Standing outside watching the clouds drift across the moon, I’m reminded that my pain is a drop hin the bucket of human suffering. And somehow it’s comforting to know that I can accept this pain as a part of my life and still move on.

this week

The worst are the mental pictures that just pop into my mind sometimes. That evening last year when Matt missed the bus and I went to pick him up at the Corner Bar on Elliston. I can just see him sitting there, slumped, blue shirt, curly hair, face that I would give ANYthing to kiss again.

I don’t have much hope of not crying at work this week, especially with mental images like this one. I don’t want to remember what he looked like – all it does it make my jaw hurt from holding back the sobs.

I can’t think of any words that would communicate how I feel, really. Maybe tragically hopeful. But there are more modifiers in there too, like “despairingly” and “hopelessly” and all that. This is the worst thing that has ever happened to me, hands down, and because I am completely unable to “fix” anything, it just makes me feel hopeless and desperate because my hands are tied. On the other hand, I’m going to keep going, keep searching for the good in life. But it’s SO FUCKING HARD some times. Because even 6 months in, all I want is Matt. I just want to kiss his face, make him chicken pie, go grocery shopping with him, spend every single free minute that I have with him. But I still can’t do any of that.

I know, these blog entries all tend to sound the same. Sorry. I still miss my Love with my whole heart and body and mind though, so my brain sounds redundant most of the time anyway.

24

Two weeks away from the 6 month mark.

I feel like I’ve blogged enough this week to give everyone a general idea of my current mental state. It’s been a better week so far than last week, though there have been bad moments too. Can’t complain too much though.

So it’s going to sound absurd, but sometimes I feel guilty for not letting myself feel guilty. You know? I am completely debt-free now – the only bills I have now are for services that I use every month. This isn’t making me nearly as happy as I always imagined that I would be once I paid off my loans, but I’m not letting myself feel guilty. The guilt is irrational and Matt would disapprove. But it reminds me of that one post from maybe 4 or 5 months ago where I just kept saying that I don’t want to let go. But I have to let go. But I don’t want to let go. I’m not in that place to the extent that I was before, but I still feel it.

Everything that everyone has told me about grieving has been true so far. Time has helped. The good days are more frequent and the bad days less frequent, though the intensity with which I miss Matt has not diminished. I still cry as loudly as I did that first week – just not as often.

I’ve been feeling very fortunate this week. I’m not going to say that it takes something bad happening for you to realize how good you have it, because I knew I had it good before. But the perspective is interesting.

Just complaining some more – so be forewarned!

I’ll try not to complain the WHOLE post.

My life is changing, and I am changing, but some things have not changed yet. For example, I find myself – every now and then – being energized by the freedom that comes with being single. There are good and bad things about every situation, and this is one of the good things. The bad part is that as I’m feeling good, I want to tell Matt about it. As I’m getting ready to pay off my loans, I want to tell Matt and thank him for making me be financially responsible – without him I would be so much deeper in the debt hole than I am.

I am excited about not having any more debt, but I so long for Matt to be here to celebrate with me. I had no idea how to handle my money before meeting him. Yes, I paid the bills and put together the budget and all that – but it was because Matt wanted us to be responsible. @#$%^&*#$%&$%*@&@!#%

Oh………..sigh…………..I miss him so damned much.

And my feelings of helplessness with regards to the situation will never go away, I’m sure. The thing I want most is for Matt to be here and to be happy, but I couldn’t make him happy (or at least keep him happy) while he was here, and I sure can’t do anything about it now. His birthday is two weeks from Thursday, and frankly, I’m scared. I just want to skip that day. I think I need to plan something for that evening so that I don’t spend the whole time in bed lying in a fetal position (which I can definitely see that happening otherwise).

Anyway.

