Jen

Right now I want someone to show me that I'm not as dead as I feel-- to wake up all those nerve endings that now seem to have gone on permanent vacation. I've been told I'm passionate-- I want somebody to help me prove that's still true. I'd make it worth their while, I think. Unless I really am the zombie I seem to be now.

(((((HUGS))))))

I'm a girl of few words tonight, but I want to say that I think you're right. Hugs.

Just want to tell you I'm mentally wrapping you in huge squishy hugs. Cry as much as you need to, and be super gentle with yourself. I know it hurts-- I hurt for you. I'm so, so sorry. Thinking of you...

Just finished a screaming match with my 15-year-old dd that concluded with her dramatically smashing a glass on a tile floor. The appalling injustice done to her? She was asked to move her legs so her brother could sit down on the couch. @@ Now no one is one the couch-- the tv has been turned off, the glass swept up, and everyone sent to bed. I have retreated to my room to watch Mysteries at the Museum on my laptop. Another scintillating Saturday night. Sigh.

Oh, hugs!!! Deep breaths... I'm panicking for you, so you don't have to! I had something similar happen with the first house Jim and I moved into. I called the landlord immediately and explained the error-- in my case, the direct deposit for my paycheck was unexpectedly delayed. He was exasperated, but he agreed to hold onto my check until the next day. I took him a cashier's check, and he gave me the first check back, so I was able to avoid the bounce-- but he took the opportunity to rub it in a little, and made me promise that it would never happen again. @@ Anyway, it all worked out, but it was crazy stressful. I'm so sorry you're having to deal with this. Just breathe-- all will be well. Promise. More hugs!

((((Hugs))))) I miss meaning something to someone too...

((((((jlp)))))) This whole wid gig is so exhausting. It never. Freaking. Ends! Every morning I wake up-- nope, still a wid. No matter what the issue, the buck stops here. Doesn't look like that's likely to change. No one is beating down my door to take any of it on. I keep hoping one of my neighbors will see me struggling to cut my lawn with the 16" non-powered mower while it's 97F out, 90% humidity-- no dice. Oh, well. I need the exercise. I'm just rambling. People mean well, I think, when they tell us "Just call if there's anything I can do!" They just don't expect us to take them up on it, and it doesn't occur to them to offer. We need a wid commune, where we can all support each other and the DGIs can happily ignore us. :-\

I want to tell you I've read this a few times, and I just don't know what to tell you... I wish there was something I could say to help. I do know what you mean about unintentionally getting attached to someone, just to see them pull away. It hurts like hell, even when there was never any ill meant by anyone. If anyone has a right to have abandonment issues, it's us wids-- and there's no question that I'm hypersensitive to feeling left behind. It's no one's fault, but that doesn't make the hurt go away. I wish with all my heart that I knew a fix. I'm trying hard to learn to rely only on myself. My brain knows that no other human will ever fill this hole in me. My heart doesn't want to accept that. ((((Hugs)))) I'm so sorry. I'm sad too... lonely and sad and pretty much hopeless. These days I'm just trying not to care.

A thousand ((((HUGS))))))!!!!! I'm so sorry. I wish I could do better... I'll hug you for real next week!

Hugs from here too, sweetie. I wish I had something more concrete. Peace to you.

(((Catnip))) I'm so very sorry. My dh passed very suddenly from a PE as well, 3 days after his 40th birthday. It was just an ordinary day-- I went to work, just like always. I had no idea-- well, none of us did. I wish... (((((HUGS)))))

