An experiment vacationing solo

The year after my trip to Alaska sped by. I continued therapy, working through the torrent of emotions, thwarted life plans, and questions of my own identity that surfaced as Robert’s illness progressed. The effort was difficult and not always gratifying. Though I was working diligently, it seemed there was no end in sight. Of course, I was right to feel sad. How could I feel differently? But the more my grief was acknowledged and validated, the greater my fatigue.

You again?

I guess that’s a sign that I was making progress. I began to tire of my own voice and an endless diet of justified hurt. More than being sad about the situation, I was suddenly tired of thinking about it. The endeavor was a slog. In therapy, I turned over rocks that had long since grown moss, only to discover there weren’t all that many life forms lurking in the darkness and very few new sparks of insight to catalog. Robert’s illness was a hand of bad luck in an otherwise largely successful life and marriage. 

Robert continued to be his ever-delighted self, oblivious to the pain his decline caused the rest of us. 

I had done right by him; he didn’t have to deal with a daily dose of dismissal and frustration from me as a woefully inadequate, miserable caregiver. He was happy and well cared for. But I was weary.

A new idea wormed its way into my deadlocked life: Perhaps it was time to live again. 

But what did that mean?

Next?

I needed to find out what my life might look like for the next 10 or 20 or 30 years. What is my life when I am the main attraction? The only show going?

I decided to go on vacation alone. I wanted to know if I could reignite my curiosity about the world, even if I was all by myself. When I’d traveled to Alaska the year before, Vanessa had been my guide and sounding board. I hadn’t had to reckon with myself as a solo adventurer. Now I would. Robert wasn’t coming back. It was time to test myself.

Where to?

I love the ocean, the smell of salt air on the breeze in a small beach town, and warm pizza by the slice with sandy toes and sun-chapped skin. I reserved a coastal Airbnb about half an hour south of Santa Cruz. 

The rental seemed like a good spot, cozy, well outfitted with a tiny outside area where Ruby (my puppy) could snarfle around. And it was pretty. 

But once I’d dropped my bag at the foot of the bed and sat down to read the welcome binder, I realized the folly of my selection. The binder read like the catalog for a carefully curated show entitled, “The Artifacts of Our Splendid Life.”

Just hover. Don’t sit down.

The ornate bench, a repurposed church pew, had been carefully transported from San Miguel de Allende in the 1850s…probably by a horse-drawn carriage…it had been handed down from great-grandparents. I was advised that lightweight items could be draped over the bench, but I was not to sit on it. It was not sturdy enough to hold the weight of a human. 

The Eames lounge chair in front of the television was “historically significant.” I could sit in the chair, but I shouldn’t lean back lest I tip over. The reclining mechanism needed repair.

The modern coffee table brought to mind the kidney-shaped swimming pools I adored at every Holiday Inn we ever stayed at during my childhood. It seemed sturdy enough, but by this point, I was apprehensive about touching anything. 

Okay, well, I could get a good night’s sleep and just use the studio as a jumping-off place for my explorations.

Beach day!

The next day Ruby (my puppy) and I went hiking on the beach. I picked up shells and small pieces of driftwood, and marveled at the advancing, now retreating flock of sandpipers while Ruby excitedly tried to dig up quickly disappearing sandcrabs. A hazy sun hung over us. We were exercised, but not too hot. That evening I sat outside a pizza joint and enjoyed a slice while I rubbed my gritty toes together. The day should have been perfect, but it was not.

Companionship was missing. There was no one with whom I could share my experience.

On my second day away, I took Highway 1 down the coast for a sojourn in Monterey. Though I wouldn’t be able to take Ruby into many of the local businesses, I loved the walk from Monterey to Pacific Grove. After I’d parked and oriented myself, we started along the shoreline. The path was peopled with a steady mix of joggers, young couples, mothers with strollers, and older locals out for a walk with their dogs like me. 

Something is not right

I was right in the mix, but I didn’t feel part of the life around me. I felt disassociated, lost, and set apart, like everyone could see there was something wrong with me. Stopping in the middle of the path, I felt this overwhelming rush of wind, a swirl of energy surround me.

Robert spiraled around me, playing his harmonica and tapping his foot in front of the aquarium he’d bought me for my 35th birthday. There he was spinning out during the father-daughter dance at Maddie’s wedding. Now he was chasing 4-year-old Jackson between the redwood trees at the church across the street from our house in a gleeful game of soccer. And then he disappeared. 

And just as quickly, I recalled a passage from Madeline Miller’s Circe in which Circe laments the loss of her dear Daedalus. “I had no right to claim him, I knew it. But in a solitary life, there are rare moments when another soul dips near yours, as stars once a year brush the earth. Such a constellation he was to me.”

Robert was the bright star in my life and now his glow was fading. My life with Robert was coming to its end.

What do you want?

Sorrow weighed on me that evening. Mindlessly I buried myself in binge-watching Netflix…until my hosts started their evening. 

They were hosting a dinner party. The welcome binder had said guests might hear “normal sounds” like those in an apartment building. Bullshit. I could hear every word. I slept fitfully with a second pillow over my head. 

I packed up the next morning, leaving the Airbnb a day earlier than I’d planned. What did I learn?

All the precious artifacts of your splendid life, aren’t worth squat if you don’t have anyone to share your time and memories with.   

I want to host dinner parties and laugh with friends into the night. I don’t want to be alone for the rest of my life. 

To be continued…