Every day I walk down the stairs from my bedroom and my first thought is "what fresh kind of hell awaits me today?". I used to be an optimist. I was the one that always said that everything would be okay when Mark would say that the sky is falling. He was right in so many ways. He said that he would die young, he did. The sky really is falling - or at least it feels like it is all around me.
I tend to come from a background of dealing with problems by brushing the dust off of you and hopping right back in the saddle and finishing what you started. I've been brushing the dust off of me for weeks, and it seems like there's more of it, not less. Every day something innocuous pierces me. Today it's sorting dirty laundry. How is it that I can still be doing Mark's laundry four weeks after he passed away? I'm still finding socks...underwear, even jeans. It doesn't seem right that something so inconsequential as cotton should still be on my couch, while someone as important as Mark is six feet under. I'm raging mad - vacillating between believing that there is no god (I refuse to capitalize "g"), and feeling that if there is, I want to kick her/his ass. Either Nietzsche & Dostoevsky are right, and god is dead, or god has fallen asleep on the job - just look around you. Free will? Mark didn't choose to die of free will. The people being killed in Iraq aren't being killed because they willed it to be so. I used to have faith...not necessarily in a religion, but at least in a god.
Now all I have is orphaned socks, the feet that wore them is gone. The other half of my heart is gone, and I am pissed off about it.
Natalia
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Friday, August 29, 2008
Music moves the soul
Anyone who knew Mark in the least knew that he loved music. Not like many of us... he was truly touched by it. I thought that I was passionate about music...his love eclipsed mine. He told me that he knew he was going to marry me when I mentioned that I loved Nick Cave. Mark wasn't an emotionally repressed man - but music nonetheless expressed things that he couldn't, which is odd because he was a literate man with an extensive vocabulary. He could hear things in music that would evade anyone else's ears.
There is a love song of Buddy Holly's that Mark put on our Wedding CD. Buddy met his wife and it was love at first sight. They moved to NYC and while he was recording this song his wife was vacuuming in the background. Mark was moved to tears that he could hear the sound of the vacuum (which I never could hear) - the sound of a woman going about her daily business, oblivious to the love that her husband is expressing.
I often think back to how oblivious I was to the many ways that Mark expressed himself. He wasn't "Mr. Industrious", but if anything involved bending over (which can be painful for me at times), he simply did it. He fed and watered the dogs every day. He always stocked the soda cans in the fridge. He also made me coffee every morning. There were so many ways...and while I never took him for granted, like Mrs. Holly, I did get wrapped up in the day to day chores...all the "must do's" that we create for ourselves. I would be "focusing on the vacuuming", while Mark was "singing a love song" about me. Ironically, Mrs. Holly also lost her husband suddenly and young.
I often told Mark that I would live in a tent with him and the dogs. I wish I would have evolved to understanding and telling him that I could have lived in this house in a messy state with him. I wasted so much time cleaning and working in the yard, when what Mark really just wanted was for me to be with him. The house may be a little cleaner now...but it's no longer a home.
Over the last week I've been listening to a new CD by an artist that Mark & I both like - "Mr. Love and Justice" by Billy Bragg. The title seems fitting for Mark - nothing p'd off Mark as much as injustice - and the Love part...I've already explained. I highly recommend this CD, but at times the songs are more than I can bear. The first song "I Keep Faith" is particularly touching. I just bought the CD a week ago - and if I didn't know better I would believe that Mark is singing to me though this song. I listened to it today...and like every day I yearned to have him here. I'd make any deal....just bring him back.
We have choices. We can choose to focus on all the "shiny objects" in our lives...the lists, the must-haves, gotta dos, or we can listen to the love songs that are going on around us. Just today....listen to the love songs. You may be surprised at what you hear.
Natalia
There is a love song of Buddy Holly's that Mark put on our Wedding CD. Buddy met his wife and it was love at first sight. They moved to NYC and while he was recording this song his wife was vacuuming in the background. Mark was moved to tears that he could hear the sound of the vacuum (which I never could hear) - the sound of a woman going about her daily business, oblivious to the love that her husband is expressing.
