Catch the Wind

Catch the Wind

Jim and I never had an "our song."  We were around 50 when we got married, so it would have seemed a little silly...not that we ever had a real objection to being silly, but there are limits...

I've been sitting here this morning, stuck in YouTube, listening to version after version of this song, which I adopted shortly after he died, because it says how I feel.  That's the thing with music, isn't it?

Donovan confines the grief to "the chilly hours and minutes of uncertainty."  That way, it's not so overwhelming, and I can deal with it.  "When sundown pales the sky" is another time I can deal.  Jim and I watched a lot of sunsets.  "When rain has hung the leaves with tears" is absolutely the perfect time to think about Jim, who liked to stand out in the rain.

It seems odd, really, that I can listen to this song, and cry, and move on.

James Taylor's "Fire and Rain" is about a friend who died by her own hand, or so I've been told.  I can't listen to it at all, and, by extension, I can't listen to any James Taylor, and he used to be a favourite.  But the grief in the song is so all-encompassing, and there's too much Jesus for me, I guess.  Every time I hear it, I have to leave.  Or sit down and ugly cry.  Those are the two things.  There is no third choice.  I don't go there.

So today I'm sad.  Tomorrow I'll be OK.  Maybe next year I'll be better.  I have an idea that the year I can sit down and listen to "Fire and Rain" will be a milestone of healing.

Ten Years

Ten years.

Ten years in which I have learned to keep busy, and the sense of accomplishment from that, alone, is a sort of partial compensation.

I get a twinge when anyone makes any reference to "putting a gun to your head," or any visual reminder of such.  A concealable reaction, so it's all good.  Can't expect people to walk on eggshells around me forever.  It's not always people...it could be a line in a script or a gesture by a character in a movie.  I can live with it.

I also wince a little when I see a bald pate, fringed round with silver.  Silly, I know, but I can live with that, too.

I have mostly managed to replace my memory of his last few moments with memories of the times we had fun, so...yay me.

We had that epic trip in 2003--the one where I learned to love driving.  A lasting joy.

He would have been an articulate voice against the chaos.  And a reasonable one.  The shoulder that used to shield me from the terrors is gone, and I have learned to deal with that.

Once again, I thank from the bottom of my heart the friends who rallied round in so many ways...I would not have got through it without you!

I miss him.  I expect I always will.

Slàinte mhath!

Here We Are Again

Nine years ago yesterday, I went about my business, never knowing that, a couple of hours after midnight, my life would change forever.

When Brendan and I found Jim outside, I couldn't even touch him.  He was breathing, still, but I could see the hole in his head and there was blood everywhere.  I was afraid, I think, of being sucked into the maelstrom with him.  And afraid that he wouldn't feel like my Jim.  There was no comfort I could give him.  Comfort is, after all, for the living.

I've tried to remember him like this wedding picture, rather than that mental image I just described, and I usually succeed.  Like this, or in motion.  Teaching a class.  Directing a show.  Building something.  Painting something.  Writing something, and chuckling at what he had written.

But I am still sometimes overwhelmed with sadness and guilt.  What if there were something I could have done?  Did I not love him enough?  Contribute enough to his life to make it worthwhile?

At such times, I have to get a firm grip and remind myself that his suicide was about him.  How could it be about me?  Still...There are those moments that come unbeknownst and stay forever.  One such is the look in Jim's eyes as I kissed him that last night.  At the time, I couldn't figure out what was going on, and it bothered me while I was trying to go to sleep.  In hindsight, it was anguish.  Would it have helped if I had asked him what was wrong?

He wanted me to get the house back the way his mother had kept it...but I couldn't.  He had hurt his back a few months before, when we moved into the house, and the place was crammed to the max with antiques.  Not to mention that he had given away her contemporary furniture (and mine...and his) to make room for all the things he could not bring himself to sell or donate to a museum.  He felt like a failure for not looking after all the things the way his mother, grandmother, great aunts and every ancestor back to the Civil War had done.  Every single piece held memories for him, and he hoarded the memories the same way he hoarded the furniture.

I have said before that it seemed he cared more for the stuff than he did for me.  His letter instructed me in the disposal of all of it, but the law had other ideas.  I did the best I could.

