New Year. New Everything.

Jan 1, 2013. Fabulous hats. Bright new year.

2013 is just about to slip away, and I barely noticed the past two months.

That's not a bad thing, I don't think there has been much to notice. I've hibernated, I've put off doing things that I know I should have begun, I've spent vast amounts of that time watching TV, or sitting in front of the computer with a half dozen tabs open, checking pages every few minutes to see if there have  been changes. Has anything happened here? Refresh. No? On to the next tab then. Why isn't anyone online? Do these people have lives or something? Geez!

I have done exactly what I was talking about in one of the previous posts. I've time traveled my way through November and December. It's okay. I needed to. I might still do that for a while. There are still things to binge-watch on Netflix.

Sometime sent me a note last week to say they hope I'm getting through this, and I realized that for the first time I'm beginning to believe I will. It wasn't that I never believed I could until last week, it was that I didn't care, I really didn't. Oh, I've tried to talk a good game about all of the plans I have, about following Jeff's advice, being in the moment, not allowing my mind chatter to get the better of me... but really? For the entirety of November and for a large chunk of December, probably right up through Thursday or Friday, I really didn't care. For the first few weeks every time I woke up I was disappointed that I had woken up because there was nothing, not one single thing, that I could find to look forward to.

Now, well, maybe the world isn't quite as dark as it was.  This is not to say that I have suddenly emerged on the other side of the tunnel and am filled with fresh new hope for the future, I'm still far from that. I'm still having the awful mood swings, the sobbing fits, the experience of walking into a room and feeling astonished that he's not there. But the other day there were a few little passing moments where I realized that I do care about the future, just a little. There are things I look forward to. Things I want to see, do, and experience. Places I want to go. People I want to meet. Friends to visit. It may not seem like realizing this was a big step, but for me this felt like a huge revelation.

So here I am, getting ready to begin a new year on my own. I don't usually make a list of resolutions, but there are things I'll try to do this year. I know I'll slip backwards more often than not, I'll fall in and out of bad habits. I'll battle with my anxiety about the future every day. I'll cry, complain, whine, and feel miserable because I miss Jeff so much it makes my stomach hurt. But I will also find joy and fun in little things. I'll try to reach out more to people, something I've always been extremely afraid of doing because I'm convinced I'm being a bother. I'll chatter constantly about whatever pops into my head and share whatever pastime I become obsessed with until I drive all of my online friends completely insane and they begin to wish my internet would fail. I'll set goals that are so far beyond my reach that they're just silly but I'll cherish them anyway, and I'll realize that others are more attainable than I'd imagined. I hope I'll surprise myself.

I have no idea what's going to happen in 2014 and I'm terrified, but maybe, just maybe, there will be a little more light in my life.

(cross posted from Kything NaturesZen)

Christmas morning

I've really managed to avoid Christmas for the most part. I've stayed in the house, I don't decorate, I don't have friends inviting me over or a large extended family that is celebrating all month. That's made it a lot easier, it means there aren't all of these events that I went to with Jeff that I have to deal with solo this year. It's the same old sitting in the house alone sort of week that I had for all of November and December. But even so it's not as if I can ignore the holiday entirely and pretend it's just Wednesday.

If it hadn't happened he'd have woken me up this morning with a kiss, just because it was Christmas and he'd have thought I'd like it. We'd not have done anything special but whatever it was, we'd have done it together. I lit a candle beside his pic, I wished him a merry Christmas. I would give anything in the whole world to be held in his arms.

I appreciate all of the Christmas wishes I get from people, I know they love me. I appreciate the hugs, but I never want to let go. I just want to cling to people until I feel like I'm going to start to cry, but I don't want to make their holiday sad so I collect myself and let go and try to smile.

And I wish that I could experience one of those heartwarming Christmas miracles like you see in the movies. Sometimes I wonder if they are already happening all around me and I am just not ready to see them yet.

I love you Jeff. Merry Christmas to you.

Messages

This is one of those stories that people would be sure is fiction, and although the first half of it was cool enough that I thought I'd share on Facebook, the latter half left me just a little freaked out and certain if I posted that part people would just shake their head and say "Yeah, you made that part up." But no, it's real. It's one of those really rare wild coincidence stories that happen now and then. Or maybe it's something more... either way, I thought I'd put it down here because I wanted to write it out, exactly as it unfolded.

