This week I found a piece of music, Clouds by Solomon Gray. It made me cry.
I was horseriding in Second Life, if you must know, and had the radio on for the sim I was traversing. The horse would have had three broken legs and a broken neck in real life, as I kept falling off paths and crashing into trees, but Second Life is one of those places where horses are immortal, so I just continued on my way.
Suddenly this piece of music came on over the radio, and I was transfixed and then started crying. I am a composer of music myself and listen to music a lot, but I have never had information conveyed so clearly by a piece of music. It spoke of loss and love and very clearly to me expressed what I feel about losing Eelco. I've been listening to it on repeat ever since - over headphones fortunately, so the neighbours are not being driven out of their minds.
It stirred up in me the loss that I feel, but also the frustration and resentment that I feel that I had no place in his life after death. I wasn't his partner formally and we weren't married, and he didn't leave a will. His pension was lost as he didn't nominate anyone to receive it. None of it makes any difference, whatever happened he'd still be dead. I still have so many questions that will always be unanswered and I don't know what to do with them. They are weighing me down and making me wonder if I really know what I had with Eelco. I just have to give all that angry stuff to source and try to move on without him, without the answers, without all that future which we thought lay ahead, and didn't.
I have spent quite a lot of time in Second Life, horse riding, dancing at Marcel's, buying stuff. It's my safe place at the moment, a place to forget and be entertained. It seems a strange juxtaposition, spending time on things that are ostensibly so unimportant and trivial, while trying to deal with one of the biggest challenges that life throws at us, losing someone I loved dearly. I'm not sure whether it is helping or not. I think the human connections I have in Second Life are helping, for sure.
I enjoyed riding around and finding picturesque places to ride. I also went sailing in Second Life this week, staying until very late at Marcel's to join their weekly sailing trips. I think a lot of the people who stay for the sailing are either in the US and therefore eight hours behind us, or in Spain and Portugal where a siesta in the afternoon allows them to stay up later. Even so, it was very late by the time the cruise had finished.
I was amazed to find that sailing in Second Life is almost as complicated as sailing in real life, with the advantage that you don't get wet and won't get bonked on the head if you make a mistake with booms and sails. The Captain was having to process waypoints for the route we were taking, information about wind speeds and direction as well as tacking and doing other nautical things with the boat. My routine hasn't quite caught up with that very late night, which is a pain, as Tizzy wants out early in the morning and so I am burning the candle at both ends as my grandmother used to say.
I started the Artist's Way a long time ago, it seems like years but is actually months. I'm restarting where I left off and returning to writing my morning pages. I feel I need to get some routine into my life, and start making my way back to the land of the living. Maybe processing my anger will be a healthy thing to do.
A couple of days ago I pulled the shopping trolley (bag on wheels that old ladies have) into the house and then promptly walked into it and broke my little toe. It hurt like buggery, but Kate buddy bandaged it for me and after a while the pain subsided. I felt so stupid for doing such a ridiculous thing. After all, I couldn't even blame someone else for putting it in a ridiculous place - I'd done it myself. My toe is black and blue but not as black and blue as I'd expected.
