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.

The Future - Gaining relevance

A few weeks ago it felt like the past was "losing its relevance" in my life.

At the time I attributed it to a new level of comfort in my present relationship. Then yesterday, in a moment of reflection I came to a different conclusion. It seems that what has really happened is that my "future" is beginning to be colored with new goals and new dreams. It's a future where I see myself evolving into a new relationship with new possibilities. :)

Risky business

Even having been in a twenty year relationship, I find it difficult to articulate how relationships develop and deepen over time, particularly the steps in the early stages. Certainly it's difficult to remember events from that long ago. Six months into a new relationship I've given up trying to define the process. Though there may be constants it most certainly varies from person to person, from couple to couple.

The one thing that has become apparent is that it involves taking risks. Specifically taking the risk of saying what you're thinking and feeling. Though it’s healthy to be guarded in the beginning of a relationship, to reach deeper and deeper levels we need to be increasingly open. Risking (I suppose) that as we open up to one another there is greater possibility that we'll find an area of differing attitudes, an area in which we're not in concert.

In the world of business there's an understanding that it takes different capabilities, skills and processes to run a company as it grows in size. Company founders will have a much more difficult time growing a company from revenues of $1 million a year to $10 million, than would new leadership. In business this can be effectuated by bringing in new leaders with the necessary skills, background and capabilities to meet the new challenges. In a one-on-one relationship rather than replace the participants, it seems the preferred option is to continue to upgrade our own skills and abilities - recognizing that the tools that get us through the startup stage are not the same tools needed to continue to grow.

Grieving at 30 months

Oh lordy, 30 months? Really?

It seems a common perception that life continues to accelerate as we get older. We spend years wanting to be older, to be given more space, to be less under someone else's control. To be allowed the responsibility to conduct our lives as we think best. When will I be old enough to stay up after 8pm? When will I be old enough to ride my bike across town? When will I be old enough to see a "grown-up" movie? When will I be old enough to drive a car? When will I be old enough to live on my own? When will I be old enough to get a job, make my own money, have my own place. When will I have the freedom and space to create my own future?

For some the chase never ends. When will I be able to have kids? When will I have my own house, when will I be able to be the boss? When will my kids move out? When will I get to retire? When will I take the vacation I've always dreamed of? When will I have time to relax? When will I have time to travel? When? When? When?

I don't know if there's a common timeframe for people to begin to perceive the quickening of time. My sense is that it begins to happen in the late 20's in the American culture. A time when you've been living outside the fairly common framework of "kindergarten, grade school, middle school, high school" - for some college, for others grad school.

By the 30's some are beginning to feel that things aren't going exactly as planned and they might feel pressure to start to move toward those youthful goals. One thing is for certain - boy time sure seems to be passing more quickly. How did I get to be 34? What happened to the idea of starting a family after schooling?

By the 40's some are beginning to reevaluate their dreams. Things haven't all gone to schedule and (whether for technical reasons, or practical reasons) we're beginning to feel the need to reevaluate our dreams to align them with our current view of the world. In this new view there may be less dreaming, or more, depending on how well our sense of hope and happiness has remained intact. Fifty sure is starting to look close. What happened to the last ten years? It seems to have gone by in a flash!

Well, I can't speak to the view after age 45 (well except that soon I'll have the perspective of age 46). All I know is that the people I've met in their 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's send the same message back to me in my 'youthful' forties. To them, time has continued to accelerate. The other message is that physically their bodies are on the decline. Even Fred, the oldest and healthiest person I'd ever met was not immune. He lives in a small town in upstate New York, about forty-five minutes from the closest mall. He celebrated his ninetieth birthday in 2008, and he was still living on his own, driving his own car, shoveling snow of his walk, cutting his own grass. Fred joked about how sometimes he'd be working outdoors and he'd lose his balance and fall over. No bother. He'd take his time getting up and then continue with his chores. He got sore more easily and tired more quickly. Just about every day he visited the old folks home and chatted it up with the people in their 70's and 80's who were in their final years. Everybody in the elderly community knew Fred's age and they knew his standing against the one person in the local community who was known to be older.

Fred's 90 year old perspective was this:
-he didn't feel the need to learn about computers
-most of the people he'd known during his life were now gone
-he felt sometimes like he was just waiting for his time to be up
-if he gets any disease, that's it - he won't want any treatment
-his favorite meal was chicken on biscuits with gravy (how bad can that be for you?)
-he liked to cook pies and give them away to friends
-time has continued to seem to transpire faster and faster throughout his life

What happened to all the time waiting to get older? At some point do we all eventually say "Boy I sure wish things would slow down".

So where was I going with all this?

Oh yeah, grieving at 30 months….

In the near term after Robin died there was a very concrete sense of time. For a year or more, time was measured as After Death (A.D.) As in, it's been six months, it's been nine months, it's been a year. Then I got more and more caught up in life and living, and time began to accelerate. At 30 months there's a very tangible sense of "wondering where the time has gone" and "how did I get here".

Things are skewed only in the sense that I am once again reliving the sensations of the person in their early 20's who has discovered they are "old enough". Like the young adult full of dreams and ideals, my future once again seems pregnant with possibilities.

The Past - Losing relevance

I've been in a new relationship for six months. For some reason the other day it felt like my past was losing its relevance. I'm guessing it is that that we've talked so much about our past experiences in life that now we've become more focused on the present.

The sensation feels very nice!

Completely worth it

I've been in a new relationship for four and a half months now. It's been interesting for me to note new milestones related to Robin that I hadn't anticipated. In May and June I started to do some cleaning up around the house and rearranging things to my liking. I went through stacks of photos, partly to clean up and I guess partly for a trip down memory lane.

Nowadays I note new types of milestones. As this new relationship incrementally evolves the two of us talk in more detail about ourselves, about our history, about our goals. We share and give more openly and easily with each other. Over time we seem to smile and laugh more deeply.

Occasionally I feel a slight tug in the opposite direction. Occasionally I feel a slight fear. Like a child who's recently been burned by the stovetop I feel a slight hesitation. I wonder what I'm getting myself into. At this point in my life I'm quite adept at sensing feelings and questioning them. This sense of fear is pretty easy to understand - the fear of future loss. I take a moment to talk to myself and I say "everything is going to work out just fine". Just like Robin and I used to say before she got sick, and likewise after she got sick.

I consider what my brain is trying to protect itself from. Then I consider all the joy two people can share. Given the risk and reward I'm comfortable in my assessment that being in a relationship is completely worth it.

Off with the training wheels!

I recently had this feeling of having been swept back up into the business of living. The first couple of years after Robin died it seemed like I was learning about myself, learning about others, and often contemplating what we are all doing here. Everything seemed to involve a lot of thinking and pondering.

Then the other day I woke up and a couple months had gone by in which I'd been completely absorbed in work, in play and in a relationship. It's not that I've forgotten the lessons of the last few years, or forgotten about my time and life with Robin, or forgotten about the heartache of loss and grief. If anything all these things have just been incorporated into the tapestry of my life and they have made it distinctly richer.

I feel like the little kid who has been riding with training wheels all summer. Every few weeks the wheels are adjusted a little higher off the ground. Then one day the wheels come off and after a few attempts - viola - I'm riding without having to think about it!