Jen

Fuck Valentine's indeed. I hate this "holiday." I just got past my wedding anniversary-- our 8th, but he's been gone four. Pretty soon I'll have been his widow longer than I was his wife. Fuck.

Me too. All the time.

Raymond, thank you for posting this. It feels ever so slightly hopeful, and even though I don't trust hope, I appreciate its presence-- elusive and transient as that may be. The kittens have grown large enough and bold enough not to want to cuddle much, so my daughter took matters into her own hands last week: I came home to a very friendly, very energetic, very awkward, and very large German Shepherd mix puppy! If nothing else, she doesn't let me sit still long enough to brood...

*hugs* There's no two ways about it. It sucks. :-/

I'm lying on the couch with the 5-month-old doberman/shepherd mix that my daughter decided on Wednesday that I needed. I should note that I have 6 cats already, 4 of them under a year old, plus my mom's aging Pom and three more cats outside. Oh, and a perpetually stoned rabbit. But Bella is extremely sweet, and she seems to help my daughter's anxiety-- besides, I need the exercise. My mom is sulking and won't speak to anyone. I'd much prefer to be in my bedroom, but filial duty requires me to stay in the living room until at least 9 pm. There are many advantages to this living arrangement, but my mother's passive-aggressive bitchiness is not one of them.

My deepest apologies for my flippant, off-the-cuff remark. It happened to be what I was thinking as I perused the last few posts on this thread, and I foolishly hit send. Those four words (and an emoji, mustn't forget) represent the whole extent of my interaction with Christopher, who is, I'm sure, a very nice person in (like all of us here) a lousy situation. At that particular moment I identified strongly with his expression of grief and loss regarding the absence of intimacy (physical and emotional). Silly me, I thought it was all right to say so in this thread, given its previously uncensored nature. My bad; won't happen again.

... though I'm not convinced that's a good thing. Guess it is for my family, who depend on me now more than ever-- my mom had to have knee surgery, so I basically do everything around the house, work full-time (still on nights), get the kids wherever they need to be, run all over town for groceries and appointments and so forth... you know, the full Wid Special. You wouldn't think I'd have time to brood over my pathetic state, but I'm lonely as hell. No end in sight. Hope y'all are better.

Where do I sign up?

Never forgotten. ♡

Hugs to you. I wish I knew a solution. All I know is that I'm lonely as hell and I don't understand what I have (or lack) that makes me basically invisible to other humans. On the bright side, I have two new kittens to cuddle...

Struggling today-- hopelessness, self-loathing, wondering why I'm still here. I realize that healthy, well-adjusted people don't feel this way about themselves, but I don't know how not to. I look back at my life and see so much wasted potential-- or maybe just the deluded belief that I ever had any. I try to look ahead, and there's.... nothing. Years and years of the same emptiness. I can't even blame it on widowhood-- I've reached the conclusion that it's an inherent flaw in my mechanism. When Jim was here, he gave me stability, safety, encouragement-- all the things I crave and can't provide for myself. Someone told me once, "We all have to learn to self-soothe." I'm trying, I really am... just can't manage it today.

A-fucking-men. And fuck the hospital chaplain whose father's day devotional included a pithy reference to god as "father of the fatherless and protector of widows." Yeah, whatever. Falling down on the job, as far as I can tell.

No words. All my love.

Fuck that I am lonely af and nothing I do seems to help. :-\

Deepest apologies for being late to this particular party-- I'll cop to being spectacularly unobservant; I had missed this altogether. That's not really a problem, since I don't really have anything to add, except... Let me cry. I know it's unattractive and indelicate and makes you supremely uncomfortable, but I'm generating more tears than I ever knew a person could produce, and they have to come out. Words? I have none. Intense and intractable pain? Oh, yes. I know you mean well, but patting my shoulder and telling me "It's all right" is patronizing and dismissive. I need to cry. Thank you. This is as true for me now as it was three years ago. I'm starting to leak just typing this. It's like there's a bottomless well of agony that I've managed to cap off, but the slightest little bump or knock jars it open and all that vast yawning misery overwhelms me again. In the early days I cried shamelessly around my family, my friends, my coworkers. Now I have to hide it from everyone. I duck my head, I hide behind my hair, I pretend my allergies are killing me. I lock myself in the bathroom. Anything to keep people from noticing that I'm crying again. Because I can't explain it at this point-- I don't have an excuse anymore. That particular statute of limitations has expired for me. The despair and the hopelessness... those haven't. And the tears still come.

