Life comes at you fast. One day, you’re a little kid, living life to the fullest. And the next, you’re a failed husband and father, begging for something to push you off the painful trail you’ve treaded for so many years.
In July, that push finally came when my neighbor’s wife Elaine died from stab wounds she sustained at a Denny’s. Seizing the opportunity, I helped my neighbor push through his grief, and in doing so, healed a little myself.
Here are the five lessons I learned by impersonating my neighbor’s dead partner for three months.
1) Never Take the Easy Path
When I first learned my dear neighbor’s wife had died, and that spark of an idea formed in my head, I knew I couldn’t take the easy path. I had to go beyond the expectation. Society would have wanted me to “check in” on him. But “checking in” wouldn’t fix him. No, this was a man in crisis. My neighbor Barry needed to grow from this. Instead of feeding him for a day, I was about to give him a fishing lesson.
2) Always Express Yourself
I’ve never been the most expressive person. I could never find that spark that I’d seen in so many other people, that urge to create and communicate. But as I superglued rotting banana peels and beef scraps to my skin in order to replicate the feel of dead flesh, I finally understood how Picasso and Van Gogh felt when their brushes touched the canvas. I tinkered with every inch of my skin to perfectly replicate Elaine’s rotting corpse. This was my art. My masterpiece. For the first time, I understood what it meant to be me.
3) Believe in Your Abilities
Growing up as the weakest of three children, I always accepted being at the bottom of the pile. In order to avoid the torments of my older brothers, I had to be as submissive as possible. Or so I thought. Walking into Barry’s living room forced me to challenge those ideas. Never in my life could I have ever imagined tying up someone as strong as my neighbor! But as I sat on the couch, drowning out the sound of Barry’s begging and screaming by blasting my favorite Netflix original animated comedy Hoops, I felt more pride in myself than I had ever felt in 34 years.
4) Take Care of Yourself First
Being the husband of a controlling wife and father to a controlling baby, I never put my own needs first. This was possibly the first time I’d ever followed my own passions. The weeks seemed to fly by, my stress and pain along with it. I felt like a new man! I was able to train Barry not to run when I untied him. Eventually, he even stopped crying – proof that my method was working! It became clear to me that, in order to heal Barry emotionally, I had to heal myself first.
5) Don’t Be Afraid of Commitment
After such an awful marriage, it took time to heal. At first, I was scared of laying out my future. What could I possibly do next that would bring me the same amount of bliss? And then I realized that I was thinking about it all wrong. I shouldn’t have to assume that the future needs to be different. I just needed to commit to the present. And so, three months in and I’m still covered in old meat and garbage. I still wake up each morning to the sounds of Barry scratching at his dog cage and begging to be let out. And I still smile like a fool when I realize how immensely lucky I am to have all this.