Category: more hopeful than not

Here’s something that’s been on my mind lately.

After Sarah was born, I experienced tons and tons of different emotions. One of them was a feeling of meaninglessness; I attributed this to the fact that while I was pregnant, I was fulfilling my biological imperative by creating a new person – which is definitely a very gratifying thing to do. Makes you feel like your life is ABOUT something, and like you’re doing something worthwhile. So after she was born and I didn’t have her anymore, I had to re-learn how to give my life meaning without a child in it. It was a little difficult – 9 months is kind of a while.

I’m feeling something similar to this now. It’s been over 9 months (oh geez, the 10 month mark is this Saturday) and I’m starting to feel a loss of urgency when it comes to piecing my life back together. What I mean is that I’m more stable now and not having to dedicate as much energy to just dealing with the fact that Matt’s still gone and will always be gone. I feel like this has been THE GOAL of my life for the last 9 months, and now that I’m able to see how much progress I’ve made, I just feel like I should have a different goal for my life.

It’s depressing to know that I am consciously moving on from Matt, but I remind myself that none of this was my decision in the first place, and that I’m just making do with what I was given. Second to last thing that Matt told me was that none of this was about me, and I also try to remember that. He wanted me to have a better life than he thought he could give me, which really upset me while he was alive – but what’s the use getting upset over it now?

Another depressing part is that I still instinctively want to talk to Matt about all of this, and get his input to see what he thinks I should do. (oh well)

Arbitrary (though accurate) subject as do not care one bit whether it’s Friday the 13th or 12th or 14th.

I woke up this morning oh so comfortably; I went to bed on time last night and got plenty of sleep, and got up one snooze before I normally do. (Is a “snooze” an amount of time? In this case, it’s 9 minutes.) I was dreaming about Matt when I woke up, but it was a really odd dream. For some reason, we were hanging out with our friend Dawn; Matt had gone to put on warmer clothes or something, and when he got back I got on top of him and held his face in my hands and asked him why he left me. All I remember is Dawn saying that she would have let him instead of trying to keep him alive and miserable here, and then I think I got up and punched her in the face. (Dawn, I doubt you’re reading this, but if you are rest assured that I don’t really want to punch you in the face at all.)

It was a better dream than the ones I usually have about Matt, because I knew while I was dreaming that he was dead.

The drive to work this morning was gorgeous – beautiful weather, lovely temperature, and it’s starting to feel like fall. I wonder if every good thing (like fall) will be bittersweet for the rest of my life, because I will always regret that Matt isn’t here to share it with me. That’s how it is now.

Guys, I’m not whole. I’m telling this to myself though, because it’s easy to get distracted and have a few good weeks and then remember that I’m still broken. Someone shared a quote with me (they weren’t sure who said it) – “Face what I feel now, and what I felt before but didn’t have the resources to feel.” Progress. I’m making it. Slowly.

I AM making progress. I got a new phone recently and had to figure out how to save all my voicemail from my old phone – including several from Matt which I hadn’t listened to in a long time but never want to delete. I didn’t listen to all of them when I was transferring them to the computer, but I did hear several. Of course, I can still hear Matt’s voice in my head if I try – which I don’t, because it always makes me cry. So I was pleased that I was able to deal with hearing the voice messages again. Of course they made me cry, but I did it anyway.

There’s so much of Matt all over my house. I went into the library to play my guitar a little yesterday but didn’t even pick it up because I was too distracted/overwhelmed by Matt. I lost so, so much when he died. I didn’t lose my future, but I lost the only future that I wanted – one with him.

But then I was listening to NPR this morning and they were interviewing some Syrian refugees, and the refugees were talking about how they can’t go home – they have no home left because their villages have been bombed. And that made me remember that I am SO privileged. I’ve lost my husband and my most preferred future, but I still have my house, my cats, my job, my family, my friends. I don’t want to downplay my loss(es), but honestly, just remembering that these Syrian refugees are PEOPLE just like I and everyone I know are, living with the same desires that we are, I feel so thankful for what I do have.

Anyway. Enough blogging.

Have the weeks slowed down? Seems like 28 weeks isn’t a long enough period of time.

I’m still feeling like a little fish navagating a huge ocean, but I guess that’s kind of what’s going on so I shouldn’t feel bad about feeling this way. Makes it hard to be productive sometimes though. On Tuesday I started mowing the lawn and was going to TRY to get both front and back done, but wasn’t making myself any guarantees because I wasn’t feeling great (mostly just low-energy). Then Ryan showed up and decided to mow the whole front yard, so I went inside and washed the dishes. Clean kitchen AND short grass. It was good. Kitchen is still mostly clean….

Otherwise I haven’t been super productive. Lucille decided to spray all over my bed (because she’s a Seaward…or a c word…or whatever) so I had to wash that stuff, but that was out of necessity and I don’t really count it as productivity.

So I saw a Facebook post last night that I commented on. It was a whim and I wasn’t expecting any responses at all. I didn’t get too many, but I was kinda touched. Someone even said, “Thanks for these words, they gave me the force to keep up for today.” I’m not 100% sure what that means, but then my boss brought me this little quote from her Yogi tea bags that says “We are here to love each other, serve each other, and uplift each other.” (OK, addition of Oxford comma was mine.) Just another reminder that my life is one out of so very many, and we all have our own problems and concerns, and if I can help even a handful of people then I’ve done better than I could have.

Yep, aspiring to do better than nothing. 🙂 It’s the right direction for sure.

I really wish Matt was here so I could tell him all about what I’m learning from all this.