The way the story goes, and I've told it lots of times, is that I was sitting in my chair in the living room, having my coffee and thinking, and Eva came downstairs. It was a few months after Sharon had died, and she hadn't yet returned to New Zealand. I said, “Eva, I think I have my two year plan." She said, “OK, let's hear it." I said, “The first year, I'm just going to cope. Lean on my friends. Not change anything. But the second year, I'm going to go on an epic road trip."
I needed something I could be excited about, something to help me imagine a future that wasn't just the emptiness of loss. Sharon and I had navigated our whole adult lives together, raised our family, had our careers and saved for our retirement, which I was about to begin, having given my notice at school. So, that's what I did. I leaned on my friends, I kept going with my weekly Piano Meditations at the house, music directed at the Unitarian Universalist congregation down the street, and coped. I let grief show up however it did, which for many may have looked from the outside like I wasn't grieving at all. A line I used a bunch of times was, “I'm saying YES to life!” The truth is, I had seen the precipice of despair and refused to fall. I grieved by being in community, and maintaining this blog has been the continuation of it.
After the first year without her passed, I realized in retrospect I had been trying to accelerate the grieving process so I could come out the other end sooner. That's like running into the rain so the storm will leave sooner. I had to let it do its thing. At this point I was preparing the house for rental. Eva had wanted to have the chance to go through Sharon's clothes but hadn't been ready to do it before she went back to NZ, so I had left them in the closet. But now they were folded carefully in Staples storage bins, the pictures all put away, the kitchen emptied. My friend and master realtor Heather Bouza helped me emotionally and strategically, and found a lovely family who wanted the house. But they wanted it for a minimum of two years, not one. I swallowed hard and said yes. My epic road trip just doubled in length.
A year ago today I drove away.
Once again, with the wisdom of hindsight, I can see how I was approaching this journey with a kind of frenetic energy of healing; racking up sights and experiences, visiting friends I hadn't seen in decades, staying on the move. One of my posts was even “Keep Moving!” More than a few people suggested I stay a while somewhere, relax into an area, drop itineraries. But it was my friend Beth who put it most succinctly; “SLOW THE F**K DOWN!” Of course, I can't actually do that mileage-wise and still see Alaska for the summer, but I can do it in my attitude. I had refrained from watching TV in the van, because it had somehow seemed sad. I also wanted to be present, to feel, and didn't want to avoid confronting solitude. But now, a year in, something has shifted again, and I do feel it's OK to cut myself some slack. I'm not doing penance for being alive when Sharon isn't.
The van is my house. At least for another year it's my living environment. I'm not wishing the journey was over. I'm not even sure I should still be calling it a journey. It's just life.