THANK YOU. *slow clap* Speaking as someone who has basically no hope of ever having sex again-- casual, meaningful, or otherwise-- I wish I had this "problem." I assure you, if anyone made me an offer, I'd jump on it. Him. And to hell with what anyone who dared judge me! Humans are social, sexual creatures. We wids have been deprived of a fundamental human need. I personally rejoice for those who are able to reclaim it. (I'm also bitterly envious, but that's my problem and no one else's.)

"I think this is just it now." -- Exactly. And that terrifies me. I've never been a patient person; I want things resolved now. I've done the work. I've come to terms with my bereavement. For the longest time, I wanted nothing more in the world than to wake up dead-- but I stuck it out, I stayed around. Yay me, but it looks suspiciously like there's no one waiting to hand me a medal for continuing to breathe. I guess what I'm getting at is... What was the point?? All the anguish and despair, struggling through the abyss when I just wanted to stop-- what was it all for, if this is all that was waiting on the other side? I know, I know. That's defeatist, pessimistic-- it's only been three years, anything could happen. We all know that life can change completely in a single heartbeat. And yeah, that's what I would tell anybody else in this situation. But myself? I can't see it. It feels like I'm running out of time. I do scream sometimes, even if it's just into my pillow or on paper, because it really isn't fair. I had so much capacity in me for love, but nobody wants it. I wish I could just accept it and quit thinking about it.

I am so, so sorry. That's exactly why I hesitate to post, because I don't want to scare anyone. Maybe I should start with "results not typical " or something... "your mileage may vary." From where I sit, I'm more the exception than the rule-- but that could just be my personal bias. We're all the tragic hero (ine) of our own dramas, you know? In my mind, I'm stuck in purgatory while all around me I see "classmates" moving on, graduating, getting out. My rational side knows better, but it gets drowned out by the melodramatic woe-is-me side that's forever shrieking, "DOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!!" I see others get through and move forward. I have no doubt that it's possible, even likely-- for anyone but me. I'm pretty much convinced that this is the end of the line. I would love to be proved wrong, but... Sometimes I want to yell and scream "it's not fair!" at the top of my lungs, even though I'm aware that life isn't fair and plenty of people are worse off than I am and it is what it is and so on... I have a meltdown and post here, because it's safe and I feel understood. I don't want to spend the rest of my life like this, lonely and sad and resentful. Right now I don't see any alternative. But that's just me-- my doom, my Shakespearean tragedy. Most people seem to do better. Please forgive my self-absorbed wallowing. I just really needed to talk it out a bit.

THIS. You've summed it up perfectly. That's what I'm doing: surviving. Not living. I hate it. *hugs* That's all I can offer.

I was trying to explain to a coworker earlier how I feel these days. I don't miss Jim-- I mean, yes, of course I miss him, I always will-- but it's not the constant ache it used to be. Now more than anything I miss... belonging. Being part of a unit. No matter who I'm with these days, I'm on the outside looking in. I can't imagine ever finding another partner-- I guess it's technically possible, but so is my winning the powerball while getting struck by lightning. Anything is possible... it's just not very likely. People tend to laugh uncomfortably when I express this opinion, but they don't contradict me, either. Lately that's made me very bitter. What's so terrible about me, that nobody could ever want me? I know I think that about myself, but does everyone else have to think it as well? I feel like such a failure in life. I blew my one chance at lasting happiness because I didn't take care of what I had. I took him for granted, and discovered too late that he was literally one in 7 billion. Now I get to spend the next three or four decades repenting at leisure. I know this is not the sort of attitude that is going to get me very far. Self-pity is ugly and pointless. But that's where I am, and I don't know how to get out. Thank you. All of you. *hugs* It helps to be heard.

(((Hugs))) Thank you for hearing me. It helps more than I can say. I keep telling myself this will pass, feelings change... it feels like a lie. I don't want to stay mired here and then wake up one day to find that I've wasted ten years, fifteen, more. I'm so tired of being miserable, but I can't manage to hold onto anything else. Maybe the problem is that, deep down, I think I deserve misery. Statistics aren't on my side, as far as Chapter 2 chances go. If I could just accept that, it might help... so far, no dice. Sigh.