So here I sat tonight, watching YouTube videos on the TV. I was alternately looking at the computer and the TV, getting ready to respond to a note on Facebook, and occasionally chattering about the video to Jeff's picture. In other words, fairly average night for the past few days. Then something colorful on the floor caught my eye and I looked over to see what that was.

In the middle of the floor, near the front door, was a little pink paper heart. I sort of remembered cutting it out from one of the small size pink post it notes, probably back around Valentine's Day. I'm not even sure what I did with it after that, I think I had made a few, this might have been stuck to Jeff's laptop, or stuck to my desk, or stuck to something. But wherever it had been I hadn't seen it in months, and since it was a bit of a throwaway idea I'd forgot all about it.

Now here it is, a little pink heart unfolded and quite pristine, and laying on the carpet. Obviously I picked up something that it was attached to and it fell off and fluttered into place where I noticed it. I've moved stuff around all day, I don't know what this was stuck to, but I suspect it had hitched a ride. I thought it was really cool, though, a neat little thing to find, a memory, and sort of like a little kiss from Jeff. I stuck the heart to the monitor and smiled at it, wrote a little Facebook post, and was happy.

Fast forward fifteen minutes or so. I was telling a few other people my cute heart story and getting ready to put the paper heart into a frame with Jeff's photo. I opened the lap drawer on my desk to get something that I could use to slide the heart under the glass and the first thing I see, right in the front of the drawer, is a folded up pink sticky note, with a heart shape cut out of it.

Now this drawer is a mess. I've cleaned it out a bit lately, but it's still a mess, full of old paper, junk, empty pens, more junk, and pretty much anything I wanted to scrape off the top of my desk. I move things around in it constantly, earlier I had shuffled it to and fro looking for USB cords. I don't recall seeing the pink note then, although I could have tossed it all over the place and not paid attention.

Now, just after I find the heart, here is a paper with a heart outline. Okay. Coincidence, right? I held it up and it is indeed the exact paper that the heart came from. Logically this is still just one of those rare events where it's totally explainable as random chance, but still astonishing when it happens.

But there is that part of me that feels like it is a little nudge from Jeff, a message to me. He's with me. He really is.

Infinite Time

I thought we'd have more time. More time for vacations. More time for photos. More time to live our lives to the fullest and make our dreams come true.

treasured time

I feel like my life was interrupted and just isn't back on track yet. I look at my phone and expect to see a text from him. I wonder, briefly, if he's left work. He always called when he was on his way home, to give me a ETA in case I needed to start dinner, and just to talk about the day. I miss him calling in the middle of the afternoon because he'd had a sudden idea about some project we could start and he was so excited he had to tell me right away. I continue to expect to find him somewhere in the house, standing in the kitchen or sitting on the couch watching TV. I have a hard time moving things around because in the back of my head there's a voice saying "No, he might still need to use this." I miss his physical presence in my life.

 I miss being wrapped up in his hugs.

 I'm thinking about him constantly. I find the happy few minutes every day, but I'm hit with chest crushing, screaming, pounding my fists on the floor grief at unpredictable moments. I look at photos that span the past few years, from our first date to just a few days before he died, and in all of them he is so alive, so present, so full of hope and dreams and goals for the future. It feels impossible that he isn't here to carry out his plans. I cry when I think of the things he was planning to learn, because he will not have that chance now.

I miss hearing him talk about all of his ideas for the future. I miss laying in bed and talking about what we hoped we'd do in the coming years. I miss that so much that I'm constantly fighting off the feeling that if he isn't here to help visualize our hopes and dreams and goals then there's no point in dreaming big, it's easier to just give up and accept a mundane life and never try anything new again.

A friend had mentioned things he'd hoped we could all still do together, and commented that this reminds us that our time here is brief. I agree. I'd always believed there would be time, endless amounts of it, to be together, to enjoy each other's company. Time felt infinite in relation to all of our goals. There would always be time to plan for things, time to learn new skills, time to work on hobbies, time to pursue our dreams and make them come true. And of course if there is always time to do something tomorrow then there's no need to worry about it today. A belief in infinite time fed our procrastination, even though we vowed to make changes they would always be for another day. Today would be spent watching a movie or two, or surfing for another hour, or doing nothing in particular until it's time to fall asleep.

Jeff called this time traveling. Rise in the morning, do your work, eat, watch TV, go to sleep. Repeat the same routine every day without varying it, never trying to break free of that pattern, and never feeling as though you've accomplished anything. We each spent a lot of time doing this, moving through the day without making any attempt to work on our plans. This was what we wanted to break free of. We wanted to stop traveling through time and start living in it.

