TheBanyanTree: Back to Normal, the After Ray Kind of Normal

[Margaret R. Kramer]

Oh, it is so good to be sitting here at my desk, early on a Sunday morning,
writing again.  I missed writing.  It’s in my blood.  It helps me get my
head straight.  Now I need to straighten out my head again.

We had a good run, Joe and I, but I should have known better.  It was way
too early for either one of us to begin a relationship and then expect it to
“work.”  I can’t really speak for Joe, but I know for myself I was so sad
and lonely after Ray died, I would have probably gone out with a dead tree.

While I was with Joe, my whole life turned topside over.  We didn’t get
enough sleep.  If we weren’t having sex, then he was talking.  And, oh gosh,
could that man talk.  It’s been a long time since I met someone who could
keep up a running monologue for hours.  Many times we wouldn’t go to sleep
until 2:00 or 3:00 or 4:00 am because he was in the middle of some topic.
Then I tried to function on two hours sleep.  That doesn’t work too well
with working two jobs.

I’d drag myself to work.  I didn’t go to workout before work, because I
needed every second of sleep I could get, so I’d blow two hours off from
work and go to the gym at lunchtime.  That hurt me at my job, because I’m
doing something different now and it’s more intense and I’m more visible to
upper management.  It’s a good change, but I need to be AWAKE to organize
myself and function at a halfway effective level.

Then if my work schedule gets busy, I can’t go to workout, because I don’t
dare take those two hours off.  I feel like my body is falling apart.  I’ve
lost 15 pounds since Ray died.  I was gradually getting in the best shape I’
ve been for a while, but my body is slowly turning back into flab because I’
m not doing effective workouts anymore.

I’m tired and worn out.  I go home from my first job.  Then I water the
garden, take out trash, talk to the boys, have a quick dinner, and then head
out to my second job as a phone interviewer.  I make $9 an hour trying to
get people to do surveys for various things.  There’s no commission, which
is fine.  It’s a research firm, not telemarketing.

It’s an easy, mindless job.  The worst part about it is that the office is
located in a suburb and I have to drive through a parking lot on the freeway
to get there.  Going home is a breeze, I fly down the freeway.  But getting
there, it’s awful.

The other frustrating thing about the job is that it’s BORING.  I don’t even
play games with myself to try to get more people to take surveys.  If they
don’t want to, hey, that’s cool, I just say, “thanks” and move on to the
next call.  I keep watching the little clock on the bottom of my computer
screen and see the minutes so slowly change until it’s 10:30 pm and I can
leave.

When I get home, I call Joe and we either spend the night at his place or
mine.  We don’t even live a mile apart, so it’s easy for us to get together.
Then we talk and talk or have sex until dawn and start the whole thing all
over again the next day.

By the time the weekend comes, I have a HUGE sleep deficit and I’m crabby
and out of sorts.  I don’t work on Friday nights, so that gives me a break.
Joe and I go to grief group together on Saturday mornings, but the group
doesn’t know we’re a couple.  We’re getting closer to our grief group
comrades and are beginning to do things socially together outside of the
group discussions.  For example, next week we’re planning to go on a picnic
together.

It’s on the weekends when I feel Ray close by.  Maybe because I’m so tired,
my mind is more likely to let him in.  I know he’s OK about Joe.  He would
want me to have someone special.  But, no one, no one in the world will ever
be Ray.  No man in the whole wide world will ever love me like Ray did.  Ray
truly was my soul mate.  He was THE ONE.  He was my special, special man.

And because Ray has only been dead for 21 weeks, I’m still married to him.
I’m only beginning the process of separation, and it’s very painful.  And it
’s when Joe, who is very different from Ray, does something or reacts to
something in a way Ray wouldn’t have, then that’s when I get frustrated and
angry with him.  It’s not that Joe is wrong, it’s that in my mind, Ray is my
husband and why doesn’t Joe = Ray?  Well, Joe doesn’t equal Ray.  He never
will.

So, my free time is limited, I don’t get enough sleep, I don’t read much
anymore, I don’t work out the way I want to, I’m unable to unplug from the
conversation from Joe in order to write, and I expect Joe to be Ray.  That’s
a lot of issues.

And while I’ve been writing this, Joe emailed me and wanted to go out to the
cemetery together this afternoon.  His wife and Ray are both buried at Fort
Snelling.  She’s in a cremation wall thing and Ray is buried in the ground,
but they’re very close to one another.  OK, I’ll go out to the cemetery with
him.  I’m a wimp.  I know.

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at comcast.net
margaret.kramer at polarispublications.com
www.polarispublications.com

People do not die for us immediately, but remain bathed in a sort of aura of
life which bears no relation to true immortality but through which they
continue to occupy our thoughts in the same way as when they were alive.  It
is as though they were traveling abroad.
~Marcel Proust
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