tired | Bertram's Blog

Coming to a H.A.L.T.

July 10, 2015 — Pat Bertram

H.A.L.T.

Hungry
Angry
Lonely
Tired

Whenever I get discouraged or afraid, all I have to do is take a quick assessment of my situation, and generally, I fall into one or more of the above states. (Loneliness, though, doesn’t really count in my case because to a certain extent I am always lonely, and being hungry, tired, or upset exacerbates the loneliness.)

I teeter between looking forward to a great adventure and being afraid. (Oddly, I’m equally afraid of uncertainty and the stagnation of certainty.) When I am well fed and reasonably well rested, I am open to the challenge of exploring the many places I’ve never been, national and state parks I haven’t visited, streets and trails I haven’t trodden. When I am hungry and tired, fear gets the better of me, and I wonder what the heck I’m doing. I have no experience in camping/backpacking, have no great source of income or savings to fall back on, and worst of all, I’m torn. Though I would like to stay here and continue taking dance classes, I have an equal desire to head out for parts unknown.

It truly wouldn’t be such a terrible thing to do what others suggest: settle down, continue taking dance classes, maybe start writing again, and head out occasionally for a vacation, but I have always played it safe and now it’s time to trust in the benevolence of the fates, the universe, divine providence, or whatever, and just make the leap into uncertainty. Let the future take care of itself. Hope that when it’s time to return for a while and catch up with my friends and classes that I will be able to find a place to stay.

I could so easily ruin what could be a grand adventure by giving in to my fears and worries about what will happen in a month or two, or even a week or two.

Last night I had a couple of setbacks that made me panic. I’d planned to rent a room as a fallback position, a place to come back to, but the only place I found seemed unsafe, not a place I would ever want to be. And I received part of my tent — the footprint — so I could see the size, and oh, my. It’s tiny!! How the heck am I going to live in that?

Today, reason prevailed. I’m not going to live in that miniscule tent. I’m going to get a bigger tent for car camping; this small lightweight tent is for backpacking emergencies. (And if I ever do long distance walking/hiking.) The real benefit is that I could be cozy with a backpacking quilt rather than a sleeping bag. And I don’t need to worry about a more permanent living solution for a few weeks, maybe months. (I have a tentative housesitting job for the late summer/early fall.) And after that? Well, that’s not a problem for today.

At the very least, assuming I don’t come to a H.A.L.T., the next few weeks should be interesting.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Connect with Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.

Posted in Adventure, life. Tags: Angry, fear of the unknown, H.A.L.T., Hungry, lonely, looking forward, tired, uncertainty vs certainty. 9 Comments »

Thirty-Seven Months of Grief

April 27, 2013 — Pat Bertram

Today it is 37 months since my life mate/soul mate died. It is also a Saturday, and for more than two and a half years, Saturday was my sadder day. He died late Friday night or early Saturday morning, depending on how you look at it, and often my mind/body saw it both ways, with an upswing of grief on Friday that grew to a crescendo on Saturday and didn’t dissipate until sometime on Sunday. Even if I paid no attention to the calendar, grief surged, which always mystified me — how could my body know when I didn’t? And when the date of his death (the 27th) fell on a Saturday, that was always a double whammy of grief.

But today, I don’t feel much of anything. Well, the usual thread of sadness that bastes my life together, but other than that, I am mostly . . . blank. And tired. I am tired of his being gone. Tired of being sad. Tired of being lonely. Tired of this alien world that still, after all this time, doesn’t quite seem normal with him out of it. Tired of trying to be positive and open to new experiences. Tired of trying to find a way to live through the rest of my life. (Hmmm. Maybe I’m just tired?)

Those who still have their mates simply live. We live without. It colors our world and depletes our energy.

I’m sitting here staring at the page, too blank to think of anything to say about grief that I haven’t already said a dozens times before: I miss him. I yearn for one more smile from hm. I hope he is happy. I hope he is. That’s just the way it is, and probably always will be.