Unplugged

Yesterday was a typical March day, warmish and light past dinnertime, yet a cold wind made the air feel more like winter than spring. I needed a run. Desperately. Quarantine, lockdown, whatever we are calling these days one year into covid19, has made me restless. I spend too much time in my home and in my mind, tortured by the “would’ve-could’ve-should’ve-if only-he was sitting right there-he said this-why didn’t I say that” thoughts that are always running somewhere in the background. Physical activity is my only reliable strategy for reframing, for relief.

I set off, purposefully leaving my phone charging at my bedside. I wanted to deny myself the distractions I so often seek – music, podcast, any auditory stimuli – and silently breathe in the air while moving my body. I wanted to hear the birds proclaiming change is on the way.

It was infinitely harder to be unplugged…

My route starts out on my street, running past a dozen houses before hitting a busier street that leads to longer loop. Unplugged, there are landmines within thirty seconds, even before the intersection with the main road. That nice family up the street, two working parents with a kindergartener girl and a younger boy, is converging at their home base after a day of separation. The father has been playing with the kids, the mom arrives home with grocery bags. My throat constricts as the dad watchfully ensures that the toddler boy stays a safe distance from her vehicle as she slows to a stop. The unabandoned joy of the girl running to meet her mother’s car touches a nerve. The domestic, everyday simplicity is familiar and beautiful, but it breaks my heart.

Why? Why are those days over for us? What did we do wrong? They aren’t so different from us, what did they do right that we messed up?

Running with a mask is uncomfortable under the best of circumstances, but a crying jag made it unbearable. I felt like I might not be able to continue as I gasped for oxygenated air and wiped snot on the inside of my mask.  

I focused on breathing slowly, trying to make my exhale longer than my inhale, a trick I have heard will steady one’s heartrate. It didn’t work. I felt like I might suffocate, so I looked around. Seeing nobody else walking or running, I lowered my mask below my nose and mouth.

Sweet freedom.

I steadied my breathing. I looked up. I saw barren tree branches against the clearest of clear blue skies. The intake air caught in my throat again as I remembered Chris’s hope for me, for all of us, articulated by Dar Williams:

Here’s wishing you the bluest sky

 and hoping something better comes tomorrow.

Hoping all the verses rhyme

and the very best of choruses to follow all the doubt and sadness,

I know that better things are on their way.

 

Here's hoping that the days ahead

Won't be as bitter as the ones behind you.

Be an optimist instead
And somehow happiness will find you.
Forget what happened yesterday
I know that better things are on their way.

 

I just can’t. I just can’t see better days and I will never forget. I can’t do this. I am so tired. I am a pessimist.

 

Most of my running route was ahead of me and this was a decision point – give in or bear down. I chose the latter despite the leaden feeling in my legs. I banished all thoughts and listened to my feet on the pavement, tried to block out the aches and pains of my body, the thoughts of my slow pace, my graying hair and middle age. My inner cheerleader piped up:

 

Just keep going. Something is better than nothing, any exercise is better than no exercise. You’ll be happy when you are done.

 

One mile turned into two. As I turned the corner near the train station, memories overcame me again. A cold, slushy, winter day when I picked Chris up from the commuter rail train after an appointment at the hospital to go over the most recent brain imaging tests. We discussed the radiation oncologist’s interpretation of his latest MRI while lingering in the parking lot, just across the street from where I currently ran. It had not been good news. There was some kind of T1 FLAIR on the scan. Maybe that’s not the right terminology, and I wracked my brain for what had been mentioned in the radiologist’s report. It doesn’t matter now… It had been terrible news and we both knew it, and then the worst came to pass in the months that followed that day.

 

I hate myself in the present moment for what I didn’t know then, and what I didn’t know then was what to say to Chris. At the time nearly three years ago, I had absolutely no idea what to say. I could not offer any comfort, no words of assurance. My own brain had been full of a static white noise indicative of panic. All I could think was You are actually going to die soon and how is that going to go? What will I do without you? What am I supposed to do? I only knew it would not be helpful to verbalize those thoughts, so I left them unsaid. I cannot remember what I said to him; I am only certain it was inadequate. He probably knew what I was afraid of anyway.

 

The truth is, I still don’t know what to do even after everything that happened after that day passed. I admitted this as I ran past the place where Chris and I shared that painful moment, though experienced it differently.

 

I hate this so much.

 

“This” meaning I hate myself for everything I failed to do and say back then. “This” meaning I hate my current life. “This” meaning I hate myself for hating that I am alive, living this terrible, empty, less-than, privileged, stuck in the mud life while Chris is dead.

 

I feel ashamed because “this” is not what he wanted for me. “This” is not living my best life. “This” is trauma. “This” is waking up day after day without the person you were so close to you thought you couldn’t live without. “This” is not what it means to be truly living at all.

 

“This” is why I am constantly seeking distraction. “This” is why I desperately need the pandemic to be over, for me and the kids to be out of the house five days a week. “This” is awful, tortured, looking back, willing to trade anything for getting to go back for even a minute, even to the hardest days when he was alive. “This” is why I run with headphones pulsing music or pumping someone else’s story through my ears. “This” is why I am jealous of the neighboring family coming home to an ordinary night, free from the drama of a terminal brain tumor.

 

The unplugged run still did me good, it was still better to have finished than given up. The exercise tired my body, it brought the tears that frequently (yes, still) need release.

 

Next time, I’ll return to my old habits and allow myself the distraction of being plugged in. After all, there must be a reason that grieving people are advised to get up and take a shower when they’d rather stay in bed, go to work when they’d rather stay home. Distraction serves a helpful purpose.