Passing For Normal

Which would normally not be worth mentioning, since it's my ostensible normal state of affairs, but nothing has been normal for months.

J is a close friend of my friend C. Both of them live three hours from here and from anything else, way off the grid; J and her husband are C's tenants and sometime employees as well as being friends. Around the first of December, J learned that she had terminal liver cancer and was "unlikely to make it until Christmas." She needed hospice care, which is out of the question where she lives, and she needed to be able to visit with her family and friends, which is extremely difficult in winter up on the mountain in the back of beyond.

My friend C had recently bought a little two-bedroom place here in town, a brand new house that she'd only been in for a couple of months and was still furnishing and fussing with and making her own, a place to stay with her dog when she needed to come to town for business, social, or medical reasons.

She immediately offered the house to J and her husband, inviting them to move in and stay there and have people come visit. They have little money and no health insurance, so they gratefully accepted.

Which meant that C needed a place to stay when she was in town, so naturally I offered my guest room. My house and yard are dog-friendly, and C could be my part-time roomie and come and go as she liked.

I am a hard-core introvert as well as a chronic depressive, and I run on batteries. Social interaction drains them. I love social interaction! And it's very, very good for me. But wow, it wipes me out. I'm good for four days, five at the most, and then I simply have nothing left, and only solitude recharges me. But C has known me for a long time, and does her best to understand and accept and work around this, so she planned to be here for short stints and spend most of her time up on the mountain at her other home.

And then J didn't die. Aside from the cancer, she'd been robustly healthy, fit, active, only 58 years old, so the disease progressed, but far more slowly than anyone had anticipated. And the weather went through long ugly spells that meant C was stuck here in town -- and stuck at my place -- for upwards of two weeks at a time. And time kept passing.

It was wonderful that J had more time, and that her husband and family and friends had more time with her. C never begrudged the use of her house, nor I the use of my place. Everybody was doing everything they possibly could, even when it wasn't easy, and it was all the sort of experience that makes you proud to be human.

J finally died early this week; by that time, the disease had progressed to the point where the end was a relief for her and for everyone who cared about her. Her husband and family have gone back to their own homes. C has her house in town back, and I have mine. Everybody's sad and grieving. Everyone's going back to their own homes and their own lives.

C just drove away, having efficiently cleared all of her stuff out of my house and packed it into her car, along with Bernie the dog.

And I'm sitting here feeling the vast relief that solitude brings -- I can recharge now, thank all things merciful! -- but also sadness over J, and loneliness because having C and Bernie here was as delightful as it was draining, and I will miss their company very much. I just walked past the spot where, for almost four months, Bernie's water bowl always sat. Now it's not there. Now he's not here. There was a dog around the house, and now there's not. I look in the fridge, and nothing in there will become food unless I have the energy and impetus and imagination to prepare and cook it. I won't have C here to be the spark of energy and my companion in the kitchen. It won't matter enough to bother, without someone to cook for and with.

And yet... I have my solitude, and that is something I need like breathing. Change happens, death and loss happen. Friendships and life go on.

Okay, that's probably enough for this post. More soon, both fannish and otherwise.

How are y'all doing? What's up with you?