Oh Matt, I miss you so much. I’m sorry you were in so much pain, and I’m sorry I couldn’t take it all away. I really, really wanted to. You were the most precious person in the world to me, and I can’t believe that I couldn’t save you.
It’s humbling to realize that so much is just out of my control.
It’s Monday morning. I’m back at work and figured I’d tell you guys about my weekend. It was a pretty good one, actually. I got up on Saturday morning and drove through Knoxville to Townsend and made my way to Cade’s Cove. I’d never been to the mountains by myself, and it was great. It rained the whole drive from Nashville to Knoxville, but stopped around Watt Road and stayed dry until I was driving through Townsend to get back to Knoxville.
The drive through the mountains was soothing somehow. It didn’t magically make me feel fine or not sad or anything, but it was so nice to be in the mountains surrounded by trees and moss and rhododendron and water and rocks.
(I took the picture below just because I thought it was funny that so many people had pulled over to pet the horses. Like they’ve never seen horses before or something. ??)
After I got back into Knoxville I decided to stop by the UT trial gardens. It WAS raining at this point, and I got pretty wet even though I was wearing a raincoat. But it was just gorgeous and I’m really glad I stopped.
Sunday I went to church with Mom and Dad, and I’m glad I did that too. It’s funny – I forget how much Grace feels like home. It makes sense that it does – I spent more time there than I did anywhere except our house when I lived in Knoxville.
Grandma’s birthday party was a good time too. 🙂 All the siblings were there (Dad’s I mean) including Aunt Luci who I probably hadn’t seen in 10 years or so. I felt comfortable and like I belonged, and it was really nice.
So now I’m back in Nashville, getting on with the day-to-day again. I wish Matt was here. I wished he was with me all weekend long – and I’m not even going to try to explain what an enormous understatement that is. But it is what it is, and time is a healing power, and I’m going to be patient even though I feel like I’m treading water a lot of the time. I know I’ll be OK. But how I wish that I didn’t have anything to recover from….
I missed blogging yesterday, but justified it by telling myself that I blogged Wednesday and that I would today as well. Yesterday was a pretty full day for me, considering. Stephen came over and watched 1776 with me, for which I was SO grateful. After he left, I devoted the next hour or so to cleaning out the garage which I had been putting off for several months. It looks WORLDS better now, and I feel very gratified. After getting the garage and house cleaned up, some old B&C coworkers came over and we grilled burgers, had jello shots, and sat around and talked/watched It’s Always Sunny (very patriotic…). Overall, it was as good of a July 4th as I had hoped for, so that was nice.
I will add that I was surprised at how much I missed Matt just because it was a holiday. It’s not like we ever celebrated the 4th of July other than watching 1776 (and sometimes Team America), but I guess the fact that it was a holiday just made Matt’s absence more noticeable to me. The books I’ve read all say that holidays are bad. I wasn’t expecting this one to be anything important though.
Oh well. I think I’m going to try to hibernate from October through March this winter, though.
Anyway, I’m going to Knoxville this weekend – Grandma’s turning 90 on Sunday. (On an unrelated note, Sarah is turning 6 on Monday.) I’m debating driving in early because I’ve just been feeling lost lately, and for some reason, spending time in an unfamiliar place seems like it might help. If I drive in tonight, I’ll probably go to the mountains tomorrow. If I drive in tomorrow morning, I don’t know what I would do with the rest of the day. I don’t have any friends in Knoxville really, except for family. Of course I never really did have all THAT many friends in Knoxville, which is maybe one reason it was so easy for me to move to Nashville. I don’t know, and it’s not important.
This week, I’ve felt like my footing has been unstable. Like I can’t see past the next turn in the road. I don’t know where I’m going anymore, and I don’t remember how to do all this alone very well. I know all the “right answers” to tell myself, but they only marginally help. Maybe I should stop trying so hard.
ALSO, I’ve decided that my blog is in no way meant to showcase fancy ideas and words, and that I don’t have to feel bad when I just spew mental gibberish here.
My thoughts have been very scattered these last few days. They’re going all over the place and I either haven’t been doing a good job of keeping them controlled, or I haven’t been trying.
Sometimes I get the urge to just start all over somewhere. I was driving to work this morning and remembered the time that Mom and Dad brought me to visit Lipscomb, and we stayed in Cathy Pool’s mom’s apartment (right?) which was off of Charlotte, near the pink elephant. I drive there every day now, and it almost feels like home. It used to feel more like home than it does now, though; Matt was my home. Wherever he was, I was home. We could have moved anywhere, and as long as he was there I would have been happy.
I still feel so disoriented and lost sometimes. Thank God I have people here tying me to Nashville – people who love me and enjoy my company (at least some of the time anyway). It’s so easy to focus on what I have lost rather than what I still have, though; what I lost feels so immense and overpowering though – when I dwell on it anyway.
