My Muse

 

I remember when we lost my dad. My mother was devastated even though she knew it was coming. For three years every phone conversation I had with Mom on my regular Sunday phone call, ended in Mom sobbing.

It's difficult to lose somebody you've spent so much time with. Mark and I were together for twenty three and a half years. When I met him I was living like a twenty something single man. I was forty seven, but my apartment looked like it was decorated by a college rugby team... if they were all gay. I had sports memorabilia on the walls, Target and Goodwill furniture, and a big carpeted cat tree in the living room. Mark moved in and looked at it as a blank canvas. We spent months of shopping for just the right things to make my apartment, our apartment. In the end I think he did a fantastic job. You'd never know I wasn't a skilled decorator.

Mark also goaded me into traveling more. Without him I don't think I would have ended up at a bar in Paris on 'naked night'. I wouldn't have experienced watching Mark challenge a giant German woman in the aisle of a railroad car (She just wouldn't move). We visited Amsterdam twice, because Mark loved the 'coffee houses'. Sure, Mark used to get lost in every city we ever visited, but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. In a way Mark got to see more of those cities than I did as he wandered around trying to find our hotel. Meanwhile, I got to take naps knowing full well that Mark was probably lost. I once sat in a little restaurant in Venice and watched Mark wander back and forth past the window while looking for our hotel. He did not find the humor in that.

Yes, Mark inspired many of my blog posts. In fact I started this blog because of Mark and our visit to Georgia. I just had to put it all down in writing because I didn't think anybody would believe all the stories.

I miss him. I did not think I would miss him this much. So much that at least once a day something triggers tears. Sometimes just a little teary eyed cry, sometimes a full on sobbing jag. But just like my mom, I will get on with my life and the thoughts that bring on the sadness will fade.