Day 56

The end of week number 8. 56 consecutive days of not seeing Damian or talking with him. No contact of any kind. It's been a long 8 weeks but then I remind myself (yet again) that this is only the first 56 days of forever. I will never see or talk with him again. Not really. Not the way I so desperately want to. 

Today, I went to my work office for the first time in the after. Being there was ok. I had forgotten that I had a lot of pictures of Damian in my office. The pictures are from different years of his life. Some are of just him; others are of the 3 of us. Happier times from the before. 

On my way into the office I stopped at my favorite deli to grab a bagel sandwich to go. The owner of the deli, a spunky Korean woman, calls me "Mr. Sriracha" because I always ask for it on my bagel: sausage, egg cheese and Sriracha on a plain bagel. Yum. This morning, as she handed me my bagel and was making change for the $10 bill I'd given her, she asked me how 2022 was going. "Not well", I replied. She did a double take and then said something along the lines of, "I'm sure it will get better." I'm not so sure of that, but here's to hoping that it does.

Later, I went out to lunch with 3 of my colleagues. To their credit they didn't really act any differently today than they would have had this been 9 weeks ago. It was the normal round-the-table banter hitting on the standard, everyday topics of work, kids and school. Of my 3 companions, 2 have children. It just so happens that one colleague has a daughter who is the same age as Damian - I think they were born 3 weeks apart. They also went to school together in 5th grade. It was hard for me to listen to him talk about what his daughter was up to. I think it's because we both got into the parenting at the same time and have been comparing notes ever since. Except now, the story of my life as a parent has come to an end while his will likely continue for decades more. I envy him. And also resent him but only a little. 

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 84

Back home in Georgia. No problems getting here, but things got a little tense between Dawn and I.  I was anxious going to the airport in Tucson because we left later than I would have preferred. Our flight was scheduled to leave just before 3PM, but we didn't leave the house until 1:15. What I didn't know until we were on our way is that it was going to take nearly 40 minutes to get to the airport. It was nearly 2 by the time we there. Fortunately it took almost no time to get our bags checked and through security, but they were close to boarding our flight by the time we got to the gate. Because of all the anxiety I had about getting there on time, I was pretty keyed up by this point. My anxiety led to a miscommunication between Dawn and I as we looked for a place to get a sandwich to take with us on the plane. She thought I took off on her; I thought she wanted to go to another place because she didn't want a sandwich. After a couple of curt exchanges, we both apologized ...
Read more

Day 642

Full disclosure: In social settings, people avoid me. They don’t want to make eye contact with me, nor do they want to talk to me. I’m not approachable. The thing that sucks (for me) is I have no idea why this is.  I went to two corporate dinners this week. On both occasions I felt like an outcast. Conversations were going on all around me but I wasn’t part of any of them. Not really. Heads were turned away from me. At no point did anyone turn to ask me a question or make eye contact to welcome me to the group.  I’ve been in other group social situations where I am talking to someone, 1 on 1, and another person will come up and initiate a conversation with the person I’m already talking to with zero acknowledgement of me or the conversation that I was already having with that person. Rude yes, but also demoralizing.  This is killing my self-esteem. It makes me want to retreat into myself and go live a life of solitude. My reason being that if there is no one else around, ...
Read more

Day 639

I feel really sad today. So much so that I’m cracking open my blog for the first time in forever and writing another post.  It’s been a long time. Too long, in fact. I think I hit a point where I got burned out on writing. Or maybe it was trying to come up with something fresh to say. I don’t know what it was exactly. It just followed the same trajectory as almost everything I’ve ever done in my life - I started out with lots of dedication and persistence only to see it wither and die because I lost interest.  I’m not sure what I’m interested in anymore. Watching TV is thing I do most. Although I have picked up my (acoustic) guitar again. (Let’s see how long that lasts! I’ll be surprised if I’m still playing it by the end of the year. Color me cynical.) Is my lack of interest in life a manifestation of grief or is it something else? Today, I just feel completely tapped out. Like, what’s the point? It’s mostly all just meaningless.  The few areas of my psyche that are not ...
Read more