So Lucille 2 has ear mites (hooray). I have some pain medicine and ear ointment to give her, and last night ALL she wanted to do was either sit on my lap or be held by me. And she slept on the bed next to me and Lucille 1 all night. She’s SO pitiful and adorable and sweet and sad!! I found myself wanting to stay home to take care of her, but it’s not like there’s much I can do anyway. I think the pain medicine kind of puts her out of it. Poor kitty. Oh, and she has the Cone of Shame on too, so that she doesn’t try to mess with her stitches, and that just compounds the pitifulness! Here’s a picture.

blog - lucille 2

So there’s your update.

wandering mind….

I can’t keep my mind from wandering to Matt today – even while I’m at work. Today’s Ryan’s birthday, and I keep remembering how we drove to White Bluff last year with some beer and a lemon cake that I had made him, and maybe Nate Hunter (or maybe that was a different time?). Come to think of it, Matt had an ECT treatment that day and ended up feeling horrible by the end of the day.

I don’t want to be thinking about all of this. I’d rather be able to focus on this National Geographic article that I’m trying to read.

Had a pretty good weekend, though I don’t feel up for going into all the details. Friday evening, I drove to Spring Hill to hang out with Katie (probably the best decision I made all weekend 🙂 ). I spent the night and drove back Saturday morning, got breakfast at Wendell Smith’s, and spent pretty much the rest of the day at home relaxing. I did the same thing on Sunday except that I met my cousin Laura and her girlfriend for dinner – which was also nice. Overall, relaxing, low-stress weekend. I could have exerted myself socially more than I did, but it felt nice to just relax at home (in a clean house).

I took Lucille 2 to the vet this morning to get her spayed; also though, she had developed some kind of ear problem – not sure if it’s mites or an infection or what. I hope she does OK. She was so pitiful all weekend – I could tell she just felt awful because her ears were bothering her a lot. Poor little sweet kitty. Why couldn’t Lucille 1 be the sick cat? I’m taking her to be spayed next week.

Oh by the way. I’m 99% sure that I’m going to take a good chunk of Matt’s life insurance money and pay off my student loans and my car loan. This will free up over $500/month for me, which will be a BIG CHANGE in regards to my spending cash. I actually might be able to start saving again if I pay off those loans – though I haven’t worked out my budget yet. I’m getting up the nerve to write myself an $11,000 check (surprisingly, I only owe about $6,000 for my student loans and $4,000 for my car – because obviously everyone wants to know how much I’m in debt. Next post I’ll drop my SSN and license plate numbers.)

But that seems like a smart idea. I’ll still have some savings, but I won’t have to use it anymore. And I might be able to renew my lease another year – I really like my house and I really don’t want to move. If anyone has any thoughts they should weigh in.

As long as I’m being scattered (as usual), here’s something that happened the other day. I walked into Costco for whatever reason (probably flowers…), and there was a 20-something guy in the front trying to sell DirecTV. I was in a talkative mood (for me) and we started chatting about internet and cable and the like. The guy kept asking questions like, “Who do you guys have for cable?” and “What kind of TV do you guys have?” I’m not wearing a wedding ring. I was by myself. I have no idea why he assumed that I was a “we” except maybe because of my age. It was really odd.

Anyway. I think that’s it for now.

twenty three

at the moment, I’m despairing of ever having happier years than I have already had. and of ever being as loved as I was.

sorry … not to be super melodramatic or anything. I ought to go to sleep and stop thinking.

the one where I show off my purse

I swear I’ll stop talking about this eventually. This is the most girly purse I have ever owned as far as shape goes – until now I’ve always carried a bag that can hold at least 4 books and ideally a laptop too. I feel a little odd carrying this one around because it doesn’t even have a shoulder strap (which I might see if I can fix at some point…). But it’s so pretty, and here are a couple of pictures. 😀

blog - purse inside

blog - purse front

Just want to say that I had a productive lunch break today. I went to Wal-Greens to pick up some medicine, then ran to the Brewhouse where I had left my raincoat last night (God forbit I lose it!!). After that, ran home and took the covers off of the cushions on both the couch and the loveseat and stuck them in the washing machine because they desperately needed to be washed. That was about all that I had time to do, but it’s a lot more than I would have accomplished had I just gone home to take a nap! I’m looking forward to finishing cleaning up the living room once I get home. I kind of want to re-organize all my table tops and stuff too. We’ll see.

