How progress is measured
Last night, the power was out at my house for 6 hours, from dinner time until 11:25 p.m. I know what time it was, because the fan and the air conditioning woke me when it came back on and I checked the clock.
It is my habit to write to A in my journal every night before I go to bed, and I was determined to try last night as well, despite the lack of lights. I had 3 candles on my desk, and then I had the brainstorm that I could use my laptop for additional light. It had 39 minutes left on the battery.
The image on my desktop is a pair of pictures of A laughing, and what’s more, he’s laughing because I made him laugh, though I cannot remember what the joke was now. I’m just glad I got the pictures. I loved to make him laugh. Those pictures are surrounded by a field of black.
Of course, a field of black wasn’t going to provide much light, so I changed the background to white. The fact that I COULD change the background to white without breaking out in a rash was a feat in and of itself. Practicality outweighed the miniature neuroses that come with grief and loss, which is often not the case. Of course, one could question the neurosis-free practicality of choosing to have enough light to write letters to one’s dead lover, but I choose not to. I know he lives somewhere, even if it’s not here.
Change, particularly regarding things having some connection to him, has been difficult for me. More than once in the last year I thought I could change something, did it, and was so emotionally and mentally uncomfortable that I immediately changed it back, waiting for some unknown future day when I might have the strength to do it without it bothering me.
I recently moved some books that he gave me from one bookshelf to another. It was so unremarkable an action that it wasn’t until I was done, I thought, “Hey, look what I did!” There was no remorse after that move. Amazing!
To someone who has never been through this, the importance of such activities would be too ridiculous to mention, but those who have know that progress is often measured in microns. More often than not, it isn’t the action itself that is the sign of progress, but the level of comfort you feel doing it. Actions free of fear, of foreboding, of dread, of sadness, of a feeling of futility or betrayal—those are the ones that make us think that we may actually come out of this alive, in time.
This morning, then, when the power was back on, I opened up my computer like I do every day. The white background behind his pictures couldn’t stay; it was too glaring and I just didn’t like it. I could’ve put it back to black, but that didn’t really seem right, either. I settled on a dark blue. And it felt okay. It felt…appropriate.
Progress.