Category: grief

Looks like it’s going to be another gorgeous spring day.

I have a sticky note taped to my monitor – “Every step is a victory.” I’m trying to remember that this morning because I’m just feeling lost. I still want this to be a bad dream, but I know it isn’t. I want it to all be over so that I can be happy again, but the only thing that’s going to completely take this away is Matt, and that’s just flat-out impossible. This “walking through it” is absolutely no fun at all.

I’m going through the motions. I’m keeping my house clean. I re-potted the plants that were given for Matt’s funeral. I’ve been going out – some. I’m reading, and I’m crafting (some). I find myself wondering what the point is though, with no husband anymore. I know that I have myself now and that I can focus on making ME happy, but it’s really hard to care sometimes. Is it natural for one person to be able to determine your happiness like this, or was I too dependent on Matt? He was the first person in my life who treated me like I was the most special person in the world, and it was amazing and I loved it (and him). Once I learned to trust him, I latched onto that – because who doesn’t want to feel like you’re the most important person in the world to someone else, especially if you feel the same way about that person?

I feel like I’m having to re-adjust my whole worldview. You really can’t always trust people. You shouldn’t let one person define your happiness (which is easier said that done sometimes). Life is extremely transitory and fragile and fleeting. Some people live with pain so much worse than MINE, and some of them kill themselves but a lot of them don’t. Your peace and happiness and ordinary life can be interrupted and destroyed in a matter of seconds. You have to be able to accept and embrace unwanted change – fighting (at least in my current situation) is completely pointless and even harmful. How is all of this going to come together and re-form my worldview? I don’t know. But I’ll keep writing about it, as it changes.

I had a decent weekend. I went hiking at Radnor Lake on Saturday with Cathy, and I didn’t realize that there were more challenging trails there than that mulch-covered one. My butt is a little sore still, which is a good thing. 🙂 My cousin Laura has been in town this weekend to visit her grandmother, and she’s stayed with me the last two nights which has also been nice. I went to the Brewhouse briefly yesterday because some old friends of Ryan’s and Matt’s were there (I knew a couple of them). All in all, it wasn’t a bad weekend. I feel like something was missing of course (Matt), but I always feel like that.

Every time I think to myself that I just don’t know what to do, I look at that sticky note. Every step is a victory. It doesn’t matter too much WHAT I do, I just need to do it. Just keep going. Things have gotten better since February 21st, and things will continue to get better. Nothing will ever permanently “fix” this, but I do believe that I will be happy again. Some spring in the future I will be able to drive down the road with my windows open, and feel happy. Not this spring, I’m pretty sure, but that’s just something that I have to accept.

These sunny spring mornings, man…

I’m coming to see that I have to take my emotions as they come. I can’t control them, and they’re not going to flow according to any pattern that I’ve been able to make out so far. They just come, and I have to accept them and let them move through me. This is especially difficult when I get up in the mornings feeling so sad, and have to go to work and put on a happy face. Being at work is a good thing though; it helps this awful time to pass more quickly than it would otherwise, and it’s good for my self esteem to perform well at work.

It’s amazingly beautiful outside right now. We had rain all day long yesterday, but the clouds have gone off somewhere else and everything is bright and colorful. All the spring weather brings up so many longings, most of which are for Matt. It was this time two years ago that we went to Savannah and had such a blissful, happy trip. Last year I had just started a new job, and we were working on being more active by playing tennis and hiking and the like.

And now I’m just struggling to make a new life for myself out of the scraps of my old life, which I loved so much. I’m having to consciously plan activities for myself and schedule times to hang out with friends.

Matt will never be a part of my present life anymore. All that I have of him is memories, and there will be no new memories. It still seems absurd sometimes that he is dead. We did everything together. We were never apart unless we had to be. It hurts me so much that he’s gone.

I am starting to occasionally feel like I’m going to be OK. I think this is an improvement because up until recently, the best that I could say is that I hoped I would be OK; now I feel it sometimes though. If I’m not conscious of feeling this way, everything is fine, but once I become aware that I’m learning to live without Matt I get depressed again. Nevertheless, I can tell that at least I’m moving in the right direction – and so far as that goes, I’ve heard that any direction that I’m moving right now is the right one. I just need to be moving. And I need to remember that 7 weeks is barely any time at all to be able to grieve and heal.

And the seventh week is here…

I’m feeling much better this morning than I was yesterday. I don’t know what happened, but I’m not complaining. 🙂 After work yesterday, I grabbed a couple of drinks on the patio at the Brewhouse; it was so beautiful outside and it felt good just to sit in the sun reading the latest New Yorker. After, I went to hang out some with M & M, and got home around 9:45ish. It was a very pleasant evening, all things considered.