The desire to wait until tomorrow to start something is very strong in me, and this will be a hard lesson to work on. Between the two of us we had a lot of things we hoped to accomplish, a lot of dreams we thought we could make come true for ourselves. Some of those I will continue to hold, some will be replaced by new goals and dreams as I try to rebuild my own life from the ground up. Some will always remain daydreams, but some are attainable if I am willing to put in the time and effort to pursue them.

As I sit here Jeff is gazing at me from a dozen different frames, smiling gently, encouraging me. I'm going to try to manifest the optimism we had that we would one day be doing great things, but now I will try to couple it with action. Optimism is lovely, but unless I take action I won't accomplish much. I have high hopes that in six months I'll be reporting that I'm well on my way to achieving my goals. Time will tell. Hopefully I will make good use of it.

(cross posted from Kything NaturesZen)

Notes from Day 40

I spent some time merging the posts from my other coping blog into this one. Not to eliminate anything, I'd rather keep this, I like the idea of being able to share my thoughts a little more deeply here than on the other, where I provided links to family. And it's not so much that I don't want to share it with anyone else, it's more that I don't need to continuously generate pats on the back and sad smiles. And also, maybe that blog will become more of a self help general etc and this will be more of a journal. I don't know. Talking to myself.

And meanwhile, I keep printing off little photos and putting them everywhere, and I keep reaching up to touch my little thumbprint charm. and people saying "Oh I hope that is comforting, that's so lovely, what a nice memory." And it is sort of comforting, I guess. I reach up, I feel connected, just as I do with his wedding ring, which I haven't taken off since that night.

But really? I'm nowhere near the stage where memories are comforting. For a couple of days I was sort of evened out, I wasn't having any major breakdowns, then all of a sudden it hit me hard, as if it had just happened and I fell apart and screamed and cried like a banshee. Really, that bad. That seems to have hit every evening this week, usually with no warning. I've read a number of grief blogs and forums and I realize that I'm not alone in how I feel, I see the same emotions expressed by many other people. That doesn't make it easier, but I guess there is some comfort in knowing that it is part of the long process.

The sense that it can't be real carries on forever, I think. Some days it just seems more overwhelmingly powerful than others.

Day 40. Wow. I don't know how.

Thumbies, Bills, and Rollercoasters

Grief seems, so far, to be an unending rollercoaster ride. Just when you think you’ve reached a point where you’re feeling okay you find yourself plummeting to the bottom of the hill and into a dark tunnel. I spent a couple of days feeling sort of calm, not good, not happy, but okay. Then last night it all fell apart and I found myself doubled over and wailing and screaming as if I’d just lost him. It took a while but it passed, but I know that devastating, acute grief will come and go and all I can do is allow myself to feel it. So many people assure me that he’s here with me, watching over me, his spirit is ever present. I tell myself that as well. One of these days I will look at a photo or think of a memory and I’ll smile, but I’m not there yet.

I’ve been on the rollercoaster again today. It was fairly up for most of the afternoon, I think of it as the part of the ride where you’re going up and down the tiny hills, it’s a little bumpy but mostly even. The day was feeling a little brighter when I got the call that my Thumbie, the necklace I’d ordered when I was making Jeff’s arrangements, had arrived. The memorial jewelry I’ve seen when assisting with funeral arrangements for others was mostly focused on vials that would contain a sprinkle of your loved one’s ashes. These are still available (and with dozens of new styles to choose from) but I didn’t really feel like going that route. Instead I opted for the Thumbie, where they take a fingerprint from your loved one and make a cast, and then can make jewelry with the fingerprint. I’d encourage anyone who is faced with a loss to consider these, the higher end pieces can be quite expensive but there are a lot of really affordable ones too. In the end will having a necklace with his thumbprint help me through my grief? Well, probably not a lot. But it was nice this afternoon to reach up and touch it and think of him.

My rollercoaster car carried on smoothly for a while longer, until I arrived home to find a bill from the ER visit, from that night, advising that his treatment took place after his insurance was terminated so they were asking for all the cash. Yikes. There goes my coaster car down a steep hill into the dark tunnel of anxiety and worry. Um, no, ER treatment team, he had active coverage right up until he died, which was certainly not prior to his being admitted. I was there, I know. As I recall the ER admissions clerk had assured me I didn’t need to give her any info because he was on file, which I regret not asking about now. I’m going to suspect they couldn’t have up to date data, as he hadn’t been to the hospital or to any physician since he’d changed jobs and insurance a little over a year ago. So I will send their huge bill back to them with the most recent insurance info included and see what happens next. Fingers crossed.

