Ambuscade
Last night I was synching my Blackberry to my Mac for the first time. I checked the calendar to make sure everything transferred properly, and when I saw the date this coming weekend, it was like a punch in the gut. I wasn’t thinking about A prior to that. It was seeing the date alone that caused a visceral reaction. I find that astonishing.
On the way home for lunch today, I passed an apartment complex. The manager was unlocking a door to show the place to what I surmised was a prospective tenant. Something about the idea of an apartment hit me, hard. The apartments weren’t anything like A’s, and I wasn’t there when he checked his out before renting it. Just something about his apartment was threaded through the visual of the moment, and it was the same sick feeling I had when I saw the date.
The pain, the shock, the confusion, the ache… It never really goes away. It steps back into the shadows for awhile and awaits its cue, entering the scene when you least expect it. And even if you do expect it, as I reasonably could given the timing, you still gasp at the forcefulness of its stage presence.
I’d really like to just go to sleep for the next two weeks. Strangely, it is easier to live the reality of his absence than to contemplate that reality.