Happy Holidays! (you know which holiday)

You could say that last year, when it was two months after my wife died, around christmas time, I was a big, fat ball of grinch. I spent xmas eve and day in a delicious fog. I may have grunted at people. I think I slept until 4 or 5 PM and I wish it'd been longer. There were no gifts or ornaments or cheery fucking carols. My christmas was neither white nor blue, no silver bells nor green pine trees, just a greyish-brown blur of awfulness.

Did I mention that christmas is one of my favorite holidays? I'm not Christian. I was raised Jewish. But all that shameless commercialism around this time makes me just cynical enough to guiltlessly enjoy a secular xmas. Christmas memories with my wife are some of the best I have, like the year we went after halloween and bought all the clearance spiders and fake blood from that for our halloween-on-christmas tree - complete with a witch hat topper. So this year, I've decided that I'm not gonna let grief ruin everything, dammit. It's ruined enough.

It's not even December yet, and I've already hung myself...a string of lights. It just goes up the wall outlet and randomly around the ceiling. But I'm determined not to grinch it up this year. That being said, I still need all the christmas music to back the fuck off. Those songs are cute a handful of times for a few days before the 25th. But if I have to listen to them for a month straight, they make me wanna stab orphan puppies. That's not being grinchy, just a fact of nature.

Tale as cliched as time

I was told, time and time again, that the second year isn't any better than the first in grief, which I took to heart. So now that I'm in this second year, why am I so surprised at just how not-better it really is? I took the warning to heart - didn't that safeguard me against the reality of the it? Feels like I'm walking a thousand miles, and at marker 500, I'm shocked there's still 500 more to go. That can't be right.

But I still got grief. I still get angry and depressed and feel awkward about my deal in social situations and want to sleep all day. And of course, I still cry in the shower, while driving and when a TV show or movie shows anything even remotely emotional. Sure, I've made progress. 500 miles walked so far. I can laugh at funny things and smile when I'm happy. Shit, I'm able to say I can be happy: that's a hell of a miracle.

I guess I just want to know when things can actually start getting better. Nobody has anything conclusive for that one, though. They say grief takes it's own pace and every grief is different, and other thoroughly aggravating truths. At the end of the thousand miles, is that place called 'better?' Or will there be two thousand more before 'better' gets to where I am? The only thing anyone can tell me is to keep walking. 'Just keep swimming,' as Dory would say. Or 'keep moving forward,' from Meet The Robinsons. Disney seems to have a bead on this shit. But that magical, mystical land of 'better:' I can't just flash forward there like Simba going from adolescent to adult over the span of one rendition of "Hakuna Matata." I guaran-goddamn-tee you, they cut out tons of footage of Simba shower-crying.

The One Ring

It's been one year, one month, one week, and almost one day since my wife died, and I'm thinking about finally taking off my wedding band. It's not because it's poetic, but more because the damn thing keeps falling off. It doesn't fit as snugly as it used to. I've been hitting the gym, and you can really see it in my fingers, I guess. I just don't want to lose the thing, or drop and break it (it's tungsten-carbide, it actually can break).

I should clarify, by "finally taking off my wedding band" I mean "finally moving my wedding band from my hand to a necklace." It will be added alongside my wife's wedding rings, at the risk of having one very crowded and jingly necklace. But on my left hand, the fourth finger (what's that finger called again?) will be bare for the first time in more than half a decade. It's something I've known would have to happen at some point, though the reason sure ain't what I'd expected.

Honestly, I'm kinda glad to have a practical reason to take it off. It's better than trying to decide when my love for my wife has sufficiently waned or some shit like that. I'm already anticipating more than a few freakouts. But it had to happen sooner or later, I always knew. Might as well be on the day that's one year, one month, one week, and one day after losing her. Makes for a good story that way. My advice for grief: do what makes for the best story. Like Tolkien.

#WWTD

Writer's cell block

Around now, grief really feels like 'doing time.' I got one year down on my sentence. And a month. How many more? I can do it, I know it sucks, but I made it through the first year. Now I just need to get through however many I have left. Got used to the food, my cell, the shitty routine, yard time. Warden seems to like me, I guess that's good. Feeling this prison metaphor?

This will be the second holiday season away from my loved one in this solitary confinement. I'll live to have many more, and that's if I'm lucky and don't get shanked. My fear is becoming institutionalized, of forgetting what it's like on the outside. But I can't forget, just being trapped in this box is such a glaring reminder. And when I get to have my freedom back, I'll still be stuck with this on my record, just like any felon. But until then, I'm just doing time, the hardest time I've ever known. I'll do it, and loathe every minute of it.

Maybe, like prison, getting out is dependent on 'good behavior.' Which, to grief, 'good behavior' kind of feels like 'fake it 'til you make it.' If I do things that make me happy, eventually I will be happier. That's the theory anyway. But even after this much time, happiness is still a slippery subject. And when you're surrounded on five sides by cement and one side by iron bars, it's hard for happiness to stick - even if the cement are bars are just metaphorical. But every day I'll carve another tally mark into my wall, and every day I'll be a tiny bit closer to serving my time, and finding out what freedom has become while I was locked up.

