Alone - Part 10 - Progress, the final part.

Alone – part 10 – Progress

It is done!  I am signing the contract to rent a new apartment, a small space compared to what we, I, have been living in.  I am doing this with great trepidation and fear, not sure that I am doing the right thing and no one to really discuss it with.  I am alone – and on my own.

I have worked out the pros and cons, what I can keep and what must go.  What there is space for and what there isn’t.  There are some difficult decisions to be made.  I am back to the crossroads that I mentioned in an earlier blog – where do memories and emotions stop and practical sense take over. 

It is time to move, time to leave this apartment with its wonderful ever-changing views and memories.  I have been on a selling spree and sold things that caused sadness in their going to new homes. I have given many bags full of clothing and bedding, as well as furniture, to charities working with the homeless.  The pictures are gone from the walls, the bookcases are empty, this flat is losing the character and feel that we gave it.

Tomorrow I collect the keys for the new flat, in a village, in an area I don’t know, where I don’t know anyone, and no one knows me – even in a different borough.  A place where no one knew us as a couple, and I will only be known as me.   In fact the village is only 6 miles from here, but it might as well be on a different planet.  Some people I have mentioned it to have no idea where it is.    The van will take all my goods and chattels and deposit them in my new abode.  Then it is up to me to make it my new home, a place to start again, a place to recover and create a new life for myself.

I wonder what the rest of this year has in store for me?  I’m sure there will be some bumpy bits ahead, but with luck there will be new friends to be made.  There is sure to be a lot to keep me busy, there is so much I still want to do, a lot of exploring to be done, and, I hope, a lot of variety in my days. 

Alone.

Alone - Part 9 - New Year New Start

Alone – part 9 – New Year, new start

All the holidays and celebrations are over.  Workers are working, factories are manufacturing, shops are selling and everything is back to normal.   For most people.  Now I am alone my life has changed.

Now is the time for me to find a new place to live, a new life, do things I haven’t done before, spread my wings.  Do I want to do all these things?  Not really!  But I do have to find a new place to live, a place that is a lot cheaper than this.  Already I am registered with 21 agents – and that is not all of them.  Amazing!  I have appointments to view 2 flats in a few days’ time.  I listen to myself on the telephone, watch myself trawling agents’ property sites and I can’t believe I am doing this.  I am talking with the owners about a third property, the one I really want, but may not get. 

I am sorting, preparing, photographing, all kinds of things prior to putting them up for sale on numerous websites.  Downsizing has begun in earnest.  It is very hard to do alone, trying not to remember where they came from, or why we had them.   

Agents on the phone are very good at saying that their colleague is the one handling the property I am enquiring about.  Their colleague will call me back.  But they never do.  The agents are all very keen until I tell them the rent I can afford – then they sort of lose interest.  But they don’t ring off because they might persuade me to up my figure.  I wish!

I clearly stated on the forms and in speech what I needed, so why do they keep offering me something else entirely?  I have to learn more about compromises, big compromises, and even bigger ones.

I am not sleeping  well.  I spend too much time worrying about my future.  Worrying about how I am going to cope with the next two traumatic months.  Worrying about where I am going to live.  Worrying about everything.  The early hours of the morning are the most worrisome time, and I wake up with those thoughts in my mind.  Now I am alone I am not as strong and capable as people believe.  

Alone – part 8 – In Between

Everything is in between.  Between Christmas and New Year no one is quite sure what to do.  Shops are open, many people have gone back to work, yet many businesses are closed until after New Year.  It’s very unsettling.   That is how I feel.  I am trying to write.  I am trying to catalogue books.  I am trying to sell books and postcards.  I have to make space, I have to dispose of stuff which is really too good to bin.  I am trying hard to make decisions.  Decisions are hard to make alone, when there has always been someone to discuss it with.  Even if the only response was to do what I thought best!

But it will all get done, one way or another.  This new role in my life not only brings challenges and bridges, but also a new determination.  It would be too easy to sit indoors and mope and mourn and ask “why me?”  It is me, and I have to make the best of it and change my life to suit my changed position.  From wife, one half of a couple, to widow – a single with a wife’s experience.  I’m not sure that I like that definition, I must think of a better one.

Sometimes my new determination wobbles as I stumble over a sudden memory.

