With No Place To Go

It’s strange to wake up alone.

Even stranger to wake up alone in a big house with only my two dogs, Milo and Kira, sleeping soundly on their beds next to mine, the bed I used to share.

It’s strange for the dogs, too.

I see them wandering around in unused rooms and then looking at me and cocking their heads like the dog on the old RCA Victor albums as if to say, “Why?” I shake my head and reply, “Guys, I got nothing.” They wander away looking for the kitchen. They don’t know much but they know where to find the food.

In the evenings, I usually open the doors and windows and listen to music, read, and type gibberish until something spills onto the screen that someone might find useful - maybe not to win at life, but to keep from losing completely.

“There are too many lonely people without anything to do with their nights,” I thought, as I mouthed the words. As if I was talking about some faceless soul out there. Then I smiled, knowingly. I was describing myself, a newly minted loner.

Except for my two loyal employees and my dogs, my death to most would be an afterthought, and to a few a blessing.

The stark contrast between feeling happier than you have ever been on one day, and sadder and more despondent on the next, is too wide a chasm to leap.

At least it has been for me.

I have written a lot about grief lately because I am grieving and I have never felt anything like it before. And nothing I have written describes that disabling combination of sadness, fear, remorse, and hopelessness better than Jamie Anderson who word-painted it this way:

“[Grief is] all the love you want to give, but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go.” Yes. That’s it. No place to go.

And so, grief for me is not just something I feel. It is something I am. Not wanting to be here alone, but no motivation to walk out that door. Getting out and about, putting on a smiley face, and pretending nothing happened, would feel like a lie, mostly because it would be a lie. So, like love has no place to go, neither do I.

Postscript: I did have breakfast with a good friend and his lovely wife this morning and with another good friend to a tequila tasting last night and didn’t break down. I actually enjoyed both. That’s a first in a long while.

So, there is hope. There is always hope.

Subscribe here