What I've been doing

I haven't posted in a while because all the days can all be summed up in a few words: "missing Tim. Stressing about the job search."

That gets boring after a while. I've decided in an attempt to keep my spirits up (though that's almost a lost cause by now), I'm going to think of at least one good thing every day.

Today, I am adored by the current ladies in the shelter. I've been working more frequently, which gives me more opportunities to get to know them. I will occasionally second guess my skills, which I'm going to spin positively and say that's me always striving to be better, but lately it has occurred to me that my real talents lay in relationship building. I like to think that because they can tell I like and respect them, and am interested in their lives, they in turn respect me.

My old supervisor said that once the clients like you, you're sunk. She also worked with a lot of people with personality disorders, so I'm going to disregard that for my work. Things go a lot more smoothly when I am able to get along well with my clients.

Going overboard

It's no secret. If you know me, you know I go overboard when I get excited about something. Even better, when it's something creative, for someone I love.

Today I made a book for mom's 60th birthday. I asked everyone who knows her to write a something about her, and an overwhelming number of people responded. Their words are the true treasure of this gift, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I found some beautiful card stock, and sewed the booklet myself.



If you can read the words, this one is lovely. The woman who wrote it compares aging to an antique barn that silvers with age and becomes more beautiful.




Sisters


Everyone mentioned her lovely pottery




Her beautiful smile and wide-reaching enthusiasm


This one was my favorite, from an old friend of my parents: "I have a million memories of your mom from the first time I saw her sticking her head out of an apartment window on East Lake Terrace to working at the Little King Sandwich Shop with Mike to teaching me how to take photographs with a homemade pinpoint camera on the back porch of their west side apartment to playing in the surf at Palisades with Danny the summer they lived in Michigan to camping in the Rockies and riding home with our heads poking out of the sun deck of Mike’s old VW Bus to riding bikes to the Loop to the last time I saw her at the party at your house and, do you know what, in every single one of those memories right up to the last one, your mom is one of the most beautiful people I’ve ever been lucky enough to know."

Alone

There is a certain asceticism to being single, and being alone. My meals are simpler, because I usually only go all out when I have someone else to cook for. There isn't bike gear strewn across the dining room table, or other people's paperwork. Just mine. I can even push the bed against the wall since I am the only person getting into it.

It's everything that I loved about living by myself. Quietude.

But this time, instead, none of that matters. I feel like there is a vise across my chest, and it is only barely working to keep everything inside. It's hard to focus on what I need to do for myself, like set up temp work and health insurance, and remember to give Fergus his daily pills, or even on conversations while I'm in the middle of them.

I find myself wanting to interrupt the conversation and make casual acquaintances intimate friends with my confidences: "I don't know how I'm going to survive without Tim." It's been one night of tossing and turning, sleeplessness because his presence next to me in bed is my sleep aid; and 153 more to go.

Today a customer service rep called for him. "My husband doesn't live here currently," I said, wondering how uncomfortable I was making the caller, with my insinuation that something was up, and slightly enjoying it. But then I felt guilty, so I told him about Tim's summer into fall job, that he wouldn't be home until October, and then I realized I was telling too much, but I couldn't stop, because all I wanted to do was talk about Tim. I notice this happens when I miss him; I try to insert him into every conversation I have--I suppose so then it's like he's with me again.

Anything, really, to relieve this punch in the chest I feel every time I breathe.