1.28.2016

A Small Example Of What It's Like To Have Susan As A Friend


Susan sent a text to her long standing pal shortly after the death of his father:

There is a grammatical error in your father's obituary, to whom may I complain?

Susan's pal responded with the contact information of the responsible party and asked her to relay what she had discovered.

Of course! I love any opportunity to educate.

Susan communicated with the responsible party and by the time she checked back it was fixed.

1.19.2016

Susan fell down.

Susan and her friend Anna met after work for fancy cocktails and dinner. She knows what you're thinking already; falling down and cocktails in the span of thirteen words?

Yeah, OK.

The girls spent two hours happy to be in eachother's company, during which time Susan had two cocktails (vodka house-infused with pineapples, freshly muddled mango, lemon juice and a thin slice of jalapeno), a bowl of spicy lobster bisque, and seared tuna over rice with avocado and fruit salsa.

At the end of the evening Susan went to visit the ladies room, and within the first few steps she felt her heel slip in a direction she was not headed, but she caught herself, recovered and said under her breath let's not fall down. Five or six steps later she felt the same heel slip and this time she just kept going until she was on the floor.

Whenever Susan has fallen, which averages once every four or five years, it's always in slow motion, and as she's always surprised how far she has to go to hit bottom. Like she's taking an hour to tumble down a mountainside. On this occasion she watched a family eating dinner watch her, then stare until she resurfaced and gave them the double thumbs up.

She checked her heel for foreign matter and resumed her navigation to the restroom where she surveyed her knees for damage, then went on to buy a pair of gloves in Macy's without further incident.

1.10.2016

Even though Susan just concluded the entirety of 2015 in the grip of double barrel grieving she's not going to say she had a bad year. What she had was a special year in which she was given the best from all the best people around her. Many were lifers, some were far away or brand new, but her legions of supporters all contributed significantly to Susan's successful first year.

She was afraid to let it go because she knew it would take her farther away from the husband. She felt comfort for those 365 days being able to think on this day last year we were happy...However, it was ultimately nothing she could hang her hat on. When that personal day of infamy came it was OK, fun even, filled with his meatballs & sauce and people to help eat them.

Susan will admit that she's been a real prizewinning m*therf*cking heavyweight champ about everything. Her mental fortitude keeps her moving forward, but her people keep her happy. A component of this has been a new job, one which she didn't even have to look for, she just had to say thank you then unwrap it.

In the interest of full disclosure, not everything has been all top form behavior during her year of grief. One particularly immature habit has been Unnecessary Procrastination Resulting In Unnecessary Consequences.

Self explanatory.

She gets exhausted quite easily so there has been a noticeable decrease in the amount of cooking and cleaning being done around the house. Plus she's more forgetful than normal, wasting time searching for cans of corn, her phone or the last thing she set down on her desk.

However, there are perks to Susan's enforced single status, such as double the closet space & the ability to make plans on a whim. If she feels like spending the entire weekend in bed watching Netflix, she happily does so. Who wouldn't love all that, right?

However, there are no perks whatsoever to losing her beloved Cousin Lisa. No perks at all.

Susan feels as though the husband lobs messages to her from wherever he is, most notably this one, but there have been others, one causing her to say hello out loud to him in the middle of her work day.  She likes that.

This past week Susan told her kids about a feeling she had, kind of like she was being nudged from beyond. It was nothing more than taking notice of two related things she overheard. The mere fact that she paid attention to it made her think it might be something more.

Stay tuned.