Timelines

This page is not supposed to be a downer.  But it seems like I only post when I have a sense of melancholy.

The other morning, I was making breakfast and had to open the freezer.  Decades before this morning, Angela decided we needed to have a fridge freezer with a drawer on the bottom.  Something I never knew existed until we were shopping for appliances as a young couple.  Angela assured me this is the best setup.  Sorry, I digress.  This morning, I needed some chorizo from the freezer… I lean down to open the drawer, and I am face-to-face with a little photo of Summer pinned by a magnetic frame to the upper portion of the fridge.

She is smiling.  She is young.  She has no idea what lies in front of her.  I tear up a bit… But I mostly get angry.

I have tried to pretend that Summer’s abbreviated existence with us will somehow add up in the end.  Scholarship?  Make me a better person?  Remind everyone about what the important things are?

Breakfast is made.  I take my 3-second video.

As I drive to work, I am still bothered by my photo interaction.  I consider the possibility of turning the car around and staying home and just lying in bed to pout “woe is me” for a whole day.  What would that feel like?  Gloriously self-indulgent?  Depressing?  I don’t believe I took any valuable days for grieving.  Angela and I walked around the house like zombies for a few weeks after Summer passed.  But I know we never truly took moments to hide and cry.  Dying is work for those left behind.  We were busy, and we were spent.  Regardless of what is an appropriate way to deal with a quick trauma relapse…   It was not going to happen on this day either.   I had to go to work.

I was thinking of a tech that used to work with me at Fort’s… Tom Houlihan.  I had given Tom a tribute on the Fort’s Toyota social media page, celebrating our time together.  What really had me wondering was how long ago that was.  A decade? I was not even the manager of the department.  I was a Service Advisor, and Tom was the top dog technician in the shop.  It does not seem like that long ago.  How can 15 years fly by but feel like yesterday?

Closer to now…  I found out of Facebook that Seth Crowell passed away.  I told Angela.  She had no idea who Seth was.  When I told her he was a bartender at Harvest when Kevin was there… She still had no idea.  I then tried to remind her that we saw him several times at The Farmhouse in Delevan over the years, as he was always there cooking, taking orders or bartending.  Angela still didn’t remember.

Bummer. 

(This is what my mind does in the car BTW… I have my clearest thinking time in the car.)

It had me thinking of timelines.  Some timelines are a chronological story of someone’s life.  That’s pretty standard.  What’s less thought about, to me anyway, is how our timelines interact with each other.  I knew Tom for about a decade.  He had lived a full life before and after working with me.  But we have shared time.  It’s the same thing with Seth.   I knew him from his time at Harvest and really enjoyed sitting and chatting with him at the bar.  (A lost art that deserves its own post.  Bartenders and Barbers were a man’s therapist before people got all their advice on the phone.  We need more personal relationships!)  I am willing to bet there are 100’s, if not thousands of people who knew him.  Many people will remember him because he was a trusted “dude” behind the counter.

It circles back to Summer.  She is part of my timeline.  I was there at the start and end.  (That just gave me a sigh.)  She didn’t get enough time to make all those connections.  It still drives me nuts trying to think about what life should be dedicated to when you have had a front row seat to suffering and loss at this level.

Angela and I just had a great few days in Mexico thanks to Yokohama Tires and Toyota.  All expenses paid.  Even so, we are typical Midwesterners… Expecting a room charge of some sort to show up on the bill.  We didn’t eat the M&M’s in our room for fear of being charged 6 bucks.  Ultimately, at checkout, we saw the bill…  everything was paid for except for some souvenirs.  This trip was another getaway this year for the two of us.  I think these  3 days getaways have been good.

I remember Summer telling me a horrible story about how kids with Cancer at St Jude’s usually lose their boyfriend/girlfriend once they are diagnosed.  She was upset, and I was so pissed that someone at St Jude in the “Young Adults” area would be mean enough to try to take things lower!  Fast forward two years, and I am on a St. Jude parents page reading comments and articles from parents whose marriages didn’t survive the death of their child.  Some sad stories.  And its similar to the BS Summer was reading.  Want to be depressed?  Read other people’s problems!

I would imagine those couples, like us, spent so much time in the trenches of the war  that the bonds that brought them together seem like another time or world away…  And when it was over.  You feel like strangers.   I have said PTSD before.  I do not use that term lightly.  It’s PTSD.

Ang and I’s trips have been a great way to spend time one-on-one with each other again in neutral territory.   But it’s been an exceptionally busy year!  I don’t think anyone can maintain this pace!  I think we have done a great job of doing things together this year, but how do we “level set” to a version of normal?

Where does our timeline go?  I wonder about mine all the time.  I need to get a check-up.   I still have things to do.  (That’s another post… We now talk about retirement, and I need to get a grip on doing something meaningful with what’s left.)

Am I insane to feel like a trip to Mexico to relax is a waste of time?  Why do I feel like every day has to have urgency?  There is no time to lie in bed and mope.  (doom scroll for a few hours with a high guilt factor, maybe)

I’m still a mess.