Not that girl

I’ve talked occasionally about the various phases of my life, and the person I saw myself as during them. The curious little girl who became the anxious adolescent, who became the rebellious teenager who became the bouncy extrovert in college, who became a party girl in grad school.

But the person I was the longest was John’s wife.

We camped, and we went to gaming conventions. We had friends over all the time. We watched movies. *I* watched crazy hours of television, and he played guitar in our home studio. We cooked together. We went out to dinner all the damn time. We went for hikes and bike rides.

I was someone who owned a bike. Let that sink in.

And that person was fucking vaporized on July 4, 2014.

It’s interesting looking at the person I am now and realizing that the only thing that survived the asteroid is my love of reading. I read even more voraciously now than I did then, but I have the same love of all things having to do with books.

But I don’t watch TV anymore. The thought of camping makes me want to hurl. I do still play some RPGs, but I haven’t been to a convention since 2013. I cook, but not with the passion I once did. I eat out, but once every couple months rather than 2 or 3 times a week.

But the real difference is that I was sort of an extrovert back then. Now, I find people fucking EXHAUSTING.

My life is very very small now. I sit here. I read. I fight with people on the Internet. I sit on zoom calls, which is the thing that keeps me from being an *actual* hermit.

Now, part of this is that the girl who was vaporized still had a fair amount of physical ability. My MS hadn’t progressed so far that I couldn’t hike or bike. I could still dance.

I mean, really, really poorly, but that was always true.

And I know that the people who knew me before miss the girl I was. But most of the people in my day-to-day life didn’t know her. I have had almost complete friend turnover since then. Many of the people who know me now, didn’t know John at all. And that girl who was his wife would be a complete stranger to a lot of them.

And it never occurred to me that mourning her should have been part of the process.

And now, I’m in the weird place, so many years later, of mourning someone who is here, typing this.

But, there isn’t much I can do about that right now. You know that my ADHD separates time into two categories—now and not now—and all this emotional heavy lifting seems like it might be a Monday problem.

So, imma go finish a book, likely start another, snuggle my cat completely against her wishes, shower, eat some pizza, spend time with my darling husband, and hang out in zoom. Tomorrow is not now’s problem.

Oh, but before I go, here’s some good stuff—

Yesterday, I read 620 pages, meditated for 35 minutes and wrote a journal entry. I am exceptionally grateful this week for pain meds, and for the science that gave them to us.

Love y’all.