Yesterday, I was thinking about the way I had gone about on that day, with no inkling it was my last day with him.

I'm glad I told him I loved him before I went to bed.

So. Here We Are Again

It's hard to believe it's been eight years since Jim died.  He has now been gone for a year more than we were married.

It has got easier, over the years, but I am still filled with sadness.  The rage has pretty much dissipated, but the guilt and sorrow remain.

I still find myself looking for ways I might have been responsible.  I know...I know...but still...if I could have got the house back the way Addy had it...if I had realized how bad he was feeling...if I had known more about depression...etc, etc.

One thing is for sure--if I had known that the last time we made love would have been the last time ever, I'd have put a bit more effort into it.

So, a word of advice to all you couples out there...make love every time like it's the last time, because it just might be.

Has it Really Been Seven Years?

Seven years seems like such a long time....and yet, August 20th 2007 feels, in many ways, like yesterday.  That's the day I watched my husband walk out the front door with a gun in his hand and didn't get there in time to stop him from bracing the butt of it against a tree and the barrel against his temple and pulling the trigger.

He was the love of my life.  We met in 1984, when he directed his first show at Sam Bass.  It was my second show, and a friendship developed that continued through my divorce, his divorce and our subsequent (separate) love lives, until one day, late in 1997, when it became something else entirely.  At that point, I had known for several years that I loved him, but had given it up as a lost cause.

He asked me to marry him two years later, and we planned a June wedding.  "How about June 11," he said.  It was his mother's and grandmother's wedding day.  I didn't really care what day would be our anniversary, so plans ensued.  We had a lovely little wedding.

His mother died three years after that, and he sort of lost focus.  While I was waiting for him to regain it, he sank into ill health and depression, and, as a result, I am a widow.

No, I am not "over it."  I will never be "over it," but I have accepted it and I realize that I am grateful for what I had.

I am no longer mourning.

Depression. It's a Disease

In eight days, it will be seven years since Jim killed himself.

Yesterday, one of his favourite actors did the same thing.

There may be only a couple of hundred people who remember Jim...people he touched and influenced in his life.  Students.  Friends.  Co-workers.  Family.  Me.  There are millions mourning and speculating about Robin Williams.  And some of them are crying, "Coward!"  I did that when Jim died.  I guess it is, in a way, a measure of my journey down the road to forgiveness that I no longer feel that way.  I now recognize that depression is not a moral failing, it is a disease.

So, when stupid what's-his-name on FOX called out Robin Williams for cowardice, I was appalled at his ignorance.  

Depression is not something that can be cured with a hug, or a hundred "likes" or a smile, or a song, or a pill.  It's not something a person can pull himself out of or joke his way out of or sing, or run, or walk himself out of.  It is a deep, black pit that sucks in everything, to the point where the victim can see nothing else.  Suggesting that a victim "reach out" for help just tells everyone that you have really no clue what depression is all about.  To the victim, there is nothing to reach out with, or to, or from.  There is just the pit.  All the beauty of the world, of life, is gone and nothing remains except the pain.

I wish I could have helped Jim.  I wish someone could have helped Robin.  I hope others who suffer from this disease can be helped.

I am very sad, today, like thousands of others.

Six Years

Hard to believe, isn't it?  Six years ago, Jim killed himself.

I have survived.  I am no longer angry.  I still get sad once in a while (read: often), but not sobbing-in-the-shower sad.  Seeing a silver-haired, balding man on the street no longer gives me a turn.

I am 64 years old.  I married Jim when I was 50 and we were married for seven years.  That's less than one-tenth of my life.

August 22nd

For some reason, this post is difficult.  I am wondering if I am feeling a bit guilty about not grieving as I have been all these years.  I realize how silly that is, with friends who have been trying to fix me up with stray men in their circles...thinking that, if I'm not "over it," I should be.

I'm not really "over it."  I may never be.  I did love the man for 24 years, even though we were married for only seven.

So here we are, Dearly Beloved.  Life goes on.  If I had it to do over, I'd do the same thing.  Even though I'm now old and fat.  I probably would have been fat anyway, and I most assuredly would have been old.

