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.