A Very Long Post

Hello my pretties. (Plural because now I have conclusive proof that there are more than two of you out there. Evelyn Anandam, Nisreen, Mehj, Deena, and my fraaands in New Zealand, you make my heart smile.)

It’s been a while, no? For some time, it was on purpose. See for me, writing is all about feelings and I was quite fed up of all the feelings of the past few months. So I decided, with my ridiculously finite wisdom, that I was going to quit writing for a while and start focusing on something more “outward” like photography or cooking.

Therefore, in the past month, I baked exactly one batch of brownies and took a grand total of two photographs. Here is the one I am less ashamed of.

(It looked better on my phone.)

I took a month-long vacation last month. To explore the world, find my life’s calling, you know, to eat, pray and love. Oh, who am I kidding? I spent all of last month sleeping, eating junk, wasting time on 9gag.com, and watching every episode of 30 Rock known to man.

It was glorious.

I also used that month to think. And I thought about a lot of things.

I thought about change.

• About how I went from having a lot of free time to having no free time to having a lot of free time.
• About how I went from being super-brave to Courage the Cowardly Dog. I was the official lizard exterminator of the family. In fact, it was one of the first “Most Important Conversations” that Rajeev and I had while we were still dating. I asked him “Rajeev, do you promise to protect me from all worm-like creatures?” and he said “I do”. And then he asked me,” Sheryll, do you promise to protect me from all lizard-like reptiles?” and I said “I do”. (No wonder we were so chilled out during our wedding ceremony. We had already exchanged the vows that mattered.) These days, even my ringtone scares me.
• About how, for one full glorious year, my entire life revolved around doing my best impression of Martha Stewart. I was cooking and cleaning and doing laundry. I look back now and think “Who IS that person??”
• About how ridiculously short my hair is now. I went to the hairdressers the other day to get my hair trimmed. Once I got there, I decided to throw caution to the wind and get a brand new hairstyle. I wanted a slightly longish pixie cut, but my hairdresser, Peter, wanted me to get a bob. So we compromised and did it his way. I now look like Maria Von Trapp if she was a 1920’s flapper.

I thought about life and death.

Well, mostly death. I remember that the one thing my family was totally freaked out by was the possibility that I may continue to internalize all my feelings and then one day, do something drastic and irreversible. I get it. I can understand why they would think that. And truth be told, I’d understand if someone else in a similar situation would have done that. But I don’t think I would. For at least two very important reasons:

1. I’m a total wuss. Really. I don’t even eat chili bajjis. Forget that. I did not even eat green peppers till I was almost 20 years old. Why? Because they looked like giant green chilies and I was afraid they they’d be too spicy and burn my mouth. (Somewhere out there, the god of Telugu cuisine is weeping.)
2. I know it’s not “proper” considering my circumstances, but I just can’t help but be curious and excited about what the future has in store for me. Think about it. It can only get better, right? It’s like something I said to my mom the other day. That the best thing about this world is that no matter what you do or how much power you have, a day will only have 24 hours. And no matter how long that day feels like, it will get over. And a new day will begin. And it will go on and on until the sun burns out.

I thought about God.

God and I have been having a bit of a complicated relationship these days. Do I think God could have healed Rajeev? Without a doubt. Am I angry that God did not? More than you can imagine. Do I think that God did not heal him on purpose? Yes.

But that’s the thing you see. I do believe that God let this happen on purpose. And my logic dictates that to do something on purpose, you need to first have a reason. And that is what gives me hope. Sure, right now, no reason is going to be good enough. But who knows what the future holds. I know that my atheist friends will have a ton of things to say about all this, but I have to say that the one thing that keeps me going is my faith in a supernatural being who made me. For a purpose. A faith that there is a heaven, that there is someone out there who can see the big picture. It makes me believe that extraordinary lives are made of extraordinary events- whether it is extraordinary happiness or extraordinary sadness. I’m thankful that I got to have both.

I know my life is not going to be normal and ordinary. And of course, I’d pick having a normal, ordinary life building a happy home with Rajeev over having an extraordinary life any second of any day. But I can’t do that. I may not have THAT option but I DO have two other options. I can choose to spend the rest of my life wallowing in sadness and think about what could have been and how “unlucky” I am to not have that. Or I can choose to take what I have, do something with it, and be extraordinary.

I'm going to choose extraordinary... after I have this cookie.