So I slosh out some cheap vodka for Jim and drink a toast in a decent single malt Scotch, pull up my big (really big) girl panties and keep going.

Slainte!

So Here We Are

Five years.  Five fucking long years that I have totally screwed up.  Five years during which Jim's estate has dwindled down to a pittance that his brother is about to get.  Not that life with Jim was the stuff of fiscal legend, but we did manage to keep a roof over our heads.

One screw-up after another, and here I am.  Lost, lonely, broke and thinking of changing my name.

But, I have to admit, I have survived.

Today, if I could afford a tank of gas, I'd drive as far as I could and still get back in time for rehearsal tonight.  But, I can't, so I won't and there's an end to it.

Which is probably what I should say about this whole process.  If the best I can say is that I have survived, that will have to do, for now.

I've done a lot of things since, especially in theater.  That's a good thing.  I have got a raise at work, and that's good, too.  I have found myself attracted to a man, which is good in theory, but not so much in real life.  I have also decided not to reenter the relationship game.  At my age it's just too much trouble.

Catch The Wind
Donovan Leitch

In the chilly hours and minutes
Of uncertainty
I want to be
In the warm hold of your loving mind.

To feel you all around me
And to take your hand
Along the sand,
Ah, but I may as well try and catch the wind.

When sundown pales the sky
I want to hide a while
Behind your smile,
And everywhere I'd look, your eyes I'd find.

For me to love you now
Would be the sweetest thing,
'T would make me sing,
Ah, but I may as well try and catch the wind.

When rain has hung the leaves with tears
I want you near to kill my fears,
To help me to leave all my blues behind.

For standing in your heart
Is where I want to be
And long to be,
Ah, but I may as well try and catch the wind.

Ah, but I may as well try and catch the wind.

Coming Up on Five Years

It has been almost five years since Jim's suicide.  Tomorrow morning, I am summoned to court for the final dispensation of his estate.  I guess this means the house has been sold.  I fully expect to get nothing.  I think I will probably be lucky if I don't wind up owing the Evil Brother a lot of money I don't have.

I owe a lawyer $6000 for doing absolutely nothing that was of any help.  She dumped me last year.

 God knows what has happened with the IRS.

At this point, I will just be glad it is over, and, with any sort of luck, I will never have to see or speak with the Evil Brother again.  If I am really lucky, he will not be there tomorrow, and I can deal with his lawyer, who seems to be human, at least.  I could be overly optimistic, however, applying that term to him.

So.  There will be one more post under this label, in which I shall record the details of the Final Dispensation of the Estate of James L Prior, and then I'm probably done.

It has been five years of hell.  Fuck you, Jim and Evil Brother. 

I may change my name.

Evicted!

Well, Dearly Beloved, I have failed.

You may recall that, when Jim died, he left a Will that was invalid.  He printed it out from his computer and signed it without witnesses.  Note to all and sundry: if you want to make a Will without witnesses, please remember that it has to be hand-written, not typed or printed from a computer.  What he wanted in his Will was for me to have everything but the antiques, which I was to get (somehow) to his nephew.  He also wanted me to administer his nephew's trust fund, which Addy had set up so that he wouldn't get it until he was 35.

Well.

Thanks to Anna Nicole Smith and the offspring of the billionaire she married, Texas has a relatively new inheritance law.  In the event that a person dies intestate, his estate gets split between the widow and the nearest blood kin.  Works pretty well for the children of billionaires, but not so much for me.  What it means is that everything has to be split with Jim's brother.  Now, Jim's brother was specifically written out of Addy's Will, because she had thrown him out of the family for various breaches of the Prior Family Rules (whatever they were).  I have only met the man twice, the second time being at Jim's memorial, when he promised not to give me a hard time.  When I finally got around to thinking about that, I wondered what there was for him to give me a hard time about.  I have since found out.

I tried to make a deal with him, whereby he would get the antiques and Addy's vehicles, and I would get the house.  I let his son know about that, and he (William Prior) told me that he didn't want his dad (brother John) to have control of his trust fund, for fear John would gut it.

