Sleeping Alone, expanded

 Learning to Live Alone

 

My partner, Jim, died a year ago, another Covid statistic. We had lived together for over fifty years, had been married for 49 years. We met and married in New Orleans, and for all our days together we twain were dedicated to civil rights, social justice, working class activism and worked to end racism, especially racism embedded in the, um,  Justice system and in the State apparatus.

 

A long introduction and a tangent to my topic which is: Learning to Live Alone.  In point of fact, it is not so much about living alone since I’ve no desire to live with anyone I know, so much as … living without Jim. Before Jim became demented, our lives were pretty damn fine.  Sure, squabbles here and there, but overall comfortably content. I’d rather not have had 300 fuchsia plants in our backyard but allowances must be made. And Jim was occassionally annoyed by nagging requests for more bookshelves. Although a book lover himself, he could not see the efficacy of having 2000 books.  Silly lad.

 

Then dementia fell upon us like a ton of bricks and nothing was ever the same again.  Jim’s personality changed, over the years he became a stranger, however beloved. All that was him, that made him Jim, either disappeared or was attenuated. I never got over that. Even as I cared for him lovingly, he was not My Jim. I was bereft and saddened beyond belief. 

 

So, the first months of living and sleeping alone were not so stark … as they are now.  Now, the lack of Jimness is always apparent and forever missed. And, yet I lay myself down to sleep every night and rise the the morning (usually). Biology will have its way with us and that may well be a good thing.

 

So, that is where I am now living without Jim. And sleeping without him. I didn’t think I could do it but I did and I am.