A Time For Leaving

It's quiet in here, in my little apartment. Chris has gone; he left this morning at 8:30 AM, but not without me getting out of bed to have a cup of coffee and see him off. I stunned myself with that exertion. Immediately upon his departure I went back to bed, staying there until 2:00 PM. It doesn't matter though. Without him here, my place has gone quiet, not that he was noisy at all.

I can actually feel the presence of others in my home, know that they are there by the micro-sounds we all make, the tiny clink as they get a cup for coffee, the air that whooshes out of the cushion when they sit down on the couch, the squeak in the laminate as they walk from bedroom to kitchen. It is those sounds, the quiet sounds of activity and life which make a hollow apartment into a home.

My own sounds do that too, although not in the same way. I can hear the keys on my computer softly clicking as I write this blog, the creak in my wheelchair frame whenever I try to shift position. I can smell the coffee, see the shadows, hear the million small sounds of life alone. Yet even with all of this, my apartment feels so empty when someone leaves me after a visit. I have to get used to once again being alone in this space, this container holding the cargo of my life.

Of course this sense of aloneness, of solitude, will disappear quickly today, gone in a moment, just as Chris was here and gone but for two nights and a day. It will go because I will go, out to the mall for groceries and medications. It will go because Kate will come for dinner. If I am alone, it's rarely for long, and mostly at night.

I like having people around me. I live through the lives of others, as if I was some sort of vampire, my sustenance only found by drawing on the energy and life of others. I am an extrovert, well out the scale. I was thrilled when Chris came, thrilled with the time he spent with me, and sad when he had to leave. This is life, written large and written small. We come into one another's lives, we enjoy that which we can in this time together, and we leave, either willingly or not.

What is happening to me is predictable. As I said to Chris, "Don't wait too long for the next one; I won't have many more of these." I was talking about weekends where I would be alive, functional, capable of having guests. At some point I will leave, either willingly or not. We all do.