So, now we had two problems.  First, a lot of the Prior Stuff was in storage, and John agreed to pay for that.  He was supposed to come down that Thanksgiving (I think it was two years ago) to inspect the vehicles and the storage and take over the keys, etc.  In short, get this all wrapped up legally.  We were swamped at work, so we had to work through Thanksgiving break that year.  He kept calling me and trying to set up a meeting, and I couldn't even answer the phone.  Well, that, and I have trouble taking to him...he sounds just like Jim and it is hard for me not to trust that voice.  So I was emailing him to tell him I couldn't make the meeting.  As well, I wanted to stall on signing anything until William hit that 35 mark and could control his own trust.  That happened last year.  Meanwhile, John didn't pay the storage, so the storage company was threatening to auction off the stuff.  I managed to (with help from William) make some arrangements to avoid that, but the person who helped didn't want John to know.  Fine.  I went along with that, as well.

So, due to my very low income, there are a lot of programs to help with the house--upgrading and repairing, etc.  Jim, of course, cancelled the homeowners' insurance in a fit of "economy," so there were a lot of repairs needed, and no insurance to cover them.  The only snag is that I have to own the house in order for that to happen.  Of course, the house is not even in Jim's name--he never transferred the deed from Addy's.  In my name, I could have got a reverse mortgage and taken care of the taxes and been cozy.

With the county and  the school district after me for taxes, the house needs to be sold or put in my name, so John managed to get control of it (being as it's half his and all), and we are now being evicted.

We are faced with the herculean task of separating our stuff from Prior Stuff, and finding a place to live, when under an eviction notice, and with a bankruptcy in the family, not to mention a surfeit of pets.

Of all the thoughts and projections I had for the future, both when I married Jim and even after he died, the thought of being on the street with less than I had going into the relationship was nowhere in my mind.

William said he would help me when he got his trust (kept safe from John, no thanks to him), but his help turned out to be the offer of a weekend seminar on how to let go of past anger and bring a more positive attitude to the present and future.  Not exactly what I needed.

So, if anyone has a rent house or mobile home, or anything, or knows someone who does, please let me know ASAP.  It's not just me, it's Chandra and Aidan as well, plus half a dozen cats.  Val and Lee are staying here, too, with three dogs and some caged rodents.

Thank you, John Prior, and thank you too, Texas.  Oh, and Special Thanks to Jim--the coward with the gun.

Yet Another Letter to Jim

Well, Jim...there have been a few things going on that would have made you happy, had you the balls to stick around for them.

For a start, Brandon Harris has been in a Broadway show.  May still be in it, for all I know.  You would have loved that.  He graduated from North Carolina School for the Performing Arts, did a summer in LA, and headed to New York, where he seems to be managing quite well.

Sean Arnold is singing at the Met.  He has been in Europe this past summer, singing with various operas.  At least, that's the impression I get from his Facebook posts.  Is that awesome, or what!

Amanda Harris has a thriving theater tech career going on. 

Michael Fariss is at Webster, which I know you would have been excited about, as it was Jason Boyd's alma mater.

Rob Morris (not "Robbie," any more) is at NCSPA.  He came home in 2010 and directed "The Last Days of Judas Iscariot" at Sam Bass.  You would have eaten that up with a spoon!

All these successes are a tribute to your teaching.  You started these people on their path.  You did for them what you did for me at Sam Bass--gave them confidence in their own talents and made them see that theater is worth the work it takes to make it good.  I'm sure there are many more...these are just the kids who allow me to keep up with them on facebook.

As for me...well, I'm still with Ramona at A Cut Above Costumes, and that will probably be my last job.  However, I've been asked to be costumer for a new Austin theater company (in my spare time), and actually managed to screw my courage to the sticking place and audition for The Baron's Men.  Oh...I'm directing "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" at Sam Bass (again), and using your teaching there, too.

Life goes on, my love, and your influence, with it.

It's That Time Again

Eight hours from now, it will be four years since Jim shot himself.  He was not a "victim" of suicide.  He deliberately and with forethought decided that life was no longer worth living, and he took himself off.  OK.  It was his life, and I have to (grudgingly) admit that he had that right.

