Again

I'm always a little shocked when I have an "Adam is here" moment. They generally aren't very nice moments these days. After nearly 8 months, you'd think the shock would've worn off, but no--it still comes up and hits me over the head at times. I'm always amazed when I'll be going about my day and something in the air, some brief moment, I'll think, "Whoa, that smell--that's Adam" and look around to desperately try to figure out where the smell came from, and turning up nothing. Same thing with doing laundry. Justin has this pair of brown pants that he wears that is very similar in color/texture to a pair of shorts that Adam would wear all the time. Sometimes (generally when I'm pulling out laundry from the dryer) my heart will drop, like a quick, sudden stun to my body when, for a moment, I think that it's Adam's shorts that I'm coming across in the dryer. These aren't comforting feelings. They are more like being shocked with a stun gun, as though for a second I can imagine that this has all been a made-up, fake life I've been living. Nope. Not fake.

It's weird when these things happen. It's like, I totally think I have a grasp on things and then I have to really shake myself back to reality. I hate it.

Last night I was watching Along Came Polly and remembering very well when Adam and I would watch this movie together and laugh. And then the part where the one guy plays racquetball with Ben Stiller's character came on. And just like that, my brain was taken far away. Adam really loved racquetball. I remember Adam used to go play racquetball at Fresno State when we were first married with a friend or two, and I sat there last night, trying desperately to figure out who it was. I'm totally stumped, I could guess a couple people, but I'm just not sure who it was that I remember him playing with. ARGH. Floods of memories of us going to the gym, playing tennis, different memories of Adam and I together at Fresno State....I just sat and reminisced....

Adam and I listening to concerts while wandering around Fresno State on dates. Getting slurpees at the 7-11 by Fresno State (We've missed "real" slurpees out here in NE. NO 7-11s. Big bummer.). Him helping me to my class (and parking somewhere he shouldn't have) after having just had baby Justin and my needing to go take a college final, days later--so I could graduate. Gold's gym when we were first married, lots of El Cortez memories, taking drives, taking walks. New Year's Eves. Him protesting family members' requests to have family all together on New Year's Eve 1999, days after we were first married....oh so many things that make me smile. And laugh out loud. And then cry. Dang.


I hate sitting and watching tv and movies by myself now. Hate it. I've heard this is a very common widow/widower complaint. I hate not having Adam on the couch to snuggle up to, to look at and laugh with when things are funny, to validate the humor I suppose. It's all just ridiculous. And then. I'm back at square one with it all.