Drifting

Time inches along at its normal pace. Days stretch to weeks, now 23 since Chris left. I resist the urge to call him my Chris, a habit that formed when I worked with a boss who's husband was also called Chris. I no longer work there but I loved calling him my Chris for many other reasons.

My emotions are on a hair trigger, a minor issue will cause me to overreact and tumble down a well as I drift along with no real shape or form to my world. I knew my purpose before this happened. I was a wife, a mother, daughter, sister, and friend, and I had a job that consumed me and sometimes invaded time with these people. Exchanging your behaviors for money in an employment situation brings both emotional and financial rewards. I'm slowly realising that, for me, the emotional was quietly bubbling but it was the financial exchange that meant security. Chris was always quick to calm any worries there. I now find myself on the verge of drifting off at night, waking with a start, panic rising, wondering what to do next, will my finances hold up? Should I be bolting back to the workforce? People ask me about it all the time so it begins to feels urgent. I can't think about it. I don't have the stomach for it.

I feel odd, not myself. Willing to say yes to any invitation but then immediately hopeful that those plans will be cancelled. I'm anxious to get home as soon as I can. Home equals Chris but then the disappointment.

I don't dwell on things like a final resting place, knowing his ashes are safely stowed here. I had them on his bedside table and have progressed to being able to comfortably move them out of my vision. How small his physical presence, stowed in an unimportant looking plastic box provided by the funeral home. His emotional presence so large.

I think of the lasts. The last thing he ate, last words, my last stroke of his forehead, last cuddles as we went off to sleep. Some things I can't quite remember, like the last time he drove me somewhere. I loved being driven by you; calm and strong. We loved our drives. I sit in your lovely car, playing our favourite music, alone, concentrating on the road in front of me while tears stream down my face. Crying in the car with sunglasses on is ok, nobody can see my drenched cheeks and the puddle at my chin; drifting. I am lonely in your dream home; no matter how lovely, overtaken with that now familiar empty aching sadness. Yet I still look for messages.