I often think back to how oblivious I was to the many ways that Mark expressed himself. He wasn't "Mr. Industrious", but if anything involved bending over (which can be painful for me at times), he simply did it. He fed and watered the dogs every day. He always stocked the soda cans in the fridge. He also made me coffee every morning. There were so many ways...and while I never took him for granted, like Mrs. Holly, I did get wrapped up in the day to day chores...all the "must do's" that we create for ourselves. I would be "focusing on the vacuuming", while Mark was "singing a love song" about me. Ironically, Mrs. Holly also lost her husband suddenly and young.
I often told Mark that I would live in a tent with him and the dogs. I wish I would have evolved to understanding and telling him that I could have lived in this house in a messy state with him. I wasted so much time cleaning and working in the yard, when what Mark really just wanted was for me to be with him. The house may be a little cleaner now...but it's no longer a home.
Over the last week I've been listening to a new CD by an artist that Mark & I both like - "Mr. Love and Justice" by Billy Bragg. The title seems fitting for Mark - nothing p'd off Mark as much as injustice - and the Love part...I've already explained. I highly recommend this CD, but at times the songs are more than I can bear. The first song "I Keep Faith" is particularly touching. I just bought the CD a week ago - and if I didn't know better I would believe that Mark is singing to me though this song. I listened to it today...and like every day I yearned to have him here. I'd make any deal....just bring him back.
We have choices. We can choose to focus on all the "shiny objects" in our lives...the lists, the must-haves, gotta dos, or we can listen to the love songs that are going on around us. Just today....listen to the love songs. You may be surprised at what you hear.
Natalia
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Insomnia
Five a.m., and as usual I've fallen asleep for half an hour several times - amounting to about two hours in total. My body physically knows that something is missing. I wake up; feeling his absence and the first thing in my mind is "where's Mark?". I've tried all the tricks; pillows, sleeping pills, even inviting our big dogs to "his spot". The few times that I do manage to get any sleep are when I am in the living room. How can I ever forgive myself for sleeping next to him while he slipped away...quietly away from me? If only I had just woken up an hour, two hours earlier...he would still be here. I can't see how I will ever sleep again...I won't, I can't. I miss Mark at all these hours. I miss hearing the white noise of his CPAP, seeing him sleeping peacefully next to me. I miss the feel of his hand. He would almost always be touching me barely, his foot or hand just barely touching me. I'm not sure if he was reassuring himself that I was here, or me that he was. All I know is that I miss him, and I'm tired.
Please let those that you love know it...they may not be here tomorrow. You don't have to be a saint...anger and disappointment are real. All you need to do to be better at expressing your love than your opinions, anger, or anything else. If you can scream in anger, than make sure you can scream twice as loud in love.
Natalia
Please let those that you love know it...they may not be here tomorrow. You don't have to be a saint...anger and disappointment are real. All you need to do to be better at expressing your love than your opinions, anger, or anything else. If you can scream in anger, than make sure you can scream twice as loud in love.
Natalia
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
My first post
Today is just a bit after a month...after Mark. Society has used BC/AD to delineate time...my life's time is noted before Mark passed away, and after. Everything that we did when he was alive was "just a week ago" - but that can't be; since he's been gone for a month.
I'm not sure what I want in this blog...I've wanted to write to Mark for a while. I've always been terrible at journaling, I thought that if I made it writing to Mark then I would do it. Part of me wants to do that...knowing full well that he would roll his eyes and tell me that he's not here to read it. Part of me has also become almost evangelical about him...I need to tell everyone about him and how he taught me to love on a whole other level that I didn't know existed, within me or in the world. He never would have told it himself, he was far too modest and private.