Hope

The oddest things give me hope- the sayings on the T-shirts at mentalfloss.com, Mumford and Sons songs, watching a bridegroom feed a slice of wedding cake to his bride, bagels with hummus, the stuff at whenparentstext.com, pictures of nicely decorated rooms in Good Housekeeping-style magazines, gummy bears, the smell of bookstores, fuchsia pink anything,

These things make me realize that there is still happiness in this world. And love. And beauty. And laughter. And fun. They make me realize that even though today may not be that great, tomorrow could be awesome. And that while good times don’t last, bad times don’t either.

Avatars

Growing up, I went through a lot of different phases- I was a fearless tomboy between the ages of 1 and 4, boring asthmatic nerd, boring nerd, happy semi-nerd, angry teenager, depressed college student, psychotically cheerful wife, etc, etc. But of all my “avatars”, I like this one the least. And not just because of the lousy circumstances. I just don’t particularly like this new Sheryll.

Old Sheryll believed in the inherent goodness of people. She trusted easily, never questioned motives and was hardly ever suspicious. New Sheryll? Not so much. Old Sheryll believed that if she was genuine, others would be genuine too, so much that her husband used to worry about how she’d survive in the real world. Old Sheryll did not care. Why did she have to worry? Her husband would protect her anyway. New Sheryll does not believe she has that luxury. Old Sheryll was badass and was only scared of caterpillars. New Sheryll freaks out every time her phone rings. New Sheryll is very self-absorbed and doesn’t like many people. New Sheryll doesn’t really like New Sheryll either.

So what spurred this rambling, incoherent rant of mine? Well, here goes. Rajeev and I used to go to a church in a nearby town where his parents lived. I haven’t been to that church since his funeral. Anyways, so a few weeks ago, there was some special program happening in my current church and a bunch of people came here from that other church. I’ve never felt more judged in my entire life. Suddenly I felt like my sari was too transparent (it wasn’t) and my makeup was inches thick (obviously not). Then over that weekend, there was this sudden onslaught of people from that town calling home to ask about “my well-being”.

Old Sheryll would not have used double-quotes.

Old Sheryll would have smiled and said hello to these people. Old Sheryll would not have felt so judged because Old Sheryll would not have thought that they had any reason to judge.

Maybe they WERE judging me for being able to smile and laugh so soon after my husband’s death. Maybe they weren’t. Maybe they just did not know how to talk to me. Maybe it’s all just in my head. I don’t know. And it shouldn’t matter to me either. Because really, how I deal with losing Rajeev is personal. I have a wonderful circle of family and friends who are there for me. I’ll cry when I want to and laugh when I want to. And it’s nobody’s damn business but mine.

But if there’s one thing I learned in these past few months, it’s that it is so easy to hate, SO easy to become bitter and mean and angry. It’s so easy to dwell on the negatives for so long that it’s all you can think about. To allow these emotions to control you till you can feel nothing else. The scary part is that It. Is. Just. So. Easy.

I also learned that it’s a choice.

I learned that I can choose to be all Miss Havisham-like and rot away with my memories, or I can just choose to be happy. I can choose to live, happily, not just survive from day to day. I learned that yes, I do live forever, in my eyes at least, because I’ll be alive for as long as I’m living and when I’m dead, it won’t matter because I won’t know anything anyway. (I don’t know if that made any sense. But it did to me. In my defense, I’m very sleep deprived.) Yeah, so I’m going to live. I might as well live happily. Right? And I believe I will. Someday.

So what if Rajeev and I never formed that husband-wife rock band along the lines of the White Stripes? I’m still alive. I can still sing. So what if we never got to visit a foreign country? I still have my passport. The world is my oyster. And one day I’ll stop believing that thinking these things makes me a bad person. One day I’ll realize that how happy I decide to be is not inversely proportional to how much I love my husband. One day, I’ll smile and mean it. And I’ll be happy. You just watch me.

If I Were Fearless

I wish I were fearless. Imagine what I’d do then.

Actually, I do know what I’d do. I’d laugh. And joke. And grin. And smile. All without worrying about whether other people would consider it “inappropriate widow behavior”. I’d realize that I’m the one who has to deal with losing the love of my life. That I’m the one who has to go to sleep alone. Not them. And that it’s my right to decide how I want to deal with it. I’d realize that I could choose to be anything in the world. So I might as well choose to be happy.

Yeah. If I were fearless, that’s what I’d do.

Dealing. Part One.

