Up until about age 30 or so, I was a fairly social creature.  I made friends easily, whether it be through work, spending weekends in the woods with groups, or wrenching on cars.  Through my twenties, not only did Megan and I make “couples” friends, but I had my own as well.  Friends that Megan appreciated herself, but really, they were people that I hung around with.

Most of these friends were around our age and roughly the same stage in life.  When Shelby was born, it wasn’t long before our closest friends were having their own children.  All seemed in order in the world.  Both of our thirtieth birthdays were spent with largely the same people at a local winery, having some drinks, laughing, talking about our children, cars, donkeys (long story), illness, and whatever other mundane subject we all shared interest in.  

We would all attend football games together.  Or go to the movies, festivals, car shows, or just “hang out”.  Even when Megan would be admitted to the hospital, she had frequent visits from our friends.  I would go fishing or hiking with my “buddies” whenever I had the chance, and Megan would do much the same with hers (well, not fishing or hiking, but you get the idea)

Seven years later, and that part of my life seems foreign to me.

Just before I turned 31, Megan received her double lung transplant.  As much as we did prior to that, now even more possibilities were opened up.  She wouldn’t be in the hospital 6 months out of the year.  She didn’t need to lug around an oxygen tank everywhere she went.  Hell, she could walk a few miles now.  We hiked together, and did so with the people that only I had ran with before.  Shelby even tagged along most of the time, at age 4.

But things changed in a much different way.  Many of our friends were getting on with their lives.  I finally switched employers, having been locked into my previous one for far too long, what with health insurance being what it is in the US.  6 months of my personal life, where i would normally be doting on Megan and Shelby were now “empty” in the sense that I didn’t need to be so much of a caretaker.  I had to adjust in so many ways, and frankly, i did not do a good job at it.  

I became reclusive and overwhelmed. After 9 years of caretaking, I had suddenly lost who I was, and it forced me into hermitage.  There isn’t a clear reason behind this.  One would think that I would want to seize life and do so, so much more than we ever got the chance to.  

That’s not what happened.  After a few month’s recovery, it became apparent that Megan wanted to do things, but that she would have to drag me kicking and screaming out of the house.  When she succeeded, glimpses of the old me surfaced, and I would have a great time with friends.  When she didn’t have success in getting me out of the house, she would often just go out with friends by herself, leaving me pouting at home because I “wasn’t included” (I know, I know, I’m an idiot).  Worst of all would be when she would cave into my “shut-in” tendencies, and we would both sit on the couch doing nothing productive.

Again, I don’t know why I became so anti-social.  There was latent overprotectiveness, sprinkled with a dash of shock, and garnished with a pinch of codependency.  After 3 years of this new normal though, it came to a head.  Our closest “couples” friends had moved off to another state.  I was seriously considering switching jobs yet again, where one of my friends would remain.  As a lot of our car club friends had married and had children themselves, all of our lives got busier, with less time for the “good old times”.  

I was on an island.  I had all but lost all of my own friends due to my own antisocialness, and Megan’s closest friends were more “PTA moms” or those that shared her illness.  I went hiking less and less, and I became more and more grumpy and ill-tempered.  Facebook was just an excuse to feign signs of friendliness towards people…to this day I still don’t like it, only having my own account because I’m “supposed to”.  

Then she died.

Of course, everyone from my past and present was “there” for me.  Even my boss showed up at my door the day Megan died, just to say that he was there for whatever I needed, and to take all the time I required.  The cliched “call me if you need ANYTHING” may be annoying; we may joke about it and say “sure, I’ll call you at 2 AM crying”, but goddamn I wish I had called some of these people a few times.

The reason being, I didn’t call anyone.  I stayed in my little cave of a home and cried for a month.  I even sent Shelby off to grandparents more often than not, just so she didn’t have to see me in the state I was in all the time.  I was alone, and felt that I NEEDED to be alone to “properly grieve”.  The one person that had ever been successful in getting me out of the house over the past three years was…dead.

I subconsciously appreciated this at the time.  Now I didn’t HAVE to leave the house, save for work and errands.  I could close the blinds, grow a beard, and go dark.  I felt a temporary comfort in this fact.  I managed to have a spark light under my ass once in awhile, which is what got me to camp widow, Sarah, and writing here, but for the most part, I was a willing hermit.  

It’s a little over three years since Megan died, and NOW is when I’m finally adjusting to her “life after transplant”.  I think that might be an issue, since she’s you know, dead and all.  I haven’t kept in touch with friends.  I didn’t call anyone.  Even my “best friend”…the one I’ve had since kindergarten, and the best man in my wedding…hasn’t been spoken to in over two years.  My work friends have faded, and my “car” friends have scattered.  I still keep in much closer touch to a couple of Megan’s friends, who share her illness, recently had a child, and live about 30 minutes away.  By “keeping in touch”, I mean that I see their facebook posts and we might chat and/ or visit about once every 6 months.   

Megan and I’s closest “couples” friends live 9 hours away.  I talk to almost nobody from my past outside of family.  Out of the 90 or so people at my current job, I can count on one hand the number of…wait…nope, not a single person here that I would ever consider asking to go have a drink after work.  I am isolated.  Sarah has more friends in Ohio than I, and it’s not because my friends dropped the ball…I did.

I am literally closer with Sarah’s (and Drew’s) long time friends from Texas than anyone else, outside of family.  In the past year, I have spent more time with any single one of them than anyone from my own “crew”.  They don’t even LIVE within 1000 miles, and I call them closer friends.  

I’m disheartened by this, in a way.  I’ve gained new friends, but I can’t just go have a beer or drop a line once in awhile with them.  I have nobody here to do so with either.  I’ve gotten so far behind in keeping up relationships that now I almost consider them ended.  

All because I didn’t call them when I needed anything.

Maybe I didn’t know I needed to do that.  Maybe I didn’t really NEED anything in the first place.  Maybe I overplayed my “widow card” and used it as an excuse to go silent and isolate.  I lost all of my friends by MY doing, or lack thereof, and now I’m “alone” in that aspect.

7 years since transplant, and 3 years since Megan’s death, and I’ve certainly turned in my widow card.  I neither identify primarily as a widower, nor do I use that title as a sympathetic crutch.  I pine for the “good old days”, but not just having Megan back.  The good old days were when I could send a text or pick up the phone and say “hey man, I’m pulling the engine of the Mustang…wanna come over and drink all of my beer while I do so?”.  The good old days were when I could show up unannounced at a group camping trip, and never be a stranger.  The good old days were when I could even sit and bitch about work, and know that the person listening was sharing the same thoughts.

I guess it is time to make “good new days”.  I’ve just never had to plan it out before.  I’ve never had to consciously think about how to make friends…it just happened.  Megan did her part to maintain existing friendships for me…I can’t ask Sarah to do the same, because she doesn’t KNOW those friends.  

It would have been so much easier to pick up the phone after Megan’s death and say, “Hey, can you come over?  I just need a friend”