I wanted to respond to these last night, but it's hard to type when you're crying. Thank you all for your words and your understanding. I look around at other wids, other members of my "class" and even some a few months behind, and it seems like so many have... moved on. Found their new lives. New peace of mind. New love. Things I don't have and probably never will. I don't understand what's wrong with me (independent of my wid-hood, I've just always felt like an alien)-- I'm introverted and solitary by nature, so why am I so lonely? I used to write stories in which heroic princesses made daring rescues of innocent monsters from the clutches of nefarious knights-- so why in hell am I so hung up on the idea that I need to be saved? Why do I think re-coupling is the only way to survive this? My rational self, if there is such a thing, doesn't really believe that. My pitifully scarred heart begs to differ. I honestly don't know how to reconcile the two. I get angry at myself when I start to slide into self-pity and despair-- I'm fine, I'm FINE, I have everything I need and the means to obtain most anything I want, so SHUT UP. Truthfully, there is very little that I do want, anyway. So why the moping and longing and aching for what's missing? I feel like there are two Jens in here, and I don't know how to integrate them. They want diametrically opposite things, and they're both pretty insistent. I guess that means there's a third, the one writing this, who just wants some peace and quiet... I swear I'm not as crazy as I sound. I have a professional's endorsement on that! I just... I'm lost. Still. I'm okay but I'm not. Mostly I feel like the clock is ticking and I'm no closer to resolving this than I was three years ago. I don't want to be like this for the rest of my life, but I can't see any alternative. It's like that old bear hunt song we sang in preschool: "can't go around it, gotta go through it." But haven't I gone through it long enough??? There's a line in Pierre, Natasha, and the Great Comet of 1812, referring to a folk divination technique-- you look into a mirror holding a candle and you'll see your future (a doting husband and lots of fat babies, if you're a 19th century Russian girl): "I see nothing but the candle in the mirror, no visions of the future, so lost and alone... " That plays pretty much nonstop in my head, while I protest that it doesn't matter, I'm perfectly fine. I should be, anyway. I've had three years to get over this. I barely remember how to be a wife or partner anyway. Why does it still feel like damnation? I'm all over the place here. Thank you for letting me get it out of my brain.

I was hoping I could type them, but that's a wash too. I don't feel I belong here anymore, but I don't have anywhere else to go. Three years, one month, 12 days... I had convinced myself (and my therapist!) that I was better. Moving forward, accepting the New Normal. Now it feels like I'm back at the beginning, back in hell-- only it's a different hell than the one I knew so well. This one is colder, grayer... emptier, although I can't understand how that's possible. I feel alone and helpless, broken and useless. Not depressed-- ironically, I've got that under control, thanks to well-adjusted medication and the aforementioned therapist's assistance. Just... resigned to this interminable bleakness. Or maybe not, since it's bothering me enough to write this. I'm ashamed of feeling this way. Objectively, I look at my life now and I wonder what on earth I have to complain about. Anyone else would say I've got my crap together. But inside I don't. Inside I'm small and lost and scared that this is all there will ever be. I don't know where to go from here-- if this is recovery, it doesn't feel like anything I'd imagined. I think I spent three years telling myself that if I hung on, if I worked hard and did the best I could-- if I was a Good Girl, in other words-- then my efforts would be recognized, and I'd be awarded my Get Out of Hell card. Now I'm starting to see that this really is permanent, there's no parole-- hell is a life sentence, and I'm in solitary confinement. Even Satan has turned his back on me. Apologies for the grim (not to mention egocentric) content. Lately I've developed an intense need to be heard, but there hasn't been anybody to listen. I've exhausted whatever support I had-- the statute of limitations runs out for everyone else pretty quickly, after all. Y'all are all I have left, but I may be as much an outsider here as I am everywhere else. If that's the case, I'm sorry to intrude. And sorry to sound so pathetic, but I needed to get this out. Peace, Jen

54. And my therapist says I'm doing better. Hell: the gift that keeps giving. FML. I don't guess I can get a bunk in the halfway house?

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