In the moment

I was driving down the highway when my mind framed this thought in very concrete terms. I'd been around to participate in and see almost half of Robin's life - from age 23 to age 43. She'd entered this world, experienced it, and she was gone from it. And the world is still moving forward. Humans are continually entering and exiting. At this point I've lived three years longer than Robin and time still seems so short in span. It's easy to imagine a person in the end feeling like it all passed in the blink of an eye. It's really amazing that we can get so caught up in day-to-day living, that we can get hung up on our future desires, that we can judge others so nonchalantly, that many of our lives are lived from a position of fear and avoidance. It's all going to be over so soon…

I considered whether this is the perspective that people develop after they lose their parents (which I haven't) but I think it's decidedly different. When your parents pass away your mind can always rationalize it -"What did I expect?" It's the flow of life. One day I'll also become old and gray and I will come to an end - but that day always seems so far in the future. After all, your parents were 20, or 30, or 40 years older. So there's always time to grow old.

With Robin the lesson was that there is no predefined lifespan. For some humans life comes to an end earlier than others - and no matter when we die it's likely always earlier than we expect. Rather than diminish my view of the time remaining this tenet seems to be accentuating it. Now there is greater freedom from rules and absolutes. These days I can be just as happy with any activity - whether it used to be considered recreation or a chore. I'm often aware in the moment of my thoughts and feelings and experience them with interest and curiosity rather than as defining me.

Though I haven't fully thought it through, I feel intuitively that I used to be driven by a fear of my own death. Certainly now I'm driven more by a love of life.

Teary-eyed Massage

I went for a massage today and I was talking to Sara (the therapist) about how I had started dating after Robin died. We talked about marriage, and about single life, and Sara mentioned that her mother had been dating and met a fellow who had lost his wife when he was a young man. This fellow stated that he had never expected to marry again - but having met Sara's mom had changed his plan.

The conversation was occurring as Sara massaged my back and soon we fell into silence while she combated tight muscles in the middle of my back. My mind drifted and soon I found myself thinking of Robin and when she used to give me massage for relaxation. I allowed myself to think of being in Robin's office and feeling her strong but gentle hands. Soon I could feel the welling of emotions and the sensation of warm, wet eyes. Tears slowly formed, but since I was laying on my stomach with my face in the cradle they couldn't run down my cheek - instead they began to flow down my nose.

Although I was allowing myself to feel the emotions, I also wanted some distance from them. I began to visualize the feelings being contained in a row boat that I could push away from the shore. Then I reframed it and I put myself in the row boat, in the middle of a cove. I thought some more and I moved the boat with me in it to the middle of the ocean, with no shore in site. As the feelings flowed I considered that I didn’t need the boat and I changed to visualizing myself floating in the ocean face-up. This was a familiar position from when I was younger and used to do visualization for relaxation - with myself floating in the ocean, a beautiful blue sky overhead. Finally I considered the pressure and movement of Sara's hands on my back and I began to visualize the pressure being generated by waves lapping at my body.

Soon Sara declared it was time for me to turn over. My eyes felt drier but I thought I’d wipe them off anyway. Turns out they were more wet than I expected. Even after wiping them I could feel the moisture. I considered talking to Sara - noting that I was experiencing some emotions. But then I thought, "I don't feeling like sharing right now". In the moment, this time turned out to be for me rather than for sharing.