The lesson to be learned here is this: if you go into the ER (or anywhere) don’t assume they have everything they need already. Or at the very least, if they say they’ve got something on file ask them to verify to you what they do have. Might save some work later on.

And as my ups and downs even out again to a relative calm again I’ll go back to reading, and I’ll talk to him. I talk all day, constantly. To his photos, to the air, to the presence that I sometimes think I can feel around me. And I’m still periodically experiencing the feeling that this is all a bad dream. I wonder when that feeling fades. I wonder if that feeling ever fades.

I realize that’s something I’ll find the answer to on my own, with the passage of time. For now I will just hold on to my heart and feel his thumb pressed against my finger.


(cross posted from Kything NaturesZen)

Hold My Hand Forever

I miss holding his hand.  We held hands whenever we walked anywhere, even if it was just from a parking lot into the store. I miss reaching across the table in a restaurant to take his hand, and the times that he’d rest his hand on my knee as he was driving and I’d put mine in his, as I’d done here. It was one of those safe, secure, warm feelings. I always imagined one day we would be one of those cute little old couples, still holding hands as we walked through a park.

I remember a couple of hours into our first date Jeff had a little thing that he thought he’d try: he held his hand up to me, palm out and said “Could you hold your hand up? I just want to see something.”  And so, of course, I did. I put my hand up to his, palm to palm. He then moved his hand slightly, and laced his fingers through mine. “I just wanted to see how that would feel,” he said.


It felt perfect.

(cross posted from Kything NaturesZen)

One Month

November is behind us now. Somehow I’ve gone through a full month without him. I won’t say things have improved, or even changed much, over the past few weeks. The fog hasn’t lifted yet, I’m still caught between worlds in that odd place where I haven’t fully accepted that my life has changed.

A month ago I’d had very different plans for November: We were going to start de-cluttering the house and take control of the years of accumulated stuff. I was going to learn more of his design programs so I could be a bigger help with his freelance work, beyond just doing text editing. We were going to try to build the foundation for a business of our own. We were feeling really optimistic. 2014 was going to be the year we really got our lives in order and set in motion business plans that could carry us through to retirement and beyond. A month ago we were heading for the first day of the rest of our lives.

I had plans for myself as well, I was going to devote some time each day in November to trying to complete the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) challenge. Even if I didn’t expect to finish a book in 30 days I thought it would be fun to try, and it would give me incentive to write every day. As it turns out I think I have written something every day, whether I published here or on another blog, or just wrote privately for myself. This was not what I had in mind, however. This was not the way I wanted to spend November. The universe had other plans for me, clearly.

I’m contemplating tiny goals today. I’ve queued up a few books to read. I finished my re-read of The Power of Now, which I found myself relating to much more this time than I did several years ago. I attribute that to Jeff’s influence, obviously I was paying more attention to him than I’d realized. It made me realize what a challenge I must have been for Jeff, always resisting any change that would bring me closer to a calm mind. I can see how much of an influence my ego mind has on me, even now, but at least now I do recognize it. I still have trouble staying in the present moment, my thoughts are always clinging to the past or worrying over the future, but I’ve gradually gotten better. Not this month, I don’t think I’ve made progress doing anything this month, but over the past few years. I still have a long road ahead, though. It would be wonderful if we could experience instant enlightenment after just a couple of books and a quiet evening, but it’s going to take much more work than that. Currently I’ve just started on Thich Nhat Hanh’s “No Death, No Fear” which is reinforcing and teaching me more about being mindful and present.

I know I will still reflect on the past, but I need to try to let go of the regret and disappointment about the things left undone. That will be hard, but instead of thinking of everything we’d wanted to do as a dream that will never come to pass perhaps it’s time for me to consider what parts of our goals I can hold on to and make my own. Instead of starting off with immediate worry and fear and concluding that I could never do these things, maybe it’s time for me to look at what I can do right now, in the present moment, to prepare.  I’m not yet sure how this will work out, lately I’m lucky if I can go for an hour or so without having a tidal wave of grief wash over me out of the blue, but in those moments where the fog lifts a little I will begin taking my baby steps.

This, I believe, is Jeff’s lesson plan for me this week.

(cross posted from Kything NaturesZen)