while it gives me that same reminder, the days are mine to live, they are not mine to keep, and that being part of the rhythm of the universe is a blessing and as good as it gets.

I am fortunate to be able to travel to Florida to sit with my old friend the Atlantic, sharing space with each other and listening for what might come next for me, whether I am ready for those answers or not.  And, of course I will get to hug the necks of friends I have missed for far too long. 

I Love Ya Damn it

Bride and I had lots of little things we did on purpose.  I have been thinking about some of those.  They say that a couple should never go to bed mad, I cannot recall any times we did, but I am sure there was a time or two.  One thing we did do, every time we parted ways, even for a quick run to the store, was to kiss each other and say “I love ya.”   It was just what ya did before ya walked out the door.  We said it again first thing in the morning, and again when we went to bed, I always kissed her in the morning and said Mornin Beautiful.

I always thought it funny when she’d ask, do you just say that now or do you mean it.  Funny because I knew no other way to be but in love with her.  It never felt like words we had to remember to say.  It was said with the simply act of making her coffee in the morning, putting way more cream in there than should ever be in there because I knew that is how she liked it.

I remember she entered a contest once that a Jacksonville TV station was doing leading up to Valentines day.  I wish I could find that note she submitted to demonstrate how much she loved me.  That was the contest, the morning news hosts would pick the best story of love from all the submissions.   The basic story was about making sure I had the best of anything, the example she used was coffee cups.  If we had two coffee cups and one had a chip in it, she would give me the unchipped cup and then she would take the cup with the chip in it.   Well, she won the contest which included a hotel on the beach for a weekend and a shit load of Peterbrooke chocolate goodies.  After that, I bought a new set of coffee cups.

Phone calls always ended the same way, I love ya or I love ya damn it.  Sometimes quick, sometimes dragged out a little bit just to be annoying.  When I spoke to her at 1:10pm on the day I lost her, she told me she was feeling puny and was going to lay down and take a nap.  Taking a nap when retired was nothing out of the ordinary.  The last words she heard me say were, I love ya damn it.  And she gave them right back to me, the last words I will ever hear her say were, I love ya damn it.

It was never about saying it for us.  It was all the small things done without even thinking about it.  It showed up in all the little nearly meaningless things we did to make each other smile, or make each other happy.  Like me randomly doing laundry.  Seems like that should be a split duty thing, but back in our first house we had to go outside through the carport to a very scary little room with our washer and dryer in it.

She made the mistake of telling me that if I could figure out a way to give her an indoor laundry room, I would never have to do laundry again.  Never was her word, not mine and I laughed, pulled out the saw, and chopped a hole from our dining room into what became an amazing laundry room.  We joked about that over the years, but she kept up her end of the deal, and was always very appreciative when I did do it. 

I sure do miss her.  I would trade every clean load of laundry just to hear one more I love ya damn it. 

Chapters with Missing Pages – Keeper of The Stories

Last night I was watching the sun go down on the back porch, just sitting with it all.  I had nothing else to do, nowhere to be, and just sat watching the sun go down.  In the stillness of that moment, I was reminded of my belief that life feels more like a train ride than anything else.  We get on, we start moving, and we really don’t know where the hell we are going or when we are getting off. 

We like to think we are in control of our lives, or even have a tiny ability to control the ride, but at the end of the day, we don’t.  I think that is the biggest missed opportunity in our lives, to get stuck thinking we do have some form or sort of control and operating under a false pretense the whole time. 

The universe spins on with a cosmic time clock, and it cares little about our brief time here as individuals.  Of course, the universe is using a cosmic clock that takes 13.8 billion years to spin around.  I find that perspective helpful, that we don’t matter in the grand scheme of things in relation to cosmic time.  I think that is a good thing for all of us to remember and ponder on every once in a while.

On our journey, I like to think of it as a train ride, we have people who join us on our ride, sharing a bit of the journey.  Some folks are only on for one stop, others a few stops, a precious few stay for years, and then there are those cherished few who ride along with us for decades.  Again, in the cosmic scheme of things, the odds are that number of cherished riders are always pretty small, I like to call them the one handers, because mostly you can count them on one hand.   The ones who when they call and need you, you go, period, and be with them. Like many did for me.

I also think each of us on our rides is playing out our own story, the story of our lives.  Or at least we are trying to play it out, the universe always has a say whether we like it or not.  So, at the end of the journey we have a book, full of chapters and hopefully full of adventures with all those who were on the train with us, regardless of how long. 

Our books hold our memories of those who rode with us, we are the keepers of all those memories.  We are also the keepers of our shared memories, as they are of ours.  When we lose someone, especially one of those one handers, you become the sole keeper of those shared experiences.  The first time that happened for me was when Alison Bodey died, I had known her since I was 4.  The next one was when Lyndon Boyer passed, I met him when I was 5 or 6. 

There are memories that I have that no one else has.  No one else knows them.  No one else knows the stories or the shared experiences.  I consider that a sacred honor to carry those, to reflect every once in while on those shared experiences.  To tell those stories to others can help me carry the weight of that responsibility.  Each of those for me, and there are others, was hard to pick up, they were heavy, and it is my honor to do that for them.

With Bride gone now, I feel an even larger responsibility to keep those memories alive.  I will start writing more about her on here, to be memorialized hopefully as long as the internet exists.  I feel like we had just gotten into our Midwest adventure chapter, it was just getting interesting, it hooked us.  And then all of the sudden, it stopped.  Not paused.  Not slowed. Stopped. 