It’s been over 4 months but it feels like FOREVER since February 20th, even though I still remember that evening well. Maybe I feel like – since 4 months seems like a year ago – I should be stabilizing. And I know I am. But there’s still so much instability, questioning, doubting, loneliness, insecurity, etc. I just want to fix it all. I wish I could take a test to rate how well I’m doing in recovering from all this. It’s not an easy thing for me to gauge. People tell me that they’re glad to see that I’m doing so well…but I don’t know what “doing well” means. I guess that “doing poorly” would mean staying in bed, never cleaning or being proactive, not seeing friends, etc. I’m keeping my house clean, I’m doing fine at work, I’m asking people to hang out with me. So I guess if that means that I’m doing fine, then I’m doing fine.
I just get overwhelmed still. I wonder if anyone will ever love me like Matt did. I’m getting used to living by myself but it’s still so unnatural and I feel Matt’s absence every day.
This is a long process, I know. I need to have realistic expectations for myself. And I need to be thankful for the people who have offered to help me along the way. I need to be patient. Four months is not all that long in the scheme of things, and it’s okay for me to still be struggling; in fact, if I wasn’t, it would probably mean that I was doing something wrong.
Oh, life.
– This year is half-way over
– I’ve been single for over 4 months now
– One of my coworkers brought me flowers from her garden (gladiolas, black-eyed-susans) and they are so pretty
– I need to remember to bring home that meat in the fridge from yesterday…
– There will be no one waiting for me at home again today
– Matt will not be waiting for me at home today, or ever again
– I feel like a broken record a lot of the time lately
– I’m struggling with the Taoist idea that desires cause pain, and no desires bring peace
– I miss being loved by my late husband
– I’d like to bake some bread after work today (stocked up on sandwich fixings yesterday except bread)
– It’s hard for me to remember how much I enjoyed being single and independent before I met Matt, because I don’t enjoy it right now. Am I doing something wrong?
– Matt
– The struggle some days to do anything productive…sometimes I’m able to force myself to get up and do stuff (e.g. grocery shopping, cleaning the bathroom, sweeping the floor, washing dishes, cleaning litter boxes, contacting friends, mowing the lawn, going to a coffee shop – ANYTHING). Sometimes I am not successful in forcing myself to do stuff though. This is nothing new really – I had the same problem when Matt was around. But it seems worse now. I don’t have anyone sitting on the couch distracting me and justifying my laziness. And that makes it all the harder to do anything.
– July 4th is coming up. I used to spend my holidays being blissfully lazy with Matt, but being lazy alone is not blissful. Does anyone want to come over and lie in bed with me while we watch 1776? Sorry, the only VCR is in the bedroom. Maybe I can plan a cook-out. I hate that Matt won’t be there.
– Contentment
– This weekend – I have nothing planned and I probably should
– Work, which I ought to get back to
I’m struck with the thought – how on earth am I doing this?? Which is to say… I have a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that you can love someone so much, but that will never stop them from being irrevocably gone after they die. Gone. Forever. It’s so, so heartbreaking. If you don’t see me crying, it’s not because I don’t.
This is why people believe in an afterlife. I completely understand.
Edit: I have a tendency to post stuff sometimes and then come back 30 minutes later realizing that I have more to say. Oops. But the more that I have to say right now is this – while Matt being gone continues to break my heart like every day, I’m so thankful for the capacity to feel grateful when other people are kind to me. Sometimes it just amazes me. I had planned to nap during my lunch break but ended up thinking about Matt instead, and when I got back to work Leslie handed me half of her pizza because she couldn’t finish it. Stephen volunteered to stop and grab Chinese for dinner yesterday so that we wouldn’t have to rush to get to the movie. Just little things that probably mean nothing to whoever is doing it can make me feel appreciated, and it’s nice. I feel silly thanking people sometimes for things that they obviously don’t think warrant such thanks. If I explained every time that whenever anyone does anything for me that indicates they were thinking about me, it means SO much. It means that I’m not alone, and that I still have love in my life.
I’m feeling a little disenchanted of life right now. The fact that I am privileged enough to complain about this should probably keep me from complaining. But it doesn’t, and now I feel ungrateful too. Is it too early in the morning to be guilt-tripping myself?
I miss feeling like I belong with other people. I don’t have any claim on anyone, except my family I suppose. Maybe the Ralston’s, sort of, a little bit.
This weekend was fairly full. I spent some time with Stephen on Saturday, then Ryan came over yesterday; both days I worked on my feather quilt which has been on the back burner for about a year now. I have an empty week ahead of me, not including work of course, and that’s daunting. I don’t want to spend the week alone, but I get tired of asking people to hang out with me. You know, I get tired of a lot of this shit. I just want someone to hold me while I cry and cry, maybe rub my back or comb my hair or something.
No more – starting to cry at work. THAT’s never a good thing.
If anyone in Nashville reads this and wants to hang out with me this week, let me know. Otherwise I might just end up asking you….
I don’t have a ton to say. Like I said yesterday, it’s been a pretty decent week and I’m actually looking forward to the weekend. It’s saddenning on the one hand, and heartening on the other, to see how resilient people can be. As much as I didn’t think I would ever look forward to another weekend again – and I didn’t WANT to since Matt wouldn’t be around…I decided that I wanted to stay alive and try to enjoy life, and that’s what’s happening. As enormously as I still miss Matt, he’s just never coming back and I’m being able to find comfort and love through other avenues. It’s so damned bittersweet.
