Writing to No One

OFF LIMITS

The alarm clock hasn’t been set in a long time.

For most of my life, I checked the calendar every night, figuring out where I had to be and what time the alarm needed to go off to drag me out of bed the next morning.

Now most days contain almost nothing that can’t wait days even weeks.

I’m not officially retired, but between the virus and my health, the odds of setting that alarm ever again are getting pretty slim.

These days my thoughts tend to fall into two categories.

Things that are off-limits to talk about — even if there were someone to tell.

And things that feel like pipe dreams, considering how little time there may be left to do anything about them.

A question circles through my head several times a day.

Is it even worth it anymore?

So I write.

Writing is how I break the silence in this house.

But memory has a way of sneaking in when the room is quiet enough.

The clocks tick loudly here now. Louder than I remember them sounding years ago.

Maybe they always sounded like that.

Maybe there were just more voices around back then to drown them out.

For years I pushed most people away. Often for reasons I still believe were good ones. But good reasons don’t change the outcome.

Silence.

Just the ticking clocks in the background and the long hours between them.

Sometimes I look around and wonder what any of this is for anymore.

Two houses that need decisions made about them.

One that could be remodeled. One that could be sold.

Plans that once felt practical now feel pointless.

The cameras sit in their cases with dead batteries.

They remind me a little of the man who owns them.

Once full of energy. Now mostly sitting still.

I have more of everything than I ever expected to have.

More space.
More things.
More quiet.

Except for one thing.

Someone to share any of it with.

Strange how life can end up like that.

Though if I’m being honest, this ending didn’t exactly happen by accident.

My standards for the people I allowed into my life were always strict.

In the end only one person ever truly met them.

And I miss her more than I know how to say.

My friend.
My mentor.
The reason for anything good I ever managed to do.

My mom.

I knew losing her would be hard.

I just didn’t know it would leave the world this quiet.

So now I write to no one about everything.

There are no arguments here.
No interruptions.
No one trying to fix a life they didn’t live.

Just the clocks.

The silence.

And my prayers that God keep his arms around me and those who need it.

Even the ones I pushed away.

I pray for you, too.

Everything works out in the end.

But in the meantime…

The clock keep ticking and I hear ever second.

old dogs

A few nights ago I got the idea of searching the internet for the name of an old friend from decades ago and while I didn't exactly find him, I found an obituary for his father who I had also known long ago. In the obituary for his father it named survived by with the name of the friend I had looked for, his brother who I had known, and then the part where his mother had also passed away years before and his sister all that I had known and been very close to all those many years ago when I was in the process of getting through the trauma of divorce and just trying to find my way. 

As I have gotten older I've found that deaths have the effect of forcing me to look closer at my own mortality and just how quickly death can come and how instant the finality of life is at death. 

I began looking up other names from the past and even the high school FB page from the class I would have graduated in. This was a mistake for me as many names I was familiar with have died. This put me in a place of deep sadness when I realize how short a time we are actually here and how much of that time we just waste as if we can make it up tomorrow. 

I've done very well in some areas of my life and failed miserably at many others. I've spent more time trying to look back and figure out how those failures happened even while knowing there is no going back to fix that stuff and none of those opportunities to make wonderful memories has a do over option. My time spent looking back is an example of the waste a lot of us probably do that makes no sense but we do it anyway and then some of us write about it compounding the waste.

When the minutes, months and decades are pissed off, we don't get any of those back. They are gone forever and in their place lies piles of regrets we take with us for the rest of our days. I'm finding the load to be quite heavy and hard to manage these days. I need to stop beating myself up so viciously at this stage of the life I have left and find ways of not adding more weight to the regrets I already carry. 

Can't go back, can't recover what has been lost or given away, and those who have passed before me would have given anything to have had one more day and you can bet it wouldn't have been wasted looking back and drowning in grief and depression. 

what I miss most

My brand of therapy is writing or purging. This is both. The death of a family member spurred my need to relieve some of the pressure so this, is that. My Gran's sisters babysat me when I was a little kid and I remember them being so sweet and caring. We didn't stay close and now both are gone. Like so many other members of this family a lot didn't stay close and most of those people have since passed away. I find death forces me to search what is left of my soul and more often than not I don't like that I find more regrets filling the space where peace should be. 

The DEATH OF THE FAMILY itself has to be acknowledged and given its due in order for me to find perspective when a new death brings back old memories. I am old enough to remember when we were all gathering around Gran's dinner table and actually seeing each other and hugging and hearing each other's voices that are just a memory now. The cousins playing in the backyard when we were little now we rarely even speak to one another until we find ourselves at a funeral for someone we cared about decades ago but didn't show up much while they were here. Everything that was good and better than we knew at the time, is gone now. While many have passed away, so many others have just disconnected from all that was. All thats left for me now is some of the memories and visiting the graves of those people who created me and those memories, that is all I have to hold on to.

When all you have left are memories, you have reached a place in line you may not be fully ready for. It's a very heavy place, an empty solitude surrounded by sadness, grief, and regret. A look back at how we all began to disengaged with one another and drift apart isn't a pretty picture to spend the time I have left painting but I often feel the need to go there and try and find the reason. This is what happens when the well runs dry and I wish I hadn't been so wasteful of so much time. 

I will press on like I promised mom that I would and I will continue to thank God for giving me the mother I had that continues to save my life every single day, and on days like this.