M & M were our gaming buddies, and Mar made me some earrings using two blue Carcassonne meeples (Matt’s color was invariably blue when we gamed) and two brown Puerto Rico settlers. I wish that Power Grid had more interesting pieces, since it was his most recent favorite game. I have a million memories of playing Carcassonne and Puerto Rico with Matt though, and I really like the earrings. These pieces have been touched by Matt so many times; somehow that’s significant, even though he’s touched a lot of my things (and me).

earrings

I need to be crafting more, I’ve decided. It would be good for me to start and maintain an Etsy shop, I think. It would probably be gratifying, anyway, and it’s not like I enjoy making stuff or anything…. I’ve also been brainstorming some quilt ideas – I’m planning on using Matt’s clothes to make a quilt, and I think I might make it chess themed. I still need to finish the feather quilt that I started last summer though, so I have plenty of time to brainstorm (and to prepare myself mentally for cutting up all his clothes). Making things can be so therapeutic, and I know that I’ll eventually be glad to be able to snuggle up with his clothes, even though he won’t be inside them. I guess I’ll take what I can get. And I don’t think this is me holding onto the past; it feels more like me letting go of the past while acknowledging that it will always be inside me.

Anyway, this post feels rambly so I’ll stop.

Six weeks and six days

I woke up this morning feeling so sad. Another day at work. Another day without Matt. Another day for me to learn how to deal with with my new life without Matt in it. The days passing is a good thing, I know, because time heals. I’m trying to be as positive as possible, but that really only goes so far.

Been listening to Matt’s CDs the last couple of days – mostly the mixed ones that he made for us. I’m sure that doesn’t help with my sadness, but it also makes me feel a little more connected to Matt. I don’t know if that makes me feel better or worse, since Matt is dead and I can’t really be connected to him…ever…again.

I just still wish that I could DO something. I know that I can’t, and sometimes I feel more peaceful and/or resigned to that than other times, but I haven’t been able to completely shake it yet. If only I could go back in time…even though that probably wouldn’t help or change anything in the long term. Who knows. And it doesn’t matter anyway. I just still have this huge wound that hasn’t completely scabbed over yet. I miss my husband so horribly much. I think that writing about it helps me feel like I AM doing something, somehow, insufficient as it may be.

I think I might be getting tired of being around people so frequently. I’m surprised that it’s just now hitting me, actually. This introversion is maybe one reason that I woke up feeling so depressed this morning – because being around Matt never made me tired. Other people require more conversation and engagement, but it didn’t matter with Matt. I have a couple of other friends who are this way too, but I can’t snuggle with them or kiss their faces.

**************sigh***************

I hope today gets better.

in reference to an earlier post,

I read this today in Without —

                               The year of days

              without you and your body swept by

               as quick as an afternoon;

               but each afternoon took a year.

 

After one or two vodka tonics, sorry….

So today didn’t turn out quite so happily as I wanted it to.  I drove Ryan out to pick up his kids, and dropped them off at his mom’s house.  I came home and took a shower and all that, and ended up going out to the Brewhouse by myself.  I have always considered going to a bar by yourself to be something that only alcoholics do, but I was so lonely and didn’t want to spend the evening on the couch watching TV.  I didn’t go to Cafe Coco because I wanted to talk to people, and whenever I’ve gone there it’s always been to read or write – the people who decide to strike up a conversation are always just a bonus.  I know that people go to bars to not be alone, so I figured that at least one person there would be willing to talk to me, and for all I know it could be interesting.

So I went, and did meet a couple of people.  I asked one person what his “story” was (probably because he reminded me a little of Joel), and he didn’t really know how to answer that.  I told him that I just meant for him to tell me what the biggest milestones in his life have been (he had at least 20 years on me).  He still didn’t have much to say.  I related that after I moved to Nashville for college, I had given up a baby for adoption and my husband committed suicide 6 weeks ago.  He was…I guess kind of dumbfounded.  He said that in his 50+ years, nothing so dramatic had ever happened.

I told him that I envied him.  What I really meant is that he was lucky.  

These kind of life events don’t happen to everyone.  I know.  But when I tell people – because I do, because both of those things have been defining parts of my life – I don’t want them to pity me and be awkward.  “It is what it is,” as Ryan is so fond of saying.  It’s true.  The BEST that I can make of the situation — AND I MEAN THE BEST — is to learn and to grow as a person.  There will be other details that I discover down the road, but at this point, that is what I have learned.  

I’m interested in seeing how I change because of all of this.  I know I changed after Sarah was born (and, honestly, that’s probably the only reason Matt liked me enough to move in and eventually marry me).  I will never be the person I was on February 20, 2013.  That person died with Matt, and this is almost comforting to put into words.  

I miss him so much.  I can’t put THAT into words.  I doubt that it would help if I could.  

