Shhhh…

You can’t see me.

I am an amorphous spirit living within the physical body of the woman I used to be.

I’m not really here.

The mute button has been activated and what you (the world) sees is a woman who wears a lot of pink, who drives a pink car, towing a pink-trimmed trailer around the country. Perhaps, I think to myself, this pink, my mourning color, is also to ensure that people see me when I feel I’ve disappeared.

Simultaneously I am outside my body, observing myself, and I am behind the screen of my body, looking out, detached and disconnected. I am in the TV and the mute button is on so you see a person moving, smiling, laughing….all these things and yet, nothing.

I have no interest in being here in this life. Quite honestly, life without my husband is exhausting. Emotionally, I mean. Anyone can learn the practical stuff and I’m a competent woman and I do all kinds of shit I did when Chuck was alive and I do even more now that he’s dead. (like all of us).

Emotionally though? Totally different story. I don’t like life without him. I feel the lack of his energy, the masculine energy and presence, the feeling of fullness that we had together that is glaringly gone.

I’m supposed to care about life, to be grateful that I wake each morning. I think its supposed to be enough for me that I have our kids and grandkids as my reason for getting up every day.

With the greatest love for our kids and grands…it isn’t enough. My life never revolved around our kids, nor did Chuck’s. Our lives revolved around each other, especially once our 4 grew up and went out on their own, especially once he and I went out adventuring on the road. We reveled in our time together, he and I. Our marriage was a passionate marriage. That was my life. Chuck and Alison. We two.

There is no self-pity. Life happens. People love, cancer happens, people die. I am one among many over the centuries. No violins necessary.

Just a simple statement of fact. Loving Chuck, being in love with him, was my life. I was very independent but being in love with him boosted me up among the clouds. When he died, I did too. Since then I am only going through the motions of life.

I’m creating a life for myself without him. I’m being and doing and talking and all that jazz. I’m on my third trek cross-country. I’m doing every fucking thing I can to engage in life. But who you see, who the world sees, is not who is.

Because, you see, I’m not really here.