It’s been a little over 14 months since I first (and last) wrote explicitly about the permanent roommate who joined me after Sara and George died. The personification of my grief. I wish I could say that we’ve found our rhythm and that we live together in perfect harmony. He’s still very needy, and I can tell that at times I don’t pay enough attention to him. I’ve realized that I have to be careful. Even though his presence here is important and valid, I have to strike a balance. He would love for me to spend all my time focused on him… but that just doesn’t feel good.
When I don’t have the right balance, everything is difficult. If I spend too much time focused on him, it comes at the expense of other things in my life. When I don’t spend enough quality time with him – he really gets frustrated and will butt in at inconvenient times, disrupt me, and really get in the way. Either way it’s hard. I can’t tell you how many times I try to go to sleep, only to find him hovering above me, or perched on the bed next to me, staring intently with his watery eyes. I start scrolling on my phone as a distraction only to realize it’s 2 hours later and I really should’ve been asleep 3 hours ago.
I don’t have a toddler, and the last time I regularly cared for one was about 25ish years ago when my youngest sister was little – I was in my early teens and babysitting was a regular activity. In a way, my roommate reminds me of a toddler. I know it’s not really the same, but bear with me here. He has his own needs and wants and it’s my responsibility to care for him, no matter how inconvenient it is for my life as a whole. He’s not always able to clearly express himself. If I don’t take care of him properly, it’s bad for both of us. When I do really take time to get to know him, and understand how he communicates and what he needs – well it can pay off. I’m not quite there yet, consistently.
I don’t have all the answers. I don’t know how to make things dramatically easier for us to coexist. I don’t think there are any magic solutions. I do know that I need to spend more time outside – sometimes it feels like the house just isn’t big enough for the two of us, but when I’m out in nature, there’s more than enough room for us both to breathe and express ourselves. I also know that small bits of regular quality time with him do help. That’s why I’m retaking the 30-day writing course. I’m hoping that it will get me back into that rhythm of writing very regularly – writing is an activity that really allows him to feel seen and heard. He also always appreciates it when I get quality time with friend who knew Sara and are happy to talk about her – it’s something that seems to calm him down.
There have been some changes – it’s not like everything is exactly the same as it was a year ago. I find that when he is directly beside me, or even sometimes sitting on my shoulder, he’s not as pushy or intense. He often lets me keep going about what I’m doing, but he makes sure I know he’s there. The first 6 months he had a lot more tantrums, and it was really hard to know what to do with his energy. There were lots of tears. That’s evened out a bit by now. He has more of a steady (but still very obvious) presence.
I still have this vision of some point in the future where life will feel more okay again (I hesitate to use the word “normal” because I don’t know what my new normal is… having gone from new widowerhood right into a global pandemic), and he and I will have worked our relationship out. I know he’s always going to be around, but I’m hoping to get to a point where he feels satisfied with the space he has been given and is okay with us having direct 1:1 time less frequently.