This week I felt like writing about how the arrival of the holidays has already been extremely difficult for me. These are the first holidays without Clayton. Those Facebook “memories” that pop up in my news feed are like a sharp knife from a friend. Nothing is safe from the reminders. I don’t know if I can even decorate this year but decorating is not what my words are for this week. It is the place that no one would ever think could be a heart-wrenching trigger. A place everyone goes that is designed to help you live but, as a widow, it is a place that can take more of you away…The Grocery Store.

Since losing Tin, I look to each new week as a new horizon that will bring brighter days. This is my fourth post and I thought, maybe by now, my blog would have small sparks of settlement in the chaos. I guess it is good to hope but bad to assume. A very fine line that I often fail to recognize these days. I’ll keep the faith that those brighter days are to come but it is difficult with the unexpected challenges that continue to appear. I feel as though I have never heard of anyone else going through all of the milestone days associated with a loss along with the strange scenarios I have recently found myself cornered in. Yes cornered is a great description of how I feel and this week has been one of the most unmanageable yet.

Those who haven’t lost a partner can’t understand the extent of the loneliness. No one to wake up to. No one texting through the day to see how you are. No one to plan dinner with. No one to fold laundry with. No one in the room at the end of the night to wish you sweet dreams and provide a sense of safety through the night. Worst of all – No one to enjoy those special dates with. The lack of a person makes them almost unbearable.

I want to begin this post by letting you know that I am not suicidal. I am not going to do anything to harm myself , nor would I ever. Expressing feelings and taking actions on those feelings are two different things entirely, and I know this very well, and I am very aware of this. I am saying this because I know that some of you that may be reading this are widowed by suicide, so I am sensitive to how you may hear or take the words I am going to type tonight, and I realize they may be triggers for you as well. I don't want to worry anyone - truly. That being said, there are some strong emotions that I need to get out right now, and I need to say them here, because where else can I say them, if I can't say them here?

Last weekend, both my sister and my best friend were out of town on (separate) family holidays when my grief decided it might be a good time to roll on up and knock me around for a bit. Knowing I was in for a quiet weekend, I had set myself a few tasks around the house and planned to lay low, catch up on laundry and housework, do some cooking for the week and fit in a gym session or two. 

I reached a crisis point in my grief late last week.  It was as if all the agony and devastation that lingers right under my skin suddenly became the surface of my skin and I felt like a wild animal that howls its' pain to the night skies.

It didn't help that I'd been ill for almost a week, a vicious flu that tore up my body in every way possible.  Those moments of physical illness, of course, only exacerbate our alone-ness.  It came with a headache and vomiting and fever, chills, sweats...the whole shebang.  Chuck was so good at taking care of me whenever I'd get ill.  Which wasn't often, thank goodness, but I could count on him always.  And this time I was alone (in that I was without him).   Fortunately our son is nearby and he immediately came to lend assistance and support to me.

Why do I keep expecting to be someone who hasn't been through what I have? Why do I have these ridiculous expectations? Why do I feel less than because I'm so changed?

Maybe it's because I don't want to be disabled by this tragedy, but I am anyway. 

I try not to use it as an excuse for my failures, but sometimes I forget that I am not as I used to be.

I am still in need of more rest than I was before. I get overloaded and overwhelmed so easily still.

I am more reactive to many triggers. Anything coming close to thinking about losing people I love makes me feel weak in the knees and helpless. I cling a little superstitiously to home base, fearing that the rest of what I have will be taken from me. My health, my cats, my home. If my PERSON could be utterly gone, GONE, in a millisecond, what else could disappear right in front of me?

Call me crazy, but I'm starting to feel like maybe I'm a little bit crazy.
Is that crazy?

Is it Nuts-ville Crazytown that I feel like I am more in love with my husband now, than ever before? That I would rather have one-way conversations with his spirit or soul, than put any real efforts into possibly finding a new partner who I could actually speak to, human to human? Is it insane that looking at his picture on my nightstand before going to sleep, and saying out loud, in a faint whisper: "Goodnight BooBear - I love you" seems to make more sense to me than saying nothing at all? Seriously - level with me, people -  is it time for me to just go and get the straightjacket and try it on for size? Or is there a place that I can go to exist, where there isn't all this pressure to "move on" or "get myself out there again", and where having a continued relationship with my dead husband isn't universally frowned upon?

...... Griever.  No kidding.  It seems that I can reach into someone's deep, dark and cold grief and speak to them.  I can tell them what I see in that blackness, which is really telling them what I see.
Or more precisely, what I saw.
I know that I'm not the only one who can do this.  I've seen, and read, many of you doing it for others, too.  I guess it comes with the territory.

I'm certain that if someone would've told me 6 years ago that I would have this "gift", I would've either ran in the opposite direction to get away from the crazy person ...... or I would've called the men in the white coats to come take her away.
Because seriously?
Who wants to be a professional griever??

While I may not like that role, or the reason I have it, I'm starting to recognize that this role is more of a blessing than it is a drain on me.
It blesses others, which blesses me.

Last Wednesday I had a session with an amazing healer right when I thought I couldn't go another step in this life without something major happening to lighten the pain I was experiencing in my heart and soul.

Depression. It's my dark shadow. I've been living with it since my late teens. Even so, it can still trick me.

For the last few weeks I've been under its spell and up until today I didn't realize it. Instead of seeing the depression as the REASON I feel as though everything is hopeless and life sucks, I have been thinking that I'm depressed BECAUSE everything is hopeless and life sucks. It's a big distinction but depression has an incredibly convincing way of telling me terrible things and getting me to believe them all.