Mostly Just Crying

Two Mondays ago, right after I posted my last post, still feeling uplifted by the online training I had attended with Roshi Joan Halifax and Frank Ostaseski, I learned that one of the members of my family had died suddenly and terribly. It was emotional equivalent of being walloped with a two-by-four: shock, followed by bottomless sorrow. My relative, only in his 50s, had just completed several years of education so that he could embark on a new career, one motivated by the desire to be of service; he began his first job in his new field just several months ago. Seeing a photo of him dressed for his new endeavor—in a suit jacket, complete with jaunty tie—brought nearly unbearable anguish.

One bright spot later that week was learning that there has been some easing of the virus-related restrictions—it looks like maybe we can go ahead with the rest of the repairs in my place any time. I had gloomily been contemplating that bringing home Hammett’s half-sibling was months away, but maybe it will be a lot sooner than that. I walked over to his vet to pick up a card from his sitter. It had this quote in it: “Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal.”

Another piece of good news: I called one of the airlines to see if I could argue them into giving me back the change fee they had subtracted from a credit and found that they had already done it. All I had to do was to thank them. Also, the credit does not expire until the end of next year. I’ll probably go somewhere by then.

After several days, the anguish about my relative had abated a bit, meaning that I could stop feeling crappy about that untimely death all the time and get back to feeling crappy about Hammett. (I have a friend who also recently lost a cat and a close relative; she said her new cat thinks that humans “mostly just cry.” That made me laugh.)

By today, I was feeling good enough that I had the emotional energy to feel a little disgruntled when the owner of the laundromat I frequent said I cannot bring my lightweight folding chair into the laundromat because it is “stationary.” That didn’t initially make sense: it’s just as easy to move the chair as it is to move my own body, or even easier, given that I’d be well rested from sitting in the chair. After I stand around for 90 minutes, I might be too exhausted to move two inches in any direction. “Bogus,” a friend agreed. But later I had to concede that I would actually be more likely to move when I saw someone coming if I didn’t also have to rise to a standing position and pick up my chair, so, after some 38 years, the era of sitting on a chair in the laundromat is over. Will I ever sit down in a laundromat again? Seems like it could be at least a couple of years. However, that is literally my worst problem at the moment.