If It Were You

It's October 2, 2022. Fall's here. It's a beauty this year. December, you will have been gone 3 years. If it were you, not me, living this life, aside from missing me, I think of how you would be enjoying it. You always thought you’d make an excellent bachelor, retired in the Maine woods. With maybe a trusted ol’ dog. Huntin’. Fishin’. Kicking back in an ol’ comfy chair, reading whatever and napping whenever you wanted. Listening to country music from a scratchy am radio. Ah, that portion of the daydream changes there. You loved your electronics too much. You’d have Alexa by now to play your music. In your cabin in the woods, you’d install a big-ass tv and have all the sports available to you. You’d do your refraining from Facebook and then starting it up again, “debating” amongst Facebook friends (and I'd be glad I was etherial). Mmm. So you would also have WiFi. And of course, your Jeep. But you’d have the newer one you had your eye on. And also the newest Iphone and Applewatch. But that's it. The rest would be just you and nature. You’d get up before sunrise to witness it come up. And when the moon was big and bright, you’d walk out of the moonlit cabin to stand outside, maybe make yourself a cup of coffee before you headed out. Just to watch it. You’d have all your tools and fix all sorts of things in your camp. I’m not sure yet in this fantasy if I’d include all the kayaks and canoes you had acquired over the years. Yes. I’ve decided, yes. You would have them all, just in case you had visitors.

I've often felt my late husband would be doing this widowhood crap better than me. Lately, though, I'm not feeling that as much, as I am enjoying witnessing myself in tasks I've been taking on.

Just this week, I filled my Cross Trek with a few months' worth of garbage, to bring to our town's transfer station. If it were just me all along, as in, I never knew my husband, I simply would have had a garbage service pick up maybe a garbage can worth of garbage. Maybe once a month. But, I have 5+ garbage cans in the garage, leftover from my husband's gargantuan garbage project. You see, if you weigh in at the dump with 100 pounds of garbage, to dump it is free. He saw no reason why he should pay to dump his garbage. Even more unthinkable, have and pay someone else to do it.

The garbage system started in the kitchen. No food goes into the kitchen garbage can, especially in the summer, as it would be transferred to the garage cans and stink up his domain. We had a kitchen compost bucket for that, which he mostly emptied. Seemed like any task requiring a trip outside, he was happy to do. And I was glad to let him. Who wants to go outside when it's cold? Or terribly hot? And buggy? Or dark? Not me.

Some Saturday morning unbeknownst to me, would be the morning he'd shoot out of bed, pile all the cans and whatever else constituted garbage, onto his trailer, and drive it to the dump, some 15 miles up the road. I drove with him a few times, because who doesn't like going to the dump? All that organization of filth. But most of the time, I wasn't anywhere near as excited as he was. I'm pretty sure he was fine either way if I came along or not. Garbage was clearly one of his joys and not mine.

This is maybe my fourth solo dump trip. I'm always a bit nervous that I will not reach the 100-pound weight. I'm always surprised that I do. It's become a fun challenge, gauging when it's time to go to the dump.

The first couple of times, I really felt the dump-novice in me noticeable to the dump-attendant. Me, arriving in my Cross Trek full of trash bags, instead of a trailer full of tied-down trash cans like everyone else. Ever since I jack-knifed my husband"s trailer early in our marriage, I haven't dared touch one again. I sold his. The attendee had a certain smile saying, It's okay dea'ah, we'll guide ya through. We can tell you don't know what the heck you're doin'.

Well, I took all the help I could get. I feel grateful and full of pride every time I walk out of the dump office, successfully meeting the 100-pound minimum.

I'm kind of running out of heavy items (for weight reassurance). This time around, I passed by the skin of my teeth. This, however, did not deter my joy while driving back home. On a beautiful country road whose leaves are beginning to turn. Where I can feel the first, brisk, autumn, morning air on my face (because I have all the windows open to air out my car). I remember that I love living here. Before I knew myself with a broken heart. Before I even knew my husband, I loved this place. Maine welcomed me with open arms. There is an unspoken language we have. I found a place where maybe for the first time in my life, when my parents dropped me off on a college campus way up on the Atlantic coast, I took a deep, refreshing breath and felt I had landed in a place that knew me. Not as a middle child in a big Irish, Catholic family. Or an awkward teen who moved from her secure home in New York to a foreign one in Connecticut. Maine was my place, starting way back then.

That ride home from the dump was a little bit of reconnecting with who I am here. Solo.

Maybe, just maybe, I can do this widowhood crap, just as well.