Sitting in the dark theater watching a movie helped. Sea salted caramels and emails from friends and shopping for groceries helped. But I’m still swinging wildly between relief that I’m back home and life will proceed whether I will it to or not, and wishing I was sitting with my arms around my knees on a beach somewhere, giving full rein to my grief. Too bad I live in New York and it’s January and there are no beaches with the requisite warmth around.
I bought sweet clementines yesterday and the first one brought me joy, which is funny since my dad and I loved sharing a box of clementines you’d think it’d make me cry (it made Stuart cry a little) but I thought to myself, I’m eating this delicious sweet thing! It’s not even one-eye! There’s no crying in here. I thought about how I sang him the song in the hospice, as he slept, and how I fumbled past all the deathiness of the last two verses. The clementines are still sweet, the sweetest box I’ve bought in years. Is meaning found, or created?
There’s no shortcut. It wouldn’t do any justice if there was. So through it, it is.
The worst part, by far, is the forward movement of time without a pause.