Normal
So, a close friend left me a message on my cell phone yesterday. In a serious sounding voice she says "Tamsen. You have to call me." then hangs up. When she doesn't answer her phone, I begin to worry. By the time she calls me back, I'm a nervous wreck. I've convinced myself that her boyfriend or a member of her family has died. I feel nauseous, and I've already planned out the phone message I'm going to leave for work, telling them that I had to go to LA to be there for her. In the end, all she wanted to tell me was that she'd run into one of our old friends at work.
I just want to be normal. I want to be care-free and young and stupid and drunk, like your twenties are supposed to be. I don't want to be 26 and feel 48 anymore. I don't want to feel like all the important parts of me are dead before I ever really got a chance to live. I want to go to bed at night and not spend three hours staring at the ceiling wishing my dead husband was there to tell me not to cry. I want to meet new people and not think, "you have no idea, do you? Just you wait... just wait until that long black train comes to pick up someone you love... then you'll know..." I want to go out to dinner with friends and not feel compelled to talk about life and death. I want the trivial to seem important again. I want my family to not be broken and hurt. I want to have somewhere to go on the weekends and not hate Sunday. I want to go to the movies or out to eat and not resent being there. I want to feel like life has meaning again.
No, you know what? I want to start over with a whole new life, a whole different set of choices and memories. Or I want my old life back, in the month between Thanksgiving and New Years, when things were the best they'd ever been. Or I want to die, to go Home and be with him, where I'm supposed to be. I want something, anything other than this! I JUST WANT MY GODDAMNED HUSBAND BACK! But you can't start over, can you? There are no brand new beginnings. But I hear everyone can start today and write a brand new ending. I guess that means asking how you want the story to end from here... where do you hope the future goes? I don't fucking know. I don't fucking care. All I know is that I wish I was like all the other people my age, the ones who feel like the world is theirs for the taking, the ones who are full of hope and optimism and blind faith that they'll get everything they ever wanted and never lose it. I just want to be normal.
posted by TLFD @ 10:16 AM
8 comments
8 Comments:
*hugs* I feel like shit too... different and surely less concrete reasons... you're too smart to be normal once life has a crack at you... that's what my dad says. need someone new, random, and far away to talk to? haha, you can call if you ever wanna.
Tamsen, I wish I could somehow make you feel better. I read your blog, and the pain floods off the page. All I have to offer is my acknowledgement of your grief, and my personal loss of friendship in CJ.
*smiles weakly*
Yep.
I'm older but I've got the same struggles coping with the same crappy deal.
Ali
Normal is all relative, isn't it? I remember saying over and over again, "I just want things to go back to normal." It took me a long time to realize that my "normal" was gone. I'm still trying to figure out my "new normal" though. Will it ever happen?
I'm with you on this one Tamsen.
Sandy.
Wow Tamsen, I read this blog and I'm totally with you. I am 28 and have been a widow for 2 years now. I feel like I am 60. I just want to feel like other people my age. I wish my life wasn't so damn serious. It's just good to know I'm not totally crazy. And that possibly someone else has an idea about what I am felling. Thanks for the blog...it actually makes me feel better.
Tamsen -
Thank you for taking the time to leave a comment on my blog. For the record, we 46-year-old widows would like to worry about "normal" shit as well. My friends are planning their children's college tuition, worrying about their girl's sweet 16, and planning special holiday celebrations with their spouses.
And I am listening to them talk, all the while worried about how MsMeadows is doing up in Canada, how to afford a thing called a "Bago," and what Tamsen's next post will be.
It's so sad we have to worry about each other, but at the same time it's also so nice that we have each other to worry about.
Ten years ago, you and I would have been sitting in a church basement in a widow's support group with a dozen elderly women. In 2006, we have blogs, boards, and bagos. In many ways, we are lucky.
Your friend, Kurt
I lost him lsst night, my rock, my shelter. Our friends want me to go to usual Friday dinner as they said it would be good for me to get out of the house. I would like the opportunity to escape from grief for a while. I don't know if I can hold it together maybe if I don't have to talk aboout it. Should I attempt going to dinner or not?
Tamsen, I am so sorry. It is such a bitter road especially so young.
I don't want anything except not to feel so dead inside, so abolutely alone, but it is our own grief and no one else can own it.
I am so sorry for all things we didn't do, for all the things I should have done. I am so sorry for the days of dying of not being able to know if he heard my words, my apologies, my exclamation of love, my expectations for him on the other side and my expectations of seeing him there.
I know that in time you will be twenty-six again, young, stupid and drunk if you so choose. Go to dinner with friends and speak of it when yu are ready, until then put an off limits sign on it. Yes, it would be nice for trivial things to be important again. I have a compulsion to throw everything out. I suppose it is a realization that all hese 'things' mean nothing now and I hate them for it. Like you I don't care about the future I am longing for the past. I can't let go. I am holding on for dear life and going through the motions of what has to be done in sort of a sick stupor. I don't want to write a new beginning. You will write a new beginning in time. You will never forget and you will keep joyful memories but the sorrow will fade and you will find your youth born again and explore new avenues and new joys. But for now have courage and endure. Bless you.
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