A Puzzling Old Coot

I often have dreams about a friend with whom I’d once been very close. He died about six and a half years ago from cancer. He was 67 years old.

Why am I dreaming about Tom now?

Grief √
There’s no set time frame to being sad about a loved one dying. Grief doesn’t happen in discrete units. It comes and goes like the tides only maybe not so regular. I miss him.
 
Coping with memories √

Processing unresolved, complicated emotions √
Oh yeah, babies!

Tom and I had been tight for years – from my early 20s until the year I turned 40. He moved in with his new girlfriend that year and, afterward, I rarely saw him. We began traveling in very different circles and no longer frequented the same bars, clubs, parties or meet once a week for a pint and check-in. Life shifted.

Tom had been like a brother to me. He’s dead and I miss him. I missed him when he disappeared into his girlfriend’s world. Okay, he didn’t really disappear – I just didn’t fit into his new galaxy. It’s complicated and I suppose this is part of why I still have dreams about him. My mind continues to puzzle out what went wrong, why I didn't fit, why we didn’t remain close anyway. I want to turn back time and make everything all better.

Naturally, I’ve completely blamed myself – assumed all fault, figured that it’s my job to repair anything that’s possibly gone wrong. This, by the by, is a deeply ingrained bad habit and is absolute, total bullshit. Where’s it come from? Mia madre. I was the “responsible” child, the stable one. I was expected to step in when mother couldn’t cope or didn’t want to. She seemed to regard me as the family fixer.

OF COURSE I grew up thinking that if I just tried hard enough I could make any situation better. And if I couldn’t? The mess would def be my fault.

One good thing about getting old, I can usually recognize when I’m falling into this self-blame trap and logic myself back to reality.

Bad things about getting old? 

• Compression socks
• There’s too many damn meds to take every damn day
• My friends keep dying
• Reading glasses
• Like Nora Ephron, I Feel Bad About My Neck 
• My hair was already thin – now, after eight brain surgeries and attaining old coot-dom, I’m THIS close to just shaving my head and painting it purple (with scars in metallic silver).
• My feet seem to have gotten bigger or fatter or something. Goodbye fashionable Vans and slick Vionics. I just bought my first pair of Birkenstocks.

I’m thinking about mourning customs in the Victorian era. For women, the recommended, structured mourning time for a husband was two years, a parent or child – one year, and six months for a sibling. Men were less restricted – widowers mourned for six months or less. They were expected to get back to work to provide for their children and marry, presumably, for the same reason.

Two years after The Amazing Bob shuffled off this mortal coil, I was obscenely lucky enough to meet and spark with Ten. I wonder if Tom’s wife has remarried. No matter what, I hope she’s happy or at the very least secure and content.