It's Labor Day week-end...I'm feeling a little out of sorts...holidays do that to me now...no matter if they are significant holidays or not...it is still a holiday WITHOUT Michael.
Holidays give me a chance to feel more sad than normal and it seems as if on holidays I just let the sadness come...other days I push it down and away so that I don't have to FEEL, but on holidays I say "give it your best shot" and it usually doesn't disappoint!!
Today I went downstairs to my pile of belongings in my sisters basement...I'm not sure why...I guess I was looking for something to do to occupy this restless mind of mine...and what I found was Michael's "change" box...the one he kept on his nightstand...the one that has coins and small keepsakes and a "wishlist" for the house and his watch...I touched the coins, knowing that Michael was probably the last one to touch them...I read over the wish list and smiled remembering the conversation we had about some changes he wanted to make to the house (and I promised him that if I was ever in a position to do so, I would, just the way he wanted) and I took the watch out of the box and it is still keeping time...two years later it has the right time (EST)...and I lost it...how could that watch still be ticking and he has been gone from me for over two years...how could it still be ticking and I haven't seen his face or touched his hand or felt his arms around me...and it is still ticking...how can that be? How can my whole life have changed so drastically and that damn watch is still going? He wore that watch all the time...he had to change the band many times because it broke so often, but the watch has stood the test of time and it is still ticking...I used to tease him about the watch band suntan that he would get and I always told him how cute it was when he took the watch off at the end of his work day...I buried my nose in the green canvas band, just trying to remember his scent...I couldn't...I looked at the back of the watch and saw the little bit of dirt there that undoubtedly came from the sweat of his wrist and I thought .... "here is Michael's DNA...a piece of him" I took the watch and put it on my wrist thinking that I would wear it, but it just didn't feel right...it is his watch...worn by him. I took it upstairs, thought of changing the time to CST and then decided against it...I put it in my nightstand drawer, there to take out whenever I want to...a piece of Michael that he always wore...a little piece of him...a reminder that life keeps on ticking even if you don't want it to...
