See You Next Tuesday: Vol. II, No. Five

On Mammograms, a compassion comeback, cutting food waste, and more.

Hi. Long time no see.

Where have I been?

I’ve been here, but not really. Not fully.

Two months ago, a friend of mine — a person who had protected me during a tremendously difficult time in my life for whom I had great affection — died. He was in his 70s, so his passing was not a shock, but it was sudden.

The way cutting your finger while chopping vegetables is sudden. The cut looks so small, but it hurts so bad, and for some reason, it won’t stop bleeding. So you rinse it, and cover it with a Band-Aid, but it’s still there, throbbing. And even after the cut heals, you never chop vegetables without thinking about that time you cut yourself.

And so my friend’s death has been for me. A constant drumbeat about the sudden, unanticipated cruelties of life. It sneaks up on me, finding me in the strangest places. My husband has stopped asking why I’m crying, because he knows why I’m crying. I’m crying because the Band-Aid fell off.

So that’s where I’ve been. Holding Sloane too tight as she squirms to get away from me because her life is just a parade of things that are too interesting and fun to hold still. Spending every second with Avery, who is doing well, but whose loss is always just around the corner, like a cliff I can’t turn the car away from. Trying to navigate a season of my life that feels so different from my past lives that I often wonder if I am still myself.

I am alive. I am okay. But I don’t feel like I’m really living. There is an emptiness. A feeling that I am just existing. But still, there is hope that if I keep moving towards the light, eventually, I will find it.