35 Things (Part One)

This post was supposed to be written on my birthday, but I've been thinking about turning 35 and what I've been through in the last year, and I've been overwhelmed by what to say.  And now, since I've procrastinated, this post cooincides with other important moments.  It's been one year since the Professor told me he wants a divorce.  Again, fall is coming, and that time feels close enough to press my cheek against.  The season reminds me.  I feel like I've been in twin worlds -- this fall, one year removed, and that one.  The Professor's brother is getting married in Georgia next weekend.  An epic event, to be sure.  Although I don't know the details (which feels wrong, like I've forgotten to set the alarm or turn off the coffee pot), I know my brother-in-law, and nothing he does is ordinary.  But the celebration will be marked by my father-in-law's absence.  Perhaps an empty chair to convey what is missing from the day, from their lives.  And, for me, it will also marked by my own absence.  Thinking of it, I feel like a ghost, watching my twin life go on without me.

Memories and emotion are close to the surface these days.  Some things are hard to write about not just because they are emotional or sad, but because words seem insufficient.  This is one of those times.

The last two months have been tough.  I billed 275 hours last month, which is a lot and then some.  I'm still trying to build credibility at my job, and I'm doing things I'm not very experienced at.  Between the hours and the newness, I've been completely overwhelmed, just trying to hang in there and do what has to be done.  I still enjoy the people I work with, but I cannot say I enjoy working 80 hours a week.  I am just trying to get things done, not do them well.

I can say the same for my personal life.  Seven weeks ago, I was divorced.  I spent approximately 90 seconds thinking about it that day, before heading into a conference call with a client, and I really haven't had much time to process it since then.  Instead I've been assembling furniture at midnight, packing the Professor's things at six a.m. before I head to work for the weekend.  Grinding coffee for the morning before I go to bed takes all the energy I can summon.  But I do it and fall into bed beside Chase, grateful for those few quiet moments when I can tell her how much I love her.

I don't mean to sound sorry for myself.  I have squeezed some lovely moments into the last two months:  a weekend visit from Aunt J and her friends; a ten p.m. birthday dinner at Next; my birthday party; and, last weekend, hang-gliding and a great weekend visit with my sister.  Yesterday I planted hyacinth bulbs during a break from excising the last of the Professor's things from the house.  I dug cool dirt with my fingernails, let earthworms crawl over my hands.  I ate a ham sandwich with a fresh tomato from my yard.

I have been lucky.  But I am also tired beyond belief.  It has been a long two months.  But it's been a long year, so it fits.

In many ways, this year was a crisis, and I wonder, have I gotten through it?  At times -- most times -- I think I have.  But then I am at my birthday dinner with our mutual friends.  Someone mentions his name, then stumbles.  I am embarrassed, although I shouldn't be, and sad.  I am folding laundry while it rains, white t-shirts that smell like bleach and fabric softener.  I am leaving work, almost too tired to pull out of the parking garage and fight Friday night traffic.  I clean out the garage, find some old cards and letters I'd overlooked before.  I sit outside and read them, crying.  The loss is there, in quiet corners, in brief but sobering moments.  The magnitude of it catches me off guard.    

It's hard to believe I'm 35 years old.  I feel fifteen, I feel 95.  I'd like to say the last year ultimately brought only good things, and I could certainly say that it brought only bad (and I think no one would judge me for that) -- but either statement would deny the complexity of the last year.  It has been ugly and cruel.  It has aged me more than any other.  At times, it left me broken, consumed by myself, by my panic, my sorrow, my immediate experience.  But the year has also been gracious -- in giving me wisdom, in teaching me silence, in forcing me to accept my own lack of control over anything but myself.  I have reflected and changed more than in any year before.

When my dear friend, Anna, died the year she graduated from college, I spoke at a memorial service the school held for her.  I struggled to write something worthy of her life, to find something meaningful in her death that I could share.  But I realized, and I think I said at the service, that I could not find meaning in her death.  Instead, I found meaning in her life, and in how I chose to move forward and change my own life as a result of that.  Sometimes that is the best we can do.  And that can bring us good and make us better.  That is what I have tried to do with this year.  I cannot find meaning in the Professor leaving me.  I have tried, but cannot find purpose in that, or say that it was meant to be.  I don't really believe those things.  But I can make meaning from it, from who I was and how I ended up there, and what I did with what happened next.  And I have tried my best to do that.  

A lot has come of this year, as painful as it has been to get at.  And so, to commemorate my 35th birthday, a little bit late, I am attempting to compile a list of 35 things I have discovered in the 35 year of my life.  Apparently I'm a slow learner, because it's taking a while.

The first fifteen:

1. I can stop crying, start a new job, get a divorce, work 14 hours a day, take care of two dogs, throw a baby shower, keep the house clean, pack my ex-husband's things, have the yard landscaped, hang with my girlfriends, throw a birthday party, assemble furniture at midnight and host house guests - all at once.  
2. But I don't have time to wash my hair every day.  Or even every other day.
3. I can still laugh.  I must laugh.  Despite everything, and because of everything. 
4. Acceptance is a battle we fight entirely with ourselves, and perhaps the bloodiest one.  
5. Everything else is easier.
6. People say strange and/or bizarrely inappropriate things when they don't know what else to say.  Like maybe he'll come back one day.  Someone said that this week.  There is really no adequate response.  Perhaps laughing maniacally while crying hysterically, if you can pull that off.  I can't. 
7. I can do and tolerate more than I thought.  We can do almost anything in order to keep living.  The guy who cut off his own arm?  I could do that.  I might bleed to death, but I would give it a shot.    
8. Grief is not a room we pass through.  It dwells within, blooms and recedes, evolves.  
9. I can climb onto a total stranger's back and let a go-cart with wings tow me 3000 feet into the air by a clothes line.  And love it.
10. I don't know if I can change certain fundamental aspects of my personality or temperament (and I'm not sure I want to), but I can become a better version of myself.  It's hard, and it's going to be a long journey, but I'm working on it.  For me.
11. I can trim a door with a circular saw and not cut off my fingers.
12. Speaking of cutting, I will never cut someone out of my life with no acknowledgment, explanation or goodbye.
13. I made a lot of mistakes.  I am not blameless, and I cannot pretend to myself that I am.  But I face that, and I am proud of myself for getting through this last year the way that I have.
14. I miss Crazy Dog more than I thought I would.  A lot more.  But if I ever get another Crazy Dog again, I'm returning him immediately, before I love him and without shame or guilt.
15. It's never too late to start over.  Taking this job was the right decision.  I faced my fears, it didn't kill me, and I am good at a lot of what I do.  But I'm still not so sure I want to do it for the next twenty years.  Thinking about that MFA.