We had even talked about how we didn't want to "linger."  How, diagnosed with something terminal and awful, suicide was a preferable option.  I know he knew what he was doing.  My biggest problem has always been that he didn't share his fears for his health with me.  I still think he could at least have gone to a doctor and been tested for whatever it was that terrified him so.  How is this not something a couple should share and discuss?

Anyway, here I am, dwelling on that night and my sad feelings. 

I will never forget his eyes, when I kissed him goodnight.

Of course, in retrospect, everything that happened takes on significance that it never would have had on a normal night.  It's only because my life changed forever in an instant that I remember these things. 

If this sounds as if I'm still sort of mixed up...well, pretty much.

But it stays in the box most of the time.

This is New

I had a thought today.  Rare, I know.

Here's the thing--I've been sitting around, waiting to get over Jim's death and be happy again.  Today, I realized that I am pretty much as happy as I was before he and I got together.  We had been friends for five years before I realized I loved him, and it took a further eight years before we began to spend a lot of time together.  We married in 2000, so there were eleven years there while I loved him with no hope of ever seeing that love returned.  During those years, I had a child and was in and out of two relationships.  It's not as if loving Jim stopped me from having a life, or from pursuing those moments of happiness that make bearable the rest of it.

So now it's sort of like that again.  I still love Jim, but he's not in my life.  The fact that he was in my life for some years has not permanently changed me.  At this point, almost four years after he killed himself, ours was a relationship that lasted almost one sixth of my life.  I still have a life.  I still have kids, and grandchildren, and friends, and theater and my job. 

I wonder...is this the "acceptance" that the books talk about?  I still cry, sometimes.  I have moments of incredible sadness and hours when the anger is still rampant, but it's beginning to look as if I shall survive this.

That being so...Dearly Beloved, how in the world am I going to get rid of this fat?  I did lose ten pounds or so, but I really can't see where it has gone.  Also need some means of minimizing droop.  Oh, hell!  I am an idiot!  I managed not to return to my cigarette habit, but why did I allow all this fat?  You know I hate to sweat, right?  In fact, as far as I know, there are only two good ways to work up a sweat, and the other one is dancing!  Now I'm going to have to walk and stuff. 

Dare I say it?  THANKS, JIM! 

Does Blogger have a sarcasm font?

June 11th

Today is my 11th anniversary.  Too bad my husband isn't here to share it with. 

It was sort of a sad day.  If we weren't so busy at the shop, I would have tried to get off...trade today for Monday, or something, but Ramona told me last week that we would not have any more Mondays off for a while, so there went that idea. 

My first thought would have been to spend the day in San Antonio, for obvious reasons.  However, the Slut Walk would have kept me in Austin.  As it was, the Ascot scene from "My Fair Lady" and some Munchkins from "The Wizard of Oz" soaked up my day.  That, and....has anyone noticed how many country songs are about death?  I think I heard them all today.

As well, it was Strike for "The Tempest Project."  That snuck up on me the same way the opening did, so San Antonio would have been out of the picture for a lot of reasons.

I have to say that "Tempest" is one of the prettiest shows I've ever done.  Thanks, Frank, for introducing me to Steampunk, which is AWESOME!

But anyway, I spent my 11th anniversary sewing and crying, with a fan blowing into my right ear and sweat running down my left side.  After that, I ate alone at McDonald's, and helped Chandra with the ropes for the final performance of "Tempest."  I shut my left hand in the Green Room door, and it still hurts.  My car is full of smelly costumes.  I missed the Slut Walk, though I am very grateful to Ben, who went and called me at lunch with audio on his phone, so the day wasn't a total loss.

That, and I received a lovely and unexpected gift from the cast of the show...a rocking Steampunk locket in the form of a pocket watch, with one of our wedding pictures in sepia and little silver tokens of love in it.  Thank you so much!

Maybe next year I'll have better luck at letting this day go by without tears.

Midwinter Blues

It's cold.  I know...all my friends and family in northern climes will laugh at this, but I have got used to Texas in the past 40 years, and am no longer acclimated to cold.  Anything below 40° F is not only cold, it's damn cold!  It has been like that for several days.

My heating unit (I guess they are not "furnaces" any more) went out, so Chandra bought a radiator-style space heater, plus we have two heaters Lynn gave me last year (a fervent "Thanks," Lynn!)...but still.  It's cold.

