Codependency is a shitty thing when you're by yourself.

Hey Babe,

Today’s mantra is #launchanxiety!!  Even though there’s nothing too crazy going on, I was still anxious and didn’t sleep well last night.  I was up doing reporting and didn’t go to bed until 1:30am but was wide awake by 6:30am...5 hours of sleep!  You know I can’t function with less than 7 hours of sleep! Although things are running smoothly, anything can change on a dime with a new product launch.  

So what had to give yesterday with juggling a launch as a single-furry-babies-parent?!  Well, didn’t have time to cook dinner, so I ate yogurt and frozen pizza (you know I always stock emergency food just in case I’m too lazy or busy to cook) and Sasha only got half her drops!  There’s only so much chasing her around the house I can do before it becomes diminishing return. Also, the bathroom shower is draining slowly, so I went to buy some drano. I didn’t know which kind to buy since this is usually something you took care of, so I just picked a random bottle of drano!  You never let me get involved with toxic chemicals since you would think I couldn’t do it right or end up killing myself because I would mishandle the toxic chemical. So, I have no clue what to do (I assume you just pour it into the drain, right?! How complicated can this be?!), but I guess I have to start learning how to do these types of things now that I’m on my own.  I thought buying and changing light bulbs were complex and complicated. Now, I come to find out there’s an entire aisle dedicated to Drano! Why are there so many different options when it all does the same thing?! It’s unclogging a pipe for gosh sakes!! It’s not buying makeup where options are good. How did I manage when I was single and living alone all the years before I met you?!  Oh?! That’s right?! I had a landlord! I’ve become way too codependent on you for these types of things. Now, it’s like learning how to walk again. I know, I probably say that a lot, but that’s what it feels like. It’s like I woke up from this tragedy only to realize I’m no longer a whole person, I’m just part of person now. Not only is my better half gone, but there’s all these things I have to learn how to do that you usually took cared of.  I’ve come to realize, we believed in division of labor and focusing on our core competencies and comparative advantages. There’s all these things I have to learn or re-learn how to do now that you are gone.

I have some friends visiting in a couple of weeks and we plan to go bike the Golden Gate bridge and all I’ve been worrying about is how do I install the bike rack?  I have no clue since that was always something you did. I never got involved at all, and it’s not like you left the instruction manual laying around somewhere. (Talking about instruction manual, I was able to put together that office chair pretty quickly!  I read the instructions and followed them to the T. If you were here, you wouldn’t let me read the instructions because you would think you knew how to put it together without the instructions. Whenever we get stuck or something doesn’t seem right, I would say, let’s look at the instructions while you would say, “SY, I got this.  I don’t need instructions for this!” Sometimes, I wonder if it’s a man thing? or just a S thing?!)

It’s like I have to find the part of me that went to sleep or laid dormant because I had you to take care of those things, so I didn’t have to worry about them.  Now, I have to be you and me in order to survive this life. I have to find the strength to be both of us now. Not only do I have to not let fear be my boundary, I now also have to find the strength to be both you and me in order to make this life work.  How can I let go of all these things I used to have and enjoy just because you’re not here anymore. I deserve to shower without the water coming up to my ankles! I think I deserve that much! Is that too much for a widow to ask for?

P.S. I’ve started purging around the house -- just my stuff of course.  Nothing of yours yet. You were such a hoarder and pack rat. I couldn’t ever purge when you were alive because you would wait until I’m done and then go to the trash can and pull everything I put in there out.  It got to a point where I had to be sneaky if I wanted to throw anything away. I would pick up a pile of trash and then dump the item and then throw the trash on top of it. I would even throw things into to the trash bins that we roll out to the street in hopes you wouldn’t figure it out.  But, by the next day, whatever I tried to toss out was sitting on the kitchen counter or dining table again, and you would scold me for trying to throw it out. It’s like you’re a walking meter detector but instead of metal, you would be able to detect junk!!

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