There is one fundamental problem about a love that is “all encompassing”, that “fills up your senses”, that “completes you”. And that is this- once the object (and source) of that love is gone, that feeling of wholeness is gone too. And that’s all you are. Incomplete.

I’ve become angry. So very, very angry. I read somewhere that anger is one of the many stages of grief. Well, looks like I’ve entered that stage guns blazing. And I don’t even know how to handle it. How can I when I don’t even know what can set me off? I hate cheerfulness just as much as I hate sadness. I want you to say something to me, but I don’t know what I want to hear. I hate that even with the best family and friends a girl could ask for, I feel so empty and alone. I hate that I got so used to Rajeev’s arms that I can’t fall asleep at night. I hate that I went from newlywed to widow with nothing in between. I hate that I still equate emotional investment with time and I hate that I feel so worthless because I only spent one year with him. I hate that people think I should be able to move on easier because I’m so young. (Seriously. What does that even mean?) I hate that I have nothing to remember him by except for a year full of memories and the occasional photograph that I still can’t bring myself to look at. I hate that I’m only 25 years old and that whatever future I do have, is still a future without him. I wish I could just run away and go somewhere I’m not me. Somewhere I’m not 25 and a widow. It’s a funny place to be. Widowhood. Where you’re married and single at the same time. But the fact is that no matter how far I go, I can never escape this. This is going to be a part of me as long as I live. Like my color of my eyes and my abnormally large feet. I know I’m wallowing in self-pity and believe me, I hate that too.

I know that God has a plan for me. I may not like the plan. But there’s a plan. There HAS to be a reason for all this pain. I don’t care if you don’t agree with me. And I’m not going to go searching for answers because I know that right now, nothing is going to be good enough. But I do know that there’s a reason. And I know I’ll find it sometime in the future. My tomorrow may be bright, but how the heck am I going to deal with today?

I remember how Raja and I spent our three month anniversary. It was magical. Rajeev went all out. He sent flowers and chocolate to my office, and then in the evening, he whisked me off to the most amazing restaurant I’ve ever been to. I remember looking at him that evening and thinking, not for the first time… or the last, that I was the luckiest girl in the world. It was glorious.

And yet, even that evening was not our best one. Our perfect evening was every regular, normal weekday. Where Raja would come home from work around 8ish and we’d sit down to eat a meal that I had cooked. We’d clear the table and then I’d wash the dishes while he cut fruit for both of us. And we would just hang out and listen to music or watch a movie or slow dance to heavy metal, whatever. Hang the babies or the home or the dinners at fabulous restaurants. I’d do anything just to have one of those evenings again.

Aftermath

It’s begun.

The other day at church, my dad was trying to introduce to me to an old acquaintance of his. Obviously, this acquaintance had heard about what happened, but had no idea who I was.

Dad: This is Sheryll.

Acquaintance: ….

Dad: My daughter.

Acquaintance: ….

Dad: She’s the one who lost her husband.

Acquaintance: Oh! Her!

Turns out that’s all I am now. The girl who lost her husband. Great.

So my mom has issues with my recent posts. After reading the last one, she sat me down and gave me a good talking to. She said (and I’m only paraphrasing slightly here), “Sheryll, I know it’s hard. But it is time for you to move on. You’re just 25. Your whole life is spread out before you. I know you’ll miss your husband with every fiber of your being, but you need to get through this. You’re a strong girl and we’re all here for you. Always.”

I love my mommy.

I also wonder if someone can develop a “mommy-filter” for our blogs. Hmmm.

So after two months of dealing with the sickness and death, I now have to deal with life and surviving. I honestly don’t know which one is worse. It’s a funny business this grieving thing. Emotional rollercoaster is an understatement. I have NO idea what could set me off. I did not cry when they happened to play “our song” on the radio. But I bawled my eyes out the last time I saw a Metro test run. I can handle looking at pictures of Rajeev posing decently, but I cannot handle the goofy ones. I can wear his t-shirts to sleep, wear his ridiculous yellow slippers, and smell his perfume, but I cannot watch the first season of Glee or listen to the new Angry Birds Seasons theme music.

And then there’s the fear. That horrible, paralyzing fear of the things you know you have to do in order to be able to live rather than just survive. Of the things you must leave behind. Of the decisions you must make. Of expectations and realizations. And that the only thing that they have in common is that they all suck.

And the anger. The kind that eats you up from inside. All stemming from one unavoidable fact- that of all the people Rajeev ever knew, he knew me for the shortest time. And there’s nothing anyone can do about it. Except deal.

Here’s to dealing.