Category: grief

I’m in a weird mood, so we’ll see how this blog entry goes. (Weird mood = somewhere between contentious, lazy, and bloated [as feel have gained 10 pounds in the last 36 hours])

First of all, I had a great weekend, which was surprising but very welcome. Friday, which was Valentine’s Day, was great. I did have a “date” thing I guess, whatever, but also my boss got married that day which helped my mood incredibly. This boss has two kids and was divorced, and married a guy who has three kids and is divorced. And she is the sweetest person in the world — and was just so, so happy on Friday (I saw pictures). Just seeing their happiness made me feel better.

Saturday was productive — I cleaned the house which was long overdue, and then hung out with Katie that night. Yesterday I pretty much stayed home except for a trip to Target for necessities (e.g. cat food and litter) and to Aldi for groceries. Made some peanut butter cookies which are probably the reason I feel like I gained 10 pounds since Saturday night. Ugh.

I’m brainstorming things to do on Friday. I’m taking the day off, and Katie and Ryan are also off, so I’m planning on spending all day with them pretty much. Going to do a day hike and then go to Wendell Smith’s for breakfast. Past that, I’m still planning.

So Anna Laura made a comment that made me want to say something. I feel like people are kind of nervous or afraid to talk to me about Matt and all the surrounding events. Maybe they’re afraid of being triggers or something – I’m not sure. But… let me put it this way. For Matt to suddenly disappear from my life last February was horrible, but for him to also disappear from conversation and everything else just makes it that much worse. Does that make sense? He’s gone, and I can’t help that. But it makes his absence even more poignant and worse when people are afraid to talk about him. So PLEASE don’t EVER hesitate to bring him up around me, or to ask me questions, or to make comments. I miss him so much, and for people to avoid talking about him makes the missing worse, not better.

I kind of want to put that on FB, but that would be too much attention. So anyway, there you have it, and tell your friends. I’m not afraid of my past and I’m not afraid of integrating it into my present and future.

sometimes I feel like the thing I hate the most is my lack of (perceived) stability at times. when Matt was alive, even when he was in the hospital or not doing well, I still felt basically stable and grounded and assured of his love for me. I knew that as long as he was alive, he’d be with me.

now though, not only do I realize that I am never really assured of stability, but I also don’t have anyone in my life who is committed to loving me as much as Matt did. there are two sides of that coin; on the one hand, it means that I could pretty much pick up and go anywhere – I have no real roots in Nashville anymore except Katie. on the other hand, this makes me feel like I’m drowning sometimes. or like I’m drifting in the ocean, and am affected by everything that causes a current near my life. I have never been good at accepting and embracing instability.

sometimes I feel like withdrawing from everyone except my closest and dearest friends, and spending more time in the woods. I’m going to try to at least spend time in the woods this weekend. I know the woods – they are my friends. they have always been there for me, and always make me feel better, and I feel at home in them. in the woods, I almost feel more whole than I do when I’m at home.

This post is not going to be entirely about the memorialization process. But I did finally download all of Matt’s messages from FB, and then requested that his page be memorialized.

I’ve reached a point where I don’t think about Matt as much as I used to. It’s hard to quantify this for you guys, though, because I still think about him every day and very frequently. I don’t dwell on what life used to be like while he was alive and married to me, though. It’s so, so painful to remember how happy I was. I read through a few of the messages from FB after downloading them though, which is making it really hard to ignore how much I miss Matt.

Katie made a good point over the weekend. She said that for the first year after she was separated, she would compare her life to whatever she was doing this time last year. I do this all the time too. This time last year, for example, we were both trying to get back into the habit of daily exercise and eating well – and I was happy. I’m almost looking forward to passing February 21st this year, because after that I’ll be able to say – “This time last year I was paralyzed with grief,” or “This time last year the only thing that mattered to me was that Matt was gone,” or whatever. I think it will be good for my perspective, and encouraging. But I’m not there yet…still have fucking Valentine’s Day to live through, not to mention the 21st itself.

Anyway.

I had an extremely unproductive weekend (unless you could making a couple of journals – but that’s the only thing that counts as productive). I’m remembering that I enjoy life a lot more when it has structure, and when I’m disciplined enough to live by that structure. So, I’m making myself a To Do list today. There are several things that I need to take care of (e.g. clean out the garage, get a new washing machine, do all of my laundry) – but most immediately I want to work on keeping my house nice and clean, and getting out of the house more often. Especially on weekends.

So I have been pretty much ignoring Christmas this year. I put up a tree in hopes that it would make me feel more Christmas-y, but it hasn’t, even two days before Christmas. This weekend I got most of my wrapping knocked out, which was less fun than usual. Not only did I not have to shop for Matt this year, but all my gift tags say, depressingly, “from Erin” and no one else.

I don’t talk to Matt all that much these days, but I did over the weekend…remembering how much he hated Christmas and how he’s probably glad (if he could be) that he’s missing it this year. But that no one else is.

It’s very hard to stand aside and let people you love do things that you don’t think they should, even when they are convinced that it’s the right thing for them. It’s hard because you don’t know what’s going on inside anyone’s brain but yours. And though I am regrettably quick to judge other people based on my own personal experiences that I perceive as having similarities to their situation, I realize that I really shouldn’t do that at all. The more I experience of life, the more I realize that experiences are not universal and that it’s stupid for me to assume that they are.

That to say…I really wish Matt was here, and I don’t think I would ever say that he did the right thing, but certainly he thought he did. And though I was the person closest to Matt, I still wasn’t ever inside his brain. So I don’t know.

What I do know is that around this time last year, I was getting last-minute Christmas shopping done while Matt was home relaxing; I checked our bank account balance after leaving Target and saw the transaction for the necklace that he bought me last year. I had bitched and complained about how I didn’t want to TELL him what I wanted for Christmas – I wanted him to get me something that HE thought I’d like. So he got me this leaf pendant from one of his favorite fantasy series. And I remember seeing that transaction and thinking that this was one of the best feelings in the world – my husband getting me a Christmas present that he picked out because he thought I would like it. And that I got to go home to him and shower him with love, pretending not to have noticed the order.

So that’s my favorite Christmas memory from last year, and now I’m crying again – great.