Strange Notations From a Laborious Life

I’m living a somewhat transitional life; the life that was and the life that will be. I’m betwixt and between. The life I had with Linda and the life I must forge on my own.

I’m okay. But you don’t move on; you just move along. The shock wears off and reality sets in. It’s just a groaning grief now, not a dagger to the heart. A veil of sadness that shades my view of life and the world.

I’m not as patient with the whingers and whiners and grievance merchants. I stay in my lane and hope they stay in theirs.

I read a book last year about being a man and aging. It provided the best advice I have ever been given. “Just let it go!” So, I don’t read the feedback columns or what the propagandists, left or right spew out on the net or in the media. No need for me to get upset about what people say. And they say so much! I just want life to be a garden where I can smell the roses and pick the fruit.

Some people have struggled to understand that I can be good and sad at the same time. I can laugh and ponder life positively, but the tragedy of loss is never far from my mind.

Even when Linda was fit and healthy and well, she loved to sleep in, and I would usually get up at a reasonable hour. I got used to pottering around on my own. When she became sick again with her second bout of cancer she stayed in bed more often. She paced herself and always enjoyed her rest. She needed it. She led a big life.

So, although I am lying in more often these mornings, I get up and have breakfast and enjoy the first hours of the day. Life is good. But then I can picture her still. Rising from bed. Traipsing up the hallway. Sitting in her chair by the dining room window as the sun streamed in and she ate her breakfast. Our life as it was. And then I return to my life as it is and ponder what it will be.

I am very lucky to have been loved so well. It was a gift and like any gift you lose, it’s hard to take it when it’s gone. I’m betwixt and between. The life I had and the life that will be.

But I keep moving forward.

Until next time.