Just whistle while you work
And cheerfully, together we can tidy up the place...
Today was a day for work. Not the fun kind of work, the work that makes me feel fulfilled and like I’m making a positive impact in the world. No, it was a day for stupid work.
Here’s some data points on how it went:
I had a truly awful evening last night. Just ugh. Those are gonna happen from time to time, but it was Not Good.
…And then I got the best night’s sleep since Kellie died. Six hours and twenty-two minutes. That was actually a sequence of events which has given me a great deal of hope, because it means that I can have good days and bad days, but the quality of my sleep is not necessarily dictated by my day’s mood. Otherwise I’d be worried all the time that I was predestined to something bad later on.
I did my private practice accounting nonsense for the first time in about six weeks, which meant I could pay myself!
It also meant I could pay the mortgage, pay some other bills, etc.
I cancelled Kellie’s cell phone today. Not because I don’t still call or text her, and not because I want another piece of her to be gone. Just because my bill was literally double what it had to be, so I felt like it was something I had to do. I charge up her phone and turn it on just to look at her pictures and videos, to see her perspective on the world in that way. The telemarketers will not stop, even now. If you were wondering, it took almost a half hour to cancel her line. And both the representative and their supervisor both tried to convince me to have someone else take over the line. At one point I had to say “My wife died, and we didn’t have any kids, and I am NOT giving a phone to my dogs.” It eventually happened, despite their best efforts.
Three people reminded me to drink water today. The only time I drank any water was when those people reminded me of it, so make of that fact what you will.
This was my sister’s last day here in Ashtabula before she needs to fly back to NYC for a few weeks. She’ll return for the funeral, of course. I’m so glad she’s been here in this time to do all she’s done for me. Kellie would be grateful too. Maybe she is. I’m pretty sure she is.
I think I mentioned that some of Kellie’s students took up a collection for a really nice fruit basket and bouquet of flowers that both arrived yesterday. And then today, from out of nowhere, I received an absolutely massive Giant Eagle gift certificate, which (as I told them) was such a shock due to the fact that I’m working on my first grocery order since she died. The timing could not be more perfect. And the kindness on display from these students never ceases to amaze me.
I had a quiet morning, an afternoon spent doing work that I didn’t want to do, and then this evening my dad, my sister, and the dogs all went on a trip to pick up pizza and ice cream.
I ate my ice cream straight out of the container, because, as I told a friend later on, these are unprecedented times.
I also bought some watermelon, because Kellie hated watermelon. And I had mushrooms on my pizza, for the same reason.
I miss her every minute of every day. Or at least significant portions of every minute, which feels pretty constant from my side of things.
Someone (another someone) had a heck of a time sending me a DoorDash gift card. First, thank you again. And second, if you’ve tried doing that in the last week and I didn’t ever acknowledge it to you, it probably never made it to me. I think I’ve solved the issue now—my phone was categorizing those messages as spam. Whoops. Sorry!
I continue to persist, somehow, putting one weary foot in front of the other. Sometimes I just feel so tired, you know? And if I’m this exhausted after nine days of this nonsense, how am I supposed to find the strength to stretch it into weeks and months and years?
That was a rhetorical question, and I know all the answers about how I’m going to process and deal with this and etc. etc. I’ve been supporting others through things very much like this for decades now. But this is Kellie, and the whole world needs to acknowledge that she was here, she did amazing shit, and now she’s somewhere else, which sucks for all of us.
I miss Kellie. She wasn’t supposed to leave yet. And that makes me grumpy lots of the time.
Sleep tight. I hope to do the same. Just have to make it through what Douglas Adams referred to as the Long, Dark, Tea Time of the Soul first.
Hugs to everybody,
Matt