Ah, blog. Helping me stay organized.

I’m feeling pretty decent this morning, so far. Yesterday was a decent day as well; after work I went grocery shopping – which I hadn’t done in a long time (I was down to pretty much nothing in the fridge except some mushy tomatoes and cheese and a bunch of condiments). I felt oddly productive post-grocery store. After that I hung out with Ryan some because he needed a ride and I was bored. I stayed up too late watching a movie that I had watched two nights before, but oh well.

This morning, driving with the windows down, the humid air almost felt like an embrace, like a gentle caress. It was pleasant, and I would love to spend today with the clouds and the rain instead of with my computer and phone. Oh well – I also like being able to pay my bills.

Speaking of, I finally mailed the last Vanderbilt payment yesterday. I know I said I was already done with that, but somehow instead of paying the last two bills, I paid one bill twice (my brain doesn’t always work). I had to call to get them to transfer the last payment to my remaining open account, and then it took them a while to mail me a new bill. Anyway. It’s paid now. I hope I stop getting bills addressed to Matthew Ralston.

I’m having an urge to re-do my living room. Correction – I’m having an urge to get rid of my kittens so that I’m not constantly having to clean up and straighten everything. Things would stay a LOT cleaner if they weren’t around. I think I’m going to start keeping them in the garage when I can’t supervise them, though.

I know it’s foolish to let your possessions bolster your sense of personal worth, but I have to admit that this purse makes me feel better about myself. It’s so pretty, and smells so strongly of leather that I get whiffs every now and then. It makes me want to buy everything in leather from now on – and especially it makes me want to buy myself a leather sofa.

You know, this has all been a kick to my self esteem. I’m working on building it back up. I don’t think it’s ever been this big of a problem before…and it’s not like it’s a HUGE problem or anything, but I miss it nevertheless. I miss the stability of knowing that even if I look like shit or say something uncaring, I’d still have Matt in my court, on my side. I know that I have lots of people on my side still, but they don’t live with me and tell me that they love me every day. They don’t pick up dinner for me, or give me back rubs, or need me at all. Ugh. It makes perfect sense that a spouse’s suicide would be hard to heal from, but GEEZ. It just really, really sucks. And here I am, buying leather purses to make myself feel better.

Plenty more for me to complain about. But instead, I’m going to try to focus on more pleasant thoughts. I guess that’s a good idea, right?

I feel like I go through phases where all I do is complain – whether I’m writing it here, or talking to someone in person. (Exception being that I don’t complain to anyone at work…because it’s work.) But I feel like I have a lot to complain about and it’s good to get it off my chest. Ryan thinks that complaining makes you weaker, and I can see his point, but whatever.

After I got off work yesterday, I went home and mowed the front lawn. Didn’t mow the back, and definitely didn’t want to mow either but I forced myself to do the front. As always, I was glad that I did it as soon as it was done. I showered after that, and got Fat Mo’s for dinner. I ended up feeling much better, and even if that was because I exercised a little and then ate a greasy burger, I’ll take it. I hadn’t felt as depressed as I did yesterday in a while.

And it’s not all gone this morning, but I’m not letting myself think about too much so far, which helps of course. Even though life feels perfectly meaningless without Matt – most of the time – I know that in truth, it can still have as much meaning as it did before. It just doesn’t FEEL like it’s worth anything sometimes. I hate that I’m looking forward to this year being over – because I only have one life, and I want to appreciate it as much as I can – but I REALLY wish it was July 2014 instead. Dammit – this is what I was saying last year too. I hope next year is better than this year, and than last year. If only I had known, last year would have been the best year ever.

But what can you do?