Encountering My Unfettered Self

Today I unpacked the last remaining box of my late wife Norma’s books. The two-car garage at the condo was completely filled when we moved in just over four months ago, and now it’s almost empty. Between what’s been thrown away, donated, and brought inside, my life is now firmly established in my new home, alas alone.

Norma was an avid reader, as am I, and in fifty years together we accumulated a substantial library. While our interests differed, there were also areas of overlap; now our books fill an entire wall of floor to ceiling bookshelves and more. I cried as I emptied that last box of Norma’s books. She was so smart and well-read. Her father was a university professor, Norma had a great love of learning, and as she discussed what she was reading, I benefitted by gaining exposure to topics I’d never have explored on my own. I miss that, greatly.

In the meantime, I’m adjusting to my new life. I’ve not lived alone since I was twenty-five years old, more than fifty years ago and it takes some getting used to. The kinds of decisions that used to involve discussion and agreement between us are now just mine to make. What and where to hang a picture, how furniture should be arranged, what to have for dinner and to go out or stay home, which movies to watch, what music to play; the daily give and take of opinion has disappeared. I’m encountering my unfettered self.

I’ve always appreciated solitude and keeping to myself is not unpleasant. One of the strengths of our fifty-year marriage was our exercise of autonomy. I extended that opportunity to Norma and she reciprocated; as equal partners we respected each other’s territory and independence. I pursued creative, business and civic activities with her support, and with mine she pursued her work as a professional therapist in private practice and creative interests like art and singing. Each of us cultivated a meaningful spiritual life. When either of us felt desire for the affection and companionship of the other, we’d bring it up. Our emotional life was another venue of give and take.

Being on my own and deciding everything by myself at times feels a bit onanistic, an activity of self-pleasure. I put things where I want, eat when I want, stay home, go out, purchase items, wake up and go to sleep at my own discretion. It feels quite free, but also strange and a touch immoral, like I’m slipping into self-indulgence and betraying Norma. But of course, I’m not; she’s not here to betray.

I do want to honor her and her memory, however. That’s one reason why I am keeping so many of her books: they represent an important part of who she was and keeping them together preserves some wholeness about her for myself and others, at least for a while.

Nobody will ever know me as well as Norma did. It took fifty years, and we were still learning about each other up to the day she died. We’d talked about the prospect of death often, but hers was so abrupt we never had the chance to say a proper goodbye. She quickly slipped away in merely twenty-four hours, and unlike during the rest of our fifty years together, we were unable to talk. What she might have said, sadly, I am left to imagine.