Humpty-Trumpty sat on a wall

There's countless things I wish my wife could've lived to see: Lady Dynamite on Netflix, all my recent writing efforts, age 28. Donald Trump being elected president is not one of those things. In fact, she'd be horrified, like the rest of the rational world. If she were alive to see the outcome of November 8th's election, she would've been outraged, scared, protesting.

Actually, that's not true, we both lived through the Bush years, and we would've both lived through the Trump years. She'd be disappointed, maybe get a bit more cynical, but on November 9th, she would've gotten up and gone to work like every day. She would not have been rioting or throwing Molotov cocktails into Banana Republic stores because it sounds like 'republican.'

Together, her and I could've stoically faced the election of a bigoted, xenophobic, misogynistic, egomaniacal, lying, hot-headed, inflammatory carrotman - and we would've be just fine. Because we had each other. We would joke about how the comedians have their work cut out for them in the coming four years, how Canada has lovely weather this time of year. As long as the candidate didn't threaten to outlaw love, we would've been fine with the president-elect being an actual carrot. Am I happy with the outcome? Not in the slightest. But I have more important things to stress over, like how my wife isn't here to stress over Trump with me. The next four years are going to be pretty much unchanged to my frame of reference, whether the next president is Trump or Clinton or even that wingnut Shia Labeouf. (And besides, Trump can't really change much, the lizard men are in control.)

The LOL-ing Stones

Sometime earlier this week, a blog post was laid out for me, and I found it tonight. My wife's headstone finally got put in, and much to my lack of surprise, her family totally fucked it up. The reason why this is a blog subject is because I found it hilarious. I'm actually glad it took so long to come in, because if it'd come in even a few months ago, I might be kind of upset. But really, it's something she and I would've laughed about.

As I talked about before, at the funeral, one of her family members came up to me and asked me directly what I wanted on the stone. I said "She Will Be Loved" which is the title of our song and, in my opinion, a nice message for someone who's passed on. Ignoring that entirely, they put her legal last name in parentheses (she took my name when we married) and left her maiden name as if that were her married name. Bit misleading, if you ask me. Someone might think my name was her family name and vice-versa. They also included "Daughter, granddaughter, sister and wife" in that order, a clear attempt to minimize what I meant to her. If they all think they were more important to her than I was, I don't mind letting them think that, because I'm the one with the memories, not just the imaginative wishes, regarding her opinions. Could be worse, though. The only obnoxiously Christian imagery was an angel: at least they spared her the disgrace of an unwanted cross.

There's a chance that the reason the stone is so different from what I requested was because I remember hearing that the family member who would be taking charge of the stone was developing some kind of dementia. But from everything my wife told me about her family, it wouldn't shock me in the least if another family member butted in and took control for their own easement. And it was really similarly worded to the newspaper obituary, which I know wasn't composed by that particular family member.

I think the only reason I'm actually a little annoyed is because I'm the one who has to look at the thing -- because I actually visit her. My wife wouldn't be surprised either, to find out that her family used her headstone for their own self-centered reasons. But honestly, it has all the makings of a running joke between us, if, you know, she wasn't dead. All I can say is she died knowing who really did and didn't care about who she was as a person. Based on that gravestone, she was right.

As I've mentioned before, I'm working on writing projects inspired by and honoring my wife's memory. I think I know which memorial she would've liked better. But what do I know about my wife's opinions? I only have countless memories of her expressing them.

Sweet purrender

So I'm sat down to write for my blog and stressing because I can't think of what to write. Well, and I'm also stressing about whether I should work on my novel. Oh, and I'm also stressing because I have another writing project that is coming along. Well, two other writing projects. If you're keeping track, these stresses are all things I've put on myself. Oh, and there's grief! Which always helps with stress.

So with all these projects to work on, I ended up doing nothing but stare at the computer screen, schvitzing. Then, one of my cats, the one that used to belong to my wife, hopped into my lap. Annoyed the hell out of me, but I figured what the hell? Not like he interrupted me working. I started petting him. Then my cat came over and looked up with those big ol' jealous eyes of his. My wife's cat went up on the back of my chair (with some gentle shoving) and my cat took the newly-available lap. And for a while, I tested my multitasking skills, trying to pet two cats (who don't like each other) simultaneously (one of which was behind me).

With all my writey efforts and a regular job as well, my life has started to feel pretty complicated. Cats are simple. It's hard to imagine something so incredibly simple as petting a cat when your mind is running in several different circles. That's why they like to invade our space: to remind us that when we aren't sure what we should be doing, but have a million things to do, maybe the best thing to do is none of them: just pet a cat (if you don't like/don't have cats, then the cat is a metaphor).