The Spurs lost game 7 last night, which is just as well. I didn’t care that much either way, but it was going to hurt just a little if they had won the championship. I remember how upset Matt was last year when they lost in the playoffs, which he was able to watch in the psych hospital.
Come to think of it, this time last year he still had about a week left before they discharged him – the 26th or 27th? Seems like I should remember that. I hope I never have to go into the Vandy psych hospital again.
I’ve done a pretty decent job of juggling alone time with social time this week, and it’s felt pretty good. I’m glad that I’m not in the same place I was the last time I was single though – I feel like I’m a much, much better person these days…or at least more grounded and sure of myself. There’s something liberating about realizing, as the Tao says, that caring about other people’s opinions make you their prisoner. Doesn’t mean that I can snap and stop caring, but nevertheless I see the truth in it. Life is too short to willingly imprison yourself.
This last week (or two) has been rough.
I have felt extremely lonely. People are getting on with their lives, as I am trying to do with mine (or at least I’m trying to figure out how to get on with it, while persuading myself that it’s a good idea and really my only option). I have been alone more in the last two weeks than I have been in the last 3.5 months, and I hate it. I know that I need to get used to it, but I still hate it. I hate that not only am I alone – a single unit – but also that I have to struggle to feel loved. I know that there is a fairly large group of people out there who love me, but it’s hard to feel it when I’m all alone.
I am full to overflowing of longing. This depth of emotion is not unexpected, but is conflicting and I just don’t know how to deal with it. I don’t know what to do with the longing that I have for Matt; the longing that I have for anyone to love me; the longing to feel like I’m doing anything worthwhile; the longing to be happy and at peace again.
I’m re-reading The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter and am a bit over half-way through. It’s such a good book, but it’s sad. So many people are lonely, just like I am. Why is it so hard for us to come together and help each other?
This rollercoaster ride of emotions is getting annoying. I think I’m getting dizzy. One week I’ll feel kinda happy and encouraged and hopeful and loved, and the next week I’ll feel depressed and abandoned and alone and discouraged. I don’t like being unstable. The worst part, of course, is that Matt isn’t here to help pull me out of my funk. I can’t imagine how much harder this would be for me if he had waited another 5 years to kill himself.
It’s so destabilizing to realize that I can do whatever I want – but I cannot make people change. I cannot guarantee my own safety from pain and hurt when I choose to trust people, no matter how trustworthy they seem to be. I don’t think this will keep me from choosing to trust people (because without love, what is there?), but it might be harder in the future. I don’t know.
Is it good for me to be complaining so much? Writing always helps me to understand better what’s happening in my head, but does it also help me to focus on negative things when I maybe shouldn’t be? I don’t know this either.
Ryan is planning on going to Texas here in a few weeks to work with Bill. He’s not sure how long he’ll be gone, but it’ll be a few months at the least. This is probably going to be good for me too because I won’t have Ryan to fall back on… I’ll have to actually work on developing new relationships and seeing old friends. I am not looking forward to this. Being around people who I don’t know very well tends to exhaust me (not always), and hanging out with Ryan has been so low-stress. But I need to stop expecting him to keep me company. I have to start finding other outlets.
I wish I could fast-forward to this time next year.
I’m missing Matt so much. I can’t put it into words. Went to the Brewhouse with Ryan tonight (2-4-1 Sundays) and after dropping him off at his mom’s, I am full of the emotions that come from having it hammered home that Matt is not here anymore. Going out is all well and good, but no one is here to keep me company, or comfort me, or anything. It hurts SO BADLY when I know that all I need to make me feel better is Matt hugging me, kissing my cheek. Four months ago this need would have been met. Easily.
And there’s nothing to do now except cry. I’m not about to go pick up boys at bars because I’m lonely – I know that won’t help. Because I want Matt back. I want someone who is going to be in love with me regardless of ANYTHING. It’s so…so……soooo fucking lonely when you go from having this need met all the time every day (on demand basically), to not having it met at all.
Sometimes the thought occurs to me that life isn’t going to get better. I remember all the effort I put into dating before meeting Matt, and how lucky I felt that I had FINALLY found someone amazing who was in love me (and I was in love with him). He was THE person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with – not the rest of HIS life like it turned out. And Matt was so much better than anyone I had ever dated. I know I won’t ever meet anyone like him again (which is one reason I love Ryan so much).
I just don’t know what to do sometimes. I don’t know how to cope. I’ve always tended to understate my situation, so when I tell myself that my husband killed himself less than 4 months ago, it sounds outrageous sometimes. So … instead of over-thinking the situation, I just DO. I don’t know what to do, so I do whatever comes most naturally – missing Matt all the time obviously, but being distracted from the pain. I don’t understand how he could have left me. He could have gotten a disability check for his depression, and he wouldn’t have had to go to work every day. I suspect that being too sick to go to work would have been worse for him though, probably.
Oh God, it hurts so badly.
No Promises This Time 