Sleepwalking

Photo during one of our night walks

By Doug Forbes

On the day my wife and I disconnected Roxie from life support, I tend to think I disconnected a lot of me from me.

That night, my wife and I took a walk through our San Rafael Hills neighborhood, then along the Arroyo Seco aqueduct. The sky was electric blue with swishes and swashes of bright pink clouds. We talked about how Roxie would have been mesmerized by this seemingly surrealist canvas.

But she was gone. She would no longer be mesmerized by a single thing. And frankly, I’m not sure I will be either. Life is currently about function over form. Get stuff done. Grieve. Get more stuff done. Rinse. Repeat.

These walks would continue each night to this very day, with the rare exception of a morning substitute or total abdication due to sleep deprivation.

Some nights we talk. Some we don’t. Some we do a bit of both. Regardless, each and every attempt feels like sleepwalking. I’m upright. I’m moving. But I’m not there.

Yes, I work on our foundation. I arrange meetings with stakeholders and gatekeepers. I speak somewhat coherently with family and friends. I exercise. I eat. I shower. I enrolled in three fall courses toward my master’s degree (after dropping out once Roxie died). I even sleep 3-5 hours each night.

Photo from another night of “sleepwalking”

Blah, blah fucking blah.

Being a hyper-aware person—which is not an asset, believe me—I know that life post-Roxie is far less meaningful to me. Work and meetings and exercise and food and hygiene and school and, yes, even my marriage to an amazing woman are all graying.

I don’t walk the Colorado Bridge and think, “JUMP!” But I do walk the Colorado Bridge and think “Why not?”

The answer to that question is simple. I don’t want to die. But I also don’t want to live inside this person as he exists today. So, I sleepwalk. I convince myself that I can navigate my surroundings with some semblance of space. But maybe not time.