How Am I Doing?

 

How Am I Doing?                                                                     June 4, 2021

          I’ve been asked that question several times in the past few days and I suppose it has to do with a move to a new apartment and some people noticing on the calendar that Kris has been gone for ten months.

          The answer is not especially simple. I miss Kris. Waves of grief still wash across my shore but not so often as, say, five months ago, though I agree with those who say that one never stops grieving. The waves are smaller with time, mostly, but they still come. I don’t go a day without thinking about him and not many hours pass without his face or voice or a particular memory filling my mind.

          I’m glad to be in a new apartment but Tuesday I turned in the keys and car tags and gate openers and whatnot to the manager of the old complex on Stokes Street and felt tearful as I walked to the car. I didn’t like that apartment much. The place was loud and oldish and overpriced, so I wasn’t mourning its loss—I think I was walking away from all of the moments, good and bad, that Kris and I shared there, and it felt overwhelming for a few seconds.

          The new place is better in several respects (honest-to-God air conditioning, central air, not that cheap and anemic wall unit in the living room that the old place had). I’m getting settled; some furnishings are on order and I plan to replace a few more things later. When my new recliner arrives it’ll start to feel much more like home.

          Though it’s going to be a good place, I think, it’s missing other people. I can’t have anyone over until there are more places to sit and it’s a small apartment, not suitable for much entertaining. But I can’t be here alone all the time.

          I’m trying to jump start my social life with a little success but living alone —because of the pandemic and because Kris is gone—is something I hadn’t done since 2003, I realized recently. Out of practice. And what I now recall is how lonely I was back then. As is true now, I’d see a friend for lunch or meet someone to go to a movie and then I’d be back home and by myself for 12 waking hours a day. It was too much. It is again.

          Probably this part will become easier as restrictions lift and those days are in sight now. I don’t know that I can do except keep reaching out.

          And I’m finding a few more things to do that had been suspended by Covid. Wednesday I drove by the Triton Museum in Santa Clara and was surprised to see it open so I stopped in for about a half hour. It’s not huge (not tiny, either) and often features artists with local roots and it’s been a regular destination about four times a year for many years now. That felt great, nearly normal. The moment when I can put away the facemasks is approaching and that, I think, will help enormously—gathering without restrictions. I need to be around people more, particularly people I know and love, but people in general, in brewpubs and ball parks and museums and libraries.

          The meaning of life becomes more obscure as I age, at least the meaning of my life in particular does, but a few things seem reasonably clear. Enjoy your friends and family. Do good work. Try to roll with the punches, even when they arrive in a bunch. Relish those museum strolls.

          That’s all I’ve got right now. How am I doing? I don’t have a clear answer except to say that I’m starting to look forward again.