I remember once that I told him that as long as my heart was beating he would be alive - because we shared hearts. I wish I really felt that now. His absence is overwhelming...I alternate between being overly attached to simple objects associated with him, and wanting to toss everything away and get out of this house. It hurts so much. I have never known such pain...I never could imagine it. On the exterior I appear whole, but it's a shell. Really, the moment that I was told that Mark died, a searing knife removed everything from inside me. I'm hollow now. I walk in this world, but don't really feel that I belong here anymore. Half of me is with him; in another world or just plain gone. I'm not sure yet (i'll let you know when I get there). I NEVER would have thought that by simply loving someone I was granting them this much power through their death. I never could have imagined that ANYTHING could hurt this much. There's no pain pill in the world that can touch this....it's on a whole different plane.
When Mark and I faced problems in the past, I was always the optimist. I had believed that things could never get too bad... "my god" wouldn't allow it. Well, "my god" failed us. Nothing...absolutely nothing could be worse than taking Mark away from earth. You can take him away from me - a divorce - anything, but it just makes no sense to take him away from earth. I no longer have that feeling that I'm protected. More than ever I want to feel protected, I feel vulnerable. At times I feel like the whole world can sense my vulnerability, like sharks drawn to blood, my grief feels as if it leaves me open to an attack. It's amazing, because the whole neighborhood knows about it. The ladies that used to walk by as I gardened and exchange a smile and hello put their heads down now as they walk past. They know that they could just as easily be that lost woman with sad eyes fumbling around in the dirt. My grief scares them.
Mark was never "the guy" at all the parties that would light up the room. He was the quiet guy that really cared about the couple of people that he was talking to. He lit up my life, changed me profoundly, and taught me once again to love. What do I do with all that now? Is this all a cruel joke, or a really vivid, long nightmare?
I miss you Mark. I'm tired of crying - but there's nothing else I can do right now.
Remember to let those that you love know it...show it.
Natalia
I'm not sure what I want in this blog...I've wanted to write to Mark for a while. I've always been terrible at journaling, I thought that if I made it writing to Mark then I would do it. Part of me wants to do that...knowing full well that he would roll his eyes and tell me that he's not here to read it. Part of me has also become almost evangelical about him...I need to tell everyone about him and how he taught me to love on a whole other level that I didn't know existed, within me or in the world. He never would have told it himself, he was far too modest and private.
I remember once that I told him that as long as my heart was beating he would be alive - because we shared hearts. I wish I really felt that now. His absence is overwhelming...I alternate between being overly attached to simple objects associated with him, and wanting to toss everything away and get out of this house. It hurts so much. I have never known such pain...I never could imagine it. On the exterior I appear whole, but it's a shell. Really, the moment that I was told that Mark died, a searing knife removed everything from inside me. I'm hollow now. I walk in this world, but don't really feel that I belong here anymore. Half of me is with him; in another world or just plain gone. I'm not sure yet (i'll let you know when I get there). I NEVER would have thought that by simply loving someone I was granting them this much power through their death. I never could have imagined that ANYTHING could hurt this much. There's no pain pill in the world that can touch this....it's on a whole different plane.
When Mark and I faced problems in the past, I was always the optimist. I had believed that things could never get too bad... "my god" wouldn't allow it. Well, "my god" failed us. Nothing...absolutely nothing could be worse than taking Mark away from earth. You can take him away from me - a divorce - anything, but it just makes no sense to take him away from earth. I no longer have that feeling that I'm protected. More than ever I want to feel protected, I feel vulnerable. At times I feel like the whole world can sense my vulnerability, like sharks drawn to blood, my grief feels as if it leaves me open to an attack. It's amazing, because the whole neighborhood knows about it. The ladies that used to walk by as I gardened and exchange a smile and hello put their heads down now as they walk past. They know that they could just as easily be that lost woman with sad eyes fumbling around in the dirt. My grief scares them.
Mark was never "the guy" at all the parties that would light up the room. He was the quiet guy that really cared about the couple of people that he was talking to. He lit up my life, changed me profoundly, and taught me once again to love. What do I do with all that now? Is this all a cruel joke, or a really vivid, long nightmare?
I miss you Mark. I'm tired of crying - but there's nothing else I can do right now.
Remember to let those that you love know it...show it.
Natalia
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