Have I mentioned that there is no heat at work?  It costs a fortune and takes forever to heat the two-storey warehouse, so we just tough it out.  Ramona has a space heater for the front office, and I wish for sewing days, rather than pulling days or putting away days while it's cold.

Cold, due to my background in Canada, equates with poverty, and (checks wallet) surprise, surprise...cold and poor.

So, I'm depressed.  And where do I go in my thoughts when I'm depressed?  Back to August 20, 2007, of course.  Crap and double crap.  I am lonely.  There is no warm person with whom to snuggle.  There is nobody to rub my shoulders.  There is nobody to say "I love you."  There is a Jim-sized hole in my heart that will probably always be there.  It's still raw and still bleeding.  I fill my life with family, friends and theater, but all the people and activities I love can't fill that hole.

You all help, and I am grateful for each of you.  I can't imagine how bad it would be without you.  If I were truly alone, I probably would have driven Minni Miata off a cliff by now.

I can't help it that occasionally that still seems like a good idea.

The Most Memorable Sound of the Decade

I just listened to a program on NPR about the most memorable sounds from the past decade.  You know the sort of thing...the ball dropping to begin the Millennium, a sound clip from President W on 9-11, Harry Potter's voice, a report from New Orleans during Katrina, the earthquake in Haiti...

There were several memorable sounds for me in the past decade.  It started with a certain Justice of the Peace saying, "I now pronounce you husband and wife," proceeded through "Mom...I'm going to have a baby," and on to "I got accepted at Cornell College in Iowa," and "Mom, can Aidan and I move in with you?"

But, of course, Dearly Beloved, you know what sound haunts me the most.  It's the sound of that shot that was fired three years, four months and eleven days ago.  The shot that made me a widow and a survivor of suicide.  The shot that killed my dream of love, my hope for age...my very identity, really.

As Rob said, shortly thereafter, the thing I was best at was being Mrs Prior.  I'm still Mrs Prior, but it's not nearly as much fun with Mr Prior mostly scattered in the wilds of Virginia.  I say "mostly," because there are a few crumbs of his ashes still in my possession.  Ashes come in a plastic box, inside a cardboard box.  Inside the plastic box is a plastic bag.  Unfortunately, in Jim's case, there was a tiny puncture in the bag, and a small amount of ashes had leaked out into the box.  I poured out the bag, but didn't notice until later that there was more.  Not being really sure what to do with that, I left the box in the trunk of the car, where it has remained for two and a half years.

I remember New Years of 1999.  Addy was in the hospital, and refused to let us stay with her to see the New Year in.  She sent us off to party.  New Years had never really been the same to Jim since 1996, when his father died on December 30th, so we just headed out to the country with a bottle of champers and some paper cups.  We parked on a little hill, and sat there, waiting to see if all the lights were going to go out, or if airplanes were going to fall out of the Texas sky...or if any of the dire predictions made in advance of that moment would come true.  Reassured, we kissed, toasted, watched fireworks and went home.  Jim said it was the best New Years ever.

Last year, I worked on the New Years show at Sam Bass, because the previous two celebrations had not been particularly celebratory.  It's hard to be at a party, watching all the couples kissing, when your own kissee is gone forever.  It's just as hard to sit at home watching the ball drop, and the other ball drop, and the other ball drop, drinking champers alone.  At least, at the theater, I'm among friends, and nobody notices who is or is not being kissed.  You'd think, at my age, that such things would no longer matter, but such is not the case.  I guess it's true that inside every old woman there's a young one, who hasn't quite got the message the mirror is trying to convey.

One of these years, I'm going to wake up and notice that I've forgiven Jim, but that hasn't happened yet.  That shot still echoes through my heart.

Musings on Trying to Have a Life

After having been a widow for three years, I have discovered that I am really still married.  Damn, I hope I don't turn into some weird Texas version of Queen Victoria, here!  It seems as if Jim has been gone for a really, really long time, but that's it...just gone.  Not "dead and gone," not "long gone," not "good and gone"...just gone.  Out of sight, occasionally out of mind; gone.

