Sweaters?

I am told I need to write. I haven’t in so long. I don’t even know the last time I did, for me, anyway.

This is harder than I thought. Trying to get through holidays without my dad, my kids and even my ex. My ex? Why do I miss this? Because it was an image of what I expected. An image of so much. I am grieving the loss of something I never had? What I miss things I never had? How? Do I really miss them or just the idea and hope of what they would have been?

This is my first Christmas without my kids, my dad, but not the first without my ex. It’s not like he was always so there. I wrap the presents that I picked and bought with the money allowed to spend by him while drinking a glass of wine. My cheeks start to flush about half a glass in. I’m not a huge wine drinker but feel like I should relax to wrap, yet it requires such precision to accomplish. I can’t wrap. I am blessed with kids who have low standards for wrapping. I don’t do bows, or ribbons. This is the first year I bought labels. I rarely buy tape and have to use medical tape to wrap presents after weeks of telling my daughter we don’t use this tape for anything but for her wound care.

He wasn’t a sweater to me. I was a sweater to him? I was someone he thought he would try on to see if he could handle this kind of sweater over the one he had? Maybe I was doing the same? I’m not the sweater for him? I think I insulted him with my opinion of his current sweater. That I didn’t relate to that kind. Maybe he realized he needed the kind he had? Maybe he realized he didn’t need any kind, for awhile.

I haven’t needed a sweater for a long time and kind of want one. One to keep. Not one I take on and off. One to keep.

As I sit and wrap gifts alone for no one who will be here in the morning, I write out a label for my dad, who for sure won’t be here tomorrow. Or ever. It is a gift for my moms cat, who is really his cat but I wrote for dad, from me. Then cried until I could see tears puddling. I haven’t cried any puddles. I have cried and then stopped but I haven’t until I saw tears pooling on the paper below me.

I reached out to a few people. My most familiar sweaters.

One to tell me it will get easier, that he did once and I needed to hear it again. A strange fit.

One to tell me to send a picture of anything to remove the one I put of my dad with my daughter as a wallpaper, a familiar sweater.

One to say how hard this was, that I didn’t know how hard it would be. The oldest sweater.

He hasn’t answered. Not yet. He probably won’t. He has his own sweater issues.

He did right away but still seems to need me more than I can give. But still a comfy sweater.

And he told me to cry it out then write. Tim knows me better than I know myself. The one I wear the most since I knew I wanted one.

It’s the night before Christmas. I know everyone is somewhere so I’m not overly worried about someone being there for me. What I know is this.

It’s harder than I thought, I need to remove this wallpaper and I need to write. I actually don’t like sweaters. Just fleece.

It won’t make any sense. I haven’t written daily enough for it to make any sense. I haven’t written to my anxious mind in weeks. My sweater trying on has taken priority over the fact that I don’t even need one and never really liked sweaters. I mean I do, but I don’t need them on all the time. I had one for awhile and it was nice until it started to scratch and the tag irritated me. Or the sleeves weren’t long enough.

I don’t even know what I’m writing out anymore. Just thoughts on sweaters? Thoughts on a someone again? Thoughts on a no one ever again?

My dad being gone has made me feel like I have no one. That I need a sweater. I will sort through that. Someone told me I am his legacy? Could this be true? Could part of me be him? Not just genetics but actually who he was be me? Like I could live my life through him as of it was him? But me?

In another universe we are canoeing through the Boundary waters. In another universe we are climbing a 14 thousand foot mountain, in another universe we are rafting down the Colorado River. Can we? In another universe is there a Colorado river? A boundary waters ? And mountains? Or is something so much more? Words we don’t know? Languages and places we can’t fathom in another universe because we are in ours and you are in yours?

In another universe is there peace? What is peace? Is it not even a word? We have the word peace because we have had the word war. So there was war then peace. Hate then love. Love then hate. Peace then war.

We are at war. With ourselves. There is fear we shouldn’t feel. It was always there but we all have to be told to feel it now. If you don’t know to be afraid, are you? If you know to be afraid, are you? why are we so afraid? Of ourselves or others? If we don’t know the one single story of the one single persons tragedy than we can’t feel their pain? There are tragedies and pain even when we don’t know them. Is it selfish to not want to know? To want to stay in our own world. Our own little universe. The one with our own sweaters and waters we canoe.

I thought if I read a little news I would feel a little relief. I have no one to tell me the things I need to know anymore and don’t even know what I need to know. I do not feel informed, educated, or enlightened. I feel afraid I will lose my chin to a strange fungus, a rapidly changing virus might kill me and our government plays games like its fun. I feel…alone. Without a sweater.

I was thinking of something I needed to write but lost my thought when I saw a stink bug on my ceiling. I thought I was getting coronavirus. But it was a cold. Is this what everyone feels. We get a tickle in our throat and wonder, is this how it starts? I haven’t had a fever but I had a sore throat. I always get a sore throat this time of year. My kids are in day cares get everything. So do they. But this time it was just me. I haven’t been taking care of myself as well. Just them. So scared they will get it but not thinking of me. I haven’t been sleeping, eating right, taking zinc or any vitamins, I started swimming but is it too late? Did I already get it and myself and my kids will die? Or I will die and they will have to live with someone else? I do not like either scenario yet one will be true in some way. I don’t have coronavirus, I have what I always have. A cold. I increased my zinc to something and not nothing and started to drink water and force sleep. My cold lasted two days, if that. But for a day I feared I was to be feared. But I didn’t go about life with my cold so others would get it. I stayed and got over my cold so no one would get it and have to worry they had a deadly virus which might only be deadly because we get to hear about all the dead. What about all the alive?

What if he is my sweater? The one who knows that sometimes I don’t even need one but want one? He is a younger sweater that hasn’t done the work of a worn one yet? What if it is out of style? What if it is too scratchy sometimes? What if I hate the way it hits my wrist? What if it shrinks? What if it doesn’t? what if he doesn’t even want to be one?

I blame my therapist for this sweater thing. She uses her own life of trying on sweaters as a metaphor for trying on people. That we as people think that everyone we meet is meant to stay in our lives forever. That we don’t always get that some are just here to teach us something then to turn left. Maybe someday their left will meet with your right? You were on a path together then separated then met again. Like minds. Not on the same path but under the same sky? To meet again. To wear the sweater not just try it on.