I have accepted, reluctantly, that I will have to move.  I cannot accept that I have to move into some of the awful places that are on offer.  My new determination says I will go back on the letting agents lists and keep pestering until someone finds me what I am looking for at a rent I can afford.  It’s out there somewhere, all I have to do is find it.  I will scour the internet, I will even consider moving into a less expensive area.  Starting  now.  What do I want if I can’t stay in this apartment?  

Time to revise my lists, aims, ideas and ambitions.   What I really want is exactly what I have now but at half the rent.  That’s a difficult one, and I am mentally deciding what is most important to me and what compromises I am prepared to make.

Everyone is going to look amazed, or horrified, laugh at or with me, be polite and tell me it will never happen.  But with persistence it will.  I’m only in this apartment because I persisted with my dream.  I will even consider retirement units on the coast if that will make the dream come true.  I don’t have much time to sort it out.

New Year, new life, new challenges, new decisions.  Where will they lead me?

Alone - Part 7 - Christmas Holidays and all that

Alone – part 7 – Christmas Holidays and all that

We had our own Christmas plans, and in spite of family doubts, I intend to continue with our plans for being alone this Christmas Day, doing what we please, when we please, as we please, how we please – with no thought for anyone else.  Now it is not “we” but “I” – but I feel that is what I must do now.  I am not ready for all the noise, jollity and hubbub of an extended family celebration.  I know the sons will phone or FaceTime me to make sure that I am all right.  And that will be enough.  I want to be alone with my memories, my thoughts, and making my plans for the New Year.  If I get bored I have plenty of work to do. 

Christmas Day dawns.  Do I really want to be alone?  Yes, I do.  Most of the people on our floor have gone away for the holiday, so I really am alone.  I watch TV, I work, I eat, I sort a box of books, the families in Ireland Facetime me, we laugh and chat and laugh some more.   I listen to the radio, I eat and drink some more.  Time for bed, the day is over, and it all went well.  I felt he was with me most of the time and I didn’t feel so alone.

Day 2 - Boxing Day arrives, I am relaxed.  The family is arriving about 11 am.  Plenty of time to do what I want to do and get lunch cooked.   There isn’t, of course, because I always under estimate how long it takes for me to get things ready.   I am lucky, they are late, and I do get things finished.  The day goes well, if quietly.  When they have gone, I clear up, clean up – and do some more work.  I’m not ready for bed, I am afraid to go to bed.

Day 3 starts with deep grieving sobs.  I don’t know why this has started, or why it won’t stop.  I get up, shower, dry, dress, make tea.  I am coping again.  But only just.  It has really hit me deep and hard today.  The tears and sobs continue on and off all day and the day ends with a very disturbed and tearfully depressed night. 

Day 4, I am almost cried out, and so tired.  I must get up, follow the routine, keep things normal even though this is still a holiday.  I manage the whole day, with some work, some TV, some time-wasting solitaire games.  But the clock says it is bedtime again, I don’t want to go to bed.  I don’t want to feel that loneliness again.  I am afraid I will dissolve into tears again.  I can last another hour before I am falling down tired and too exhausted even to read my bedtime book.  

Alone - part 6 - Life goes on

Alone – part 6 – Life goes on

After 3 weeks the new challenge is trying to convince people that they can treat me normally.  Syrup and sympathy is hard for me to rise above.  We must talk about him normally, as if he is just round the corner, just out of sight.  I am the same person as I was before.  Only now I am just me instead of part of a couple.

It is strange.  When you are part of a couple, you notice so many people on their own, without knowing why.  But when you are alone, all you seem to see is couples.  I wonder why?  I am alone.  Today someone didn’t recognize me, probably because I wasn’t pushing the wheelchair.  It was strange, and a little embarrassing for the person I spoke to.

I couldn’t push the wheelchair now even I wanted to.  It has gone on loan to a friend whose son has had an accident and can’t walk for a while.  Now I realize how wide our hall way is!

I am sleeping well, I think, but I am tired.  I am tired of the words about bereavement, loss, questions about how I am managing.  I am tired of officials telling me how sorry they are while in the next sentence they hit me with something that I don’t want to hear.    I am tired of being strong.  I am tired of being nice, and capable, and coping.  I am tired of being alone.  I want to dissolve in a heap of tears and loneliness.  The sort of loneliness that company can’t cure.  But no, I will be strong, and helpful, and determined and friendly - because that is apparently what I do.  So I am told by others who miss my other half.  What a reputation I have to live up to.  I don’t know if I can do it, alone.