Having recently passed on an opportunity to dip a toe into the Senior Dating Pool (SDP, for short), I have been thinking about the reasons the idea didn't appeal to me.  Apart from the fact that I didn't seem to have much in common with the man in question, he had one overwhelming trait that precluded any sort of close communication--a total lack of being Jim.

Any change of plan can be a problem for me; it takes me a while to shift gears and catch up.  If I'm all set to go somewhere, and the expedition gets cancelled, I am resentful.  That's kind of the way I feel about my marriage.  I was supposed to be happy, damnit!  I was supposed to be secure, protected from the twin demons of loneliness and poverty for the rest of my life.  I am still angry that the plan changed.  Angry with Jim, and with life in general.  And, increasingly, angry with myself for my total lack of resilience.  You'd think that, after all this time, I'd be willing to accept my changed circumstances.

If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

Compared with most of the world, I have a good life.  My kids like me, my grandchildren are a lot of fun, I have no one I need to answer to, and nobody is hogging the covers or snoring in my bed.  I have work I enjoy, good friends, and the coolest hobby in the world.  Many people I know don't have nearly that much, and they don't spend hours angsting over what they lack.

I am an old fool.  Not only that, I am a cantankerous old fool.

~sigh~

Life Has To Go On

Three years!

For three years, I've been putting one foot in front of the other and surviving.

I have stayed off the cigarette wagon, which I consider a major victory. I am, however, 50 lbs overweight. It would take a lot of energy to lose those pounds. Sometimes I want to, but the thought of all that exercise is daunting.

Sometime in the past three years, I began to look old. I suppose that would have happened anyway, but the tears I have cried haven't helped.

I've kept busy. That first play I did after Jim died, I had to be talked into. "Shakespeare in Hollywood" was a life saver! Thanks, Lynn! I've worked on half a dozen or more shows in the past three years. I've faced theater challenges I never thought I would, such as directing "Godot," and singing a bit in a musical...

I've gone to parties. I've taken long drives. I've learned to go out to dinner alone.

I've been sad, angry, bored, terrified...but also satisfied, triumphant and, frequently, happy.

I guess that when the positive feelings outweigh the negative, that will be as good as it gets.

If it has taken three years to get this far, my life may not be long enough to completely recover. So, that may not be the prize I should keep my eye on. However, this plodding pace is really getting my goat.

As sung by Sugarland, "I need a little less hard times; I need a little more bliss." Is "bliss" really a thing of the past, to be consigned to nostalgic memory?

I suppose I shall have to wait and see.

Letter to Jim

Dear Jim

It's hard to believe it's been almost three years. All but a week. It doesn't even feel like one year. Maybe a few months...

I know you've been there at the rehearsals for Robbie's (must remember to call him Rob) show. Even the ones at Kayla's house. Don't try to weasel out of it...I can smell you. I know you've been watching, but have you been listening? Have you been listening to that boy give notes? OK, he does tend to go on a bit, but then, so did you. The point is that I can hear your words coming out of his mouth! "Know the story. The story is what's important, and your job is to maintain character, no matter what." How many times did you say that to him? How many times did you say that to me?

You could have been here, Jim. You could have thrown your arm around him and said, "Good job, Robbie!" Have you any idea what that would have meant to him?

But no. You were tired of pain and worry, so you fixed that, didn't you?

I still have nightmares about finding you out there, bleeding and gasping...do you know that? I'm still so angry with you...things happen all the time that we could have shared, if you had just gone to a doctor and looked after yourself a bit! Like this awesome play directed by your awesome student!

Fuck you. I love you.

I miss you...

Ronni

PS There will be ghost hunters in the theater next Friday. Mmh Hmm. The 20th. They got some cool stuff on tape last week...I haven't heard it yet, but I hope I have a chance to. From what Lynn and Frank said, it sounds like that introduction you added to "Laura," back in the mists of time. Other things, as well, but that got me, when they told me.

Don't let them run you off, OK?

Ten Years Ago

Ten years ago today was one of the happiest days of my life.

I am still hoping to get to a place where I can enjoy the memory without it being tainted by the way our marriage ended.

Today, I would like to crawl into a hole and cry, but I can't. I have to go the the theater and make people laugh.

Don't you just love a challenge?