TGIF…

Here’s what I did yesterday.

I got up and took a shower and went to work.

I went to appointment #2 with my therapist. We talked, she read my journal entries since last week, and she told me that she really thinks I’m doing just as well as I can be and that I am amazing. It’s nice to hear that from a professional who knows a whole lot more about psychology than I do. I left feeling relatively good.

I went home after work, started a load of laundry, changed into some jeans, gave the cats some treats, and then went to Kien Giang with Ryan and Cathy.

After dinner (which was good), we went to McKays where I totally splurged and bought the Sex and the City box set for way too much money (but a lot less than I have almost paid for it several times at Target…). I also got a book by A M Homes, This Book Will Save Your Life, and Ryan got me a copy of Childhood’s end by Arthur C Clarke.

After McKays, dropped Cathy off at her car and then Ryan off at his car, and went home. Read some poetry. Cried. Looked at Reddit. Put my clothes in the dryer and then folded them. Watched some TV. Went to sleep.

All in all, it was not a bad day. I had a good time with Cathy and Ryan, and my meeting with my therapist was somewhat gratifying. I’m realizing and remembering that my life is going to be full of missing Matt for a long time/forever, but that doesn’t have to stop me from enjoying things. Missing him all the time certainly makes it harder for me to have a good time, but his absence does not preclude my pleasure. Not necessarily, anyway. Life comes before death. I am still alive, regardless of my feelings on the subject.

I am continuing to be amazed by the poems in Without. I might share some more – or at least stanzas – at some point.

Six weeks now.

Six weeks sounds a lot shorter to me than it feels. These have been the longest 42 days of my life. Does anyone else feel this way, or is it just me? I feel like it’s been months and months since I kissed Matt for the last time.

I still feel lost, but maybe not quite as lost – at least not all of the time. I hate hate HATE all of this but I’m still hanging on and not giving up. It’s a constant fight and I do feel bitter towards Matt sometimes for making me go through this. But I can’t stay mad at him for long. I never could.

Basically, just feeling sorry for myself

Five weeks and 6 days, in case anyone hasn’t been counting obsessively. And I’m just feeling sorry for myself today. Maybe that’s bad. I don’t know. Some days I do a good job of accepting my new fucking life, but other days (like right now) it’s much harder. This could very well have something to do with the fact that I just read over my paper journal this morning (it’s not fun to read). Or that I have another counselling appointment tomorrow. Or that tomorrow will be 6 weeks. But I don’t need to come up with a reason because the real reason is that my husband is dead and never coming back to me.

I want to figure out what I want to start DOING with my spare time. Lately I’ve been primarily hanging out with Ryan, which is awesome, but I keep wanting to get used to that which can’t be good. Because Ryan is not Matt, and I am not allowed to treat them the same at all, much as I want to. It’s so comfortable and familiar for me to be on the one couch watching something on the computer or sewing or whatever, and for Ryan to be on the loveseat playing Skyrim. I am in no way or sense complaining – I’m very thankful for it actually. But I feel like I ought to be finding other things to do. I’ll have to eventually anyway; I assume Ryan will quit wanting to hang out with me all the time. Before, I went to coffee shops and read and smoked cigarettes. I guess I can still do those things (minus the cigarettes preferably). Maybe I should. I’ve been meaning to start reading more again. Most of my memories of Cafe Coco are not shared with Matt, so obviously I would miss him but I don’t really associate that place with Matt.

Speaking of places I associate with Matt, I haven’t been to Aldi in over 6 weeks. I had to sit for several minutes at the traffic light at American and Charlotte yesterday, and I almost started crying because I couldn’t stop thinking of all the time we spent together at Aldi. I rarely went there by myself. I don’t know when/if I’ll go back.

I feel like I’m back to being a freshman in college almost. New life, new circumstances to become accustomed to, plus I have to start making new friends again. I remember forcing myself to participate with people when I was in college, and I don’t remember enjoying those times. I have changed since then though, so maybe it will be easier this time around. I can only hope.

some Tuesday morning thoughts

Mornings are still the hardest, as a general rule.  I used to like mornings fairly well too.  Maybe it gets easier as the day wears on because I get more distracted, or I get better at accepting my life as it is.  At any rate, I miss Matt a lot this morning. 

I suspect that I’m going to be the last person to be able to get on with my life (which isn’t really a good way to put it since the act of surviving suicide is simply LIVING – so in a sense I have been getting on with my life since Matt died).  Basically though, I was the person with whom Matt shared his life, and I’m still reeling.  I’m not going to apologize for it either, but I will probably feel weird bringing it up when everyone else has come to terms with it.  I don’t really have anything else to say on the topic…but am just thinking about it. 

I’m noticing all the grief in the world lately.  It’s always been there – I just couldn’t relate before.