A harsh reminder that I am not in control of any of this, no matter how much I think I am.  The rest of the pages in the chapter were ripped out, never to be read, experienced or shared with her.  Pages we didn’t even know we were going to love yet.  Actually, it feels like the rest of the pages in the book were ripped out, end of story.

But I know, the ride still goes on, the universe is not quite done with me yet, at least as long as my eyeballs keep popping open each day.  The universe has another chapter for me, even though I did not even get to finish the one I was in.    A chapter without my honey.  A chapter with no direction, no terrain maps, no weather reports, just the unknown.    I want those missing pages back damn it!

In many ways it is terrifying.  In many ways it is exciting.  In many ways I don’t want to take that first step or read that first page of this chapter.  In many ways, I cannot wait to take that step, to dive into the next chapter.  I don’t really know how to do either though, yet.  In the meantime, I wake up every day, write my three things down.  I keep taking steps, although not many feel like there is any forward momentum, yet.

Right now I am mad at the universe.  Mad that it does not care.  But maybe that is the deal, the cost of getting on the ride in the first place.  It was never going to care.  The clock keeps spinning, and I am still here, staring at a chapter I didn’t choose, wondering what the hell will come next.

The Oddest Things Happen When Our Person Dies

The oddest things happen when our person dies.  The aching pain remains the next day, the day after that and again the day after that, at least through the last 6 weeks, which is where I am at right now.  There have been 42 sunrises and sunsets.  There have been buses taking kids to school on 29 of those days, and I have paid some number of bills over that time.  The universe continues on, the earth continues to rotate, and life, for many, goes on.

One of my three things I am still writing down each morning now includes “say it out loud, she is gone and you are going to be OK.”   Some days I believe myself, and others it is harder to say out loud.  Those hard days, my stomach convulses and I almost feel like I am going to throw up.  Like most things, saying it out loud sounds different than just reading the words, a Brother from another Mother reminded me of that a couple of months ago. 

There is a tension in that sentence, she is gone, and you are going to be OK.  I don’t know how those two things are supposed to live in the same place.  One feels absolute, and the other feels nearly impossible.  And somehow, I am expected to carry both.  In some ways, I want to be OK now, and in others I want time to stop.  

It seems so odd to think about my person, my Beautiful Bride.  It always seemed like wife was sort of a role, versus a presence.  Beautiful Bride for me was always more than just wife, that is such a limiting word, at least in my opinion.  Sure, it encompassed that, but she was also my partner in crime, the one who would still do whiskey shots with me until we were properly polluted. 

She was my closest confidant, my wisest counsel, my best friend, and the one who knew more about me than anyone else ever could or will.  And I knew those things about her, she called me Gorgeous Groom, at least when she wasn’t calling me Smit.  For those who have found the love of their lives, you can probably understand why wife or husband does not fully encompass what your person means to you.  I wish and hope everyone can know what that feels like because it is the most amazing thing ever.  

And every morning, I remind myself, out loud, that she is gone.  I fucking hate that that is on my to do list every day.  The physicists say time does not work the way we think it does.  The past, present, and the future aren’t as separate as they might feel.  Maybe that’s true, maybe it’s not.  But because part of me is still back there, with my person and part of me is here, paying bills and watching the school buses go by, I am not sure which is the truest. 

The Missing Future Tense

Over a month into this new part of my journey, one of the things I have been stumbling over now is what tense to use, what words are right in different situations.  For almost 4 decades, it was always “we.”  Not a choice, just the way things were.   We’ll check on those dates, we’ll get back to you, we appreciated it.  It was not something I ever had to think about, it just came out that way, it was automatic.  It was simply a part of we and us.  Now I am singular, me, myself, and I.

Now I find myself pausing, editing in real time, mid sentence, and as you can tell, I suck as an editor.   What I am noticing is the pause that wasn’t there before.  The sentence used to just came out.  Now, there is a moment where I have to decide who I am in it.  I have also found myself being deliberate in saying we, because that still feels more honest to me, even though I know it’s not.  I think it is simply muscle memory, a reflex built from years of repetition.

Being a Trekkie, who is currently rewatching Star Trek Discovery, I have been framing these thoughts about tense through the lens of time travel.  You know, she is, she was, we are, and so on.  Tenses in language have rules, past, present and future, clean lines around all of it.  Language expects things to stay in their own damn lanes.  Turns out, grief is more like a drunken sailor, weaving all over the place while shooting a bird at the established rules around tense. 

Some days she is, in the habits, in the voice in my head and the way I reach for something that is all her.  Some days she was.  And any thoughts or sentences with she was just land harder and hurt more.  Right now, I live between the lines, in one moment she is, in another, she was.  The one that is missing, is the future tense, she will, or she might.  That is the one I notice is gone.  I fucking want my future tense back!!

For example, when talking to the folks at our credit union when I removed her from our accounts, when we wrapped up I said, we really appreciate your help.  I did not correct myself because by the time I realized it, the conversation had already moved on.  From outside, nothing changed.  From the inside, I felt it.  In the grocery store, going down the aisle where the cherry mashes are thinking she’ll want a couple of those.  Or this morning sitting out on the porch admiring the growth in the bed we ended up planting full of wildflowers thinking she is gonna love this.  

In this moment, it feels like I am using language to navigate around the edges, where words break down and don’t fully describe things.  Every choice, made in real time, in the moment, the I, the we, the is, the was does not seem like just grammar anymore.  It feels more like selecting which version of reality I am standing in at that moment.

She was the grammar queen.  And if I am being honest, she’d probably be correcting my tense right now.  I think she’d insist that “we” is the right word.  And I’d let her correct all day long, just to hear her voice one more time.  She would also understand why I am living between the rules right now.