Progress isn’t linear

The thing about this process is that it’s not a direct path. Over the past few weeks I’ve said that several times, and about different aspects of this journey I’ve been forced into. The important part, I think, is to remember that the path is indirect, and so, progress itself isn’t linear. I was reminded of that this past weekend, and how it’s still possible to move forward.

This weekend, I went to Hamilton partly for a break, but also to look at houses to get an idea of what the market is like. I had a few other things on my “to do” list that I planned to do, and they went all fine—apart from an unexpected and sudden emotional jolt.

When we were heading out to go to open homes, my bother-in-law said to me that it might be difficult, and I should just speak up if it became too much for me and we’d stop for the day. It turned out to not be bad (apart from one house that reeked of cat poop…), probably because Nigel and I used to look at houses sometimes, and my first thought when we did that was, “can I see myself living here?”, because if I couldn’t, the rest would be hard. My next question was about whether it was a good fit for the two of us, and then whether it was safe and good for the dogs.

This weekend I asked myself only the first and last questions, of course, but because I’d done that so many times before, it didn’t seem at all unusual. In fact, nothing I did that day was—and I was having a good day—until we went to the grocery store to pick up some stuff.

We went into the Te Rapa New World supermarket in Hamilton, which was a store Nigel really liked. As we walked in, I was imagining going there to do my weekly shop and then I had a sudden thought: “This isn’t fun any more,” I said to myself.

The specific trigger was that I realised that’d I imagined doing a weekly shop like I always have—for the two of us. After all these years living with someone else—the majority of them with Nigel—I don’t actually have any idea how to shop for one.

That made me sad, and I was close to tears, recovered, then later on, with lots of family around I became overwhelmed. I haven’t been around lots of people since Nigel’s funeral, and—probably because I was already feeling sad—it became too much for me, so when our takeaways arrived for dinner, I went to the loo “to wash my hands”, then turned on the extractor fan for noise, and had a small cry. Then I washed my hands and re-joined the others.

Later, as the others talked, I listened to the music, and a surprising number of songs made me sad, so much so that I nearly cried a few times. That wasn’t about the songs as much as that I kept thinking about Nigel—such as thinking about what I’d already given a name to (as I often do…): “The New World Incident”. I thought about how much Nigel loved family gatherings, even though they were noisy, and I thought about the stuff I’d done that day, and how I don’t want to plan a life without Nigel.

The family has been awesome, both in helping me work through nuts and bolts issues, and in giving me emotional support. But despite all that, I am, of course, the one who must decide on my own future.

Being suddenly reminded of how different my life will be now, and how painful that fact is, left me unexpectedly emotional. That sort of thing happens from time to time, and it will happen again.

Even so, I got a lot done. For example, I got a very clear idea of what housing is like at various price points, and also how quickly they tend to sell (short version: higher priced houses are better and sell slightly slower). This has helped me focus pretty clearly on what I’ll do.

All the stuff I did this weekend—some of which I’ll talk about tomorrow—was about things I’d talked about with Nigel, so, to me, he was part of the decision making process. It was only when I strayed beyond that, into the reality I’m now in, including what some of my future looks like, that the sadness returned. All of which will happen again, I know.

This weekend was kind of a small version of how things are right now: Moving forward, but along a path that meanders and sometimes even doubles back on itself, before moving forward again.

Progress isn’t linear, you see.

Originally published on my personal Facebook Page on October 21.