Dearest Rachel –
Another day, another evening of falling asleep on either side of the bed in our separate recliners while watching YouTube together, and another morning that essentially starts at one a.m., whether I mean for it to or not. We’re not still on Israel time, I don’t think, but we’re probably on Greenland or Iceland time at the moment, which doesn’t line up particularly well with our current environment. If we lived in the city, where stuff is happening 24/7, we might be able to function like this perpetually, but at some point, we really have to shift to something more in line with how (and more importantly, when) those around us are operating.
To be honest, you would probably have been able to relate to at least that first part of the description of our current situation; more than once would Daniel and I look over to the couch back in the day to see you keeled over your computer, only for you to insist that you weren’t sleeping when we would nudge you awake. If your ambition in life was to act like you were never going to grew up, you certainly nailed it in those moments, honey. Then again, if you and I were together watching stuff in the bedroom (and we would just be doing that on the bed itself, rather than having separate comfy chairs on either side), there wouldn’t be any question about falling asleep or resisting the same; it would just happen to each of us in our turn, and we’d be perfectly comfortable about it.
Of course, that’s the thing; there generally weren’t two separate existences between the three of us, especially during that final year together, when everybody was confined to quarters on a near-perpetual basis. We would all be in the family room together, rather than it being reserved for Daniel and one of his friends, leaving us the bedroom to hang out in. That latter situation has been the more de facto one in the days since your departure and Logan’s arrival one the scene. But with Logan away this weekend as part of the annual My Little Pony convention up in Milwaukee (yes, those still go on, despite Gen4 ending even before your passing and Gen5 not seeming to get nearly the traction its predecessor had), it was a chance for Daniel and I to figure out how well we function on our own.
It’s hard to say, though. I honestly think that, individually, we can deal with the emptiness in the house. Each of us can take care of ourselves, including keeping ourselves entertained (if not so much fed, in Daniel’s case. Oh, he’ll drive out to one or another sandwich shop or smoothie café if the spirit leads him, but stuff at home that I leave for him to eat tends to go bad on us, to be honest). The problem is, when it’s just him and me here, we’re each painfully aware of the other, and neither of us are quite sure what exactly to do with and about him.
As I mentioned, neither of us is completely acclimatized to our local time zone (we’ve been assured by long-held folk wisdom that it’ll take about eight days to do so, since that’s how many hours off we are from where we have been; we’re only about halfway there at this point – and yes, you can feel free to queue up the Bon Jovi if you hear it in your head like I did when I wrote that down), and as a result, we’re each waking up in the darkness of midnight and thereafter. It doesn’t help that each of us fell asleep in front of the shared monitor while we were watching videos together the other night; sleeping at odd hours of what would otherwise be ‘the day’ (aside from the fact that it’s dark so early at this time of year) logically means that we would be awake at odd hours of the night.
But the truly odd thing about it was how, when each of us were awake and up, we both took great pains to function in as much darkness and silence as possible, so as not to disturb the other. Never mind that each of us could hear the other knocking about and taking care of his own business (and also trying to be as inconspicuous as possible), so there was little need to worry about waking him; we still didn’t want them to know that we were up, even though the fact that each of us could hear the other indicated that he could hear ourselves just as likely.
I even wandered into the family room and made light of it, that Daniel didn’t have to be in the dark watching whatever it was he was staring at. He responded that he was just doing what he usually does at the end of every night; reviewing what had collected in his news feed throughout the day. So maybe he’s gotten in sync with the time zone after all, and it’s just me. But either way, there’s this realization that we shouldn’t be pussyfooting around when we know the other of us is up.
Of course, we’re probably each acting as if there’s a missing third person in the house we need to be considerate of, be it you or Logan, and we can’t shake the need to give this mythical person their due consideration. We just seem to need for that person to be here, for varying reasons, but until they show up, we’re still going to act as if they are. I don’t know if this is hyper-politeness, or neurosis, but we can’t (and probably shouldn’t help it).
So if you could keep an eye on us, honey, and wish us luck for that missing third person to show up (yes, Logan will be back later today, but he’s already been here longer than he was supposed to; you know what I’m thinking of), I think we’d both appreciate it. We certainly need it.
Letters to Rachel 