Hi Brenda, The day I got the urn with my dh's cremains last year, I opened it and-- weird as it may sound-- scooped a small amount into a little vial, which I then wore inside my bra (don't laugh-- or go ahead, if you need to; dh was a "breast man" anyway, and I'm sure he was giggling madly at it!) for the next several months. After some time, I found that I didn't need to have his physical remains with me at all times, so I put the vial on the dresser beside his urn. (I never used the spoon for anything else, either!) Two weeks ago, I took my family on a road trip to southwestern Colorado, to Mesa Verde National Park. I lived out there when I was a kid, and it's always held deep meaning for me. I wanted to take Jim, but we never got a chance to go. Instead, I took that vial of ashes. He knew I had requested to have at least some of my own ashes scattered on top of the mesa some day, so I'm sure he knew what I was intending. I took the vial up to the highest point in the park-- 8,572' above sea level (ironically, Jim was born *at* sea level!). The views of the La Plata mountains and the desert are stunning-- it was a gorgeous day, with a nice breeze and lots of sunshine. The sky was an unbelievably blue blue peculiar to summer skies over that mesa-- it really is one of the most beautiful places in the world. Two of my kids walked up with me (number three isn't a hiker, but neither was Jim, and I know he understood), and we just stood and basked in the peace and loveliness for a few minutes. I found the precise place I wanted-- I felt it, if that makes sense-- and scattered the ashes. The wind picked them up and carried them a little way, over some rabbit brush that was blooming. Just then, a yellow butterfly appeared, fluttered around us a minute, then went on its way. Just my recent experience. I don't know if I'll repeat it-- there's not anywhere else I really want to take him. His mother already spread her portion on their family's farm, so he's "home" there too. I've considered having some of the ashes made into one of those memorial gemstones-- I think my Jim would like the idea (he also suggested pencil lead and soap, both of which can be made with cremains), but I don't know if I'd ever be able to afford it. Meanwhile... he's at peace, and so am I. ((((Hugs))))

((((Maureen))))) When you mention crying softly, I'm right there with you. It's so unfair, and I would give anything to change it for you. Hold on, sweetie. One more day. We keep getting through, right? Breathing with you... more hugs, Jen

What she said!!!! (((((((HUGS))))))))

Yes, please.

I'm a few days shy of 15 months. I like the image of grief as a spiral-- we go round and round, it's not a straight line. We revisit the same places over and over, maybe a little further out, maybe with slightly new perspective. Eventually-- I hope-- we're far enough from our loss that we can see how much progress we've actually made, and we realize that, against all odds, we're okay. That's what I'm hanging on for, anyway. (((((HUGS))))

I wish I had more. but... ((((((((HUGS))))))))) I just got back from southwest Colorado, still my favorite place on the planet. I scattered some ashes at the highest point in Mesa Verde National Park-- a place I always wanted to take Jim, and never got to. It was hard... but I felt better once I'd done it. I hope your experience is similar, but I wish with all my heart that neither of us had to do it at all. much love, Jen

Hugs. I've reached a point where I feel that I'm in the world but not of it... barely human anymore. People are happy to tell me how strong I am and how much they admire me, but no one will reach out a hand to help me along. I'm ready to tell the whole planet to suck it. (((((Trying)))))) Hang in there. Thinking of you, sweetie, and wishing I could do more to help.

My family all went to an all-day holiday picnic/swimming/fireworks extravaganza out in the country-- I was invited, but I had to work. That was fine; I didn't feel like being social anyway. I got a small pizza from a local bistro and ate it while watching Captain America: The First Avenger on cable. I ended up curled in a fetal position on the couch, telling myself over and over, "I'm fine by myself, I don't care, I don't need anyone." Meant to come here and post about it, but I couldn't summon the energy. I went to bed before my gang got home, just so I wouldn't have to pretend to be glad they all had a great time. Speaking of the sex thread-- I wondered about posting there as well. I had another round of intensely vivid dreams that led to a small breakdown when I woke up. Happy Fourth to me. Sigh.

This is me as well. I'm trying so hard to take action, to get busy living instead of staying stuck in hell, but it's slow and painful. I tell myself over and over I'm fine, I don't need anyone to complete me, I'm sufficient to myself-- and sometimes I can almost believe it. I just want someone to tell me that there will be a day when I'm not acutely aware-- even if I'm smiling-- that I'm bereft. I want to believe that I will eventually have mostly okay-to-happy with occasional, brief ouchy moments, instead of the other way round. (((((HUGS)))))) I wish there was an easy fix-- or any fix at all. Right there with you, sweetie.

So many hugs. I'm intensely missing intimacy right now-- physical, yes, but emotional even more. I'm trying to come terms with the fact that I may never experience that kind of connection again in this life. I think I would give everything I have and more to have one more day with my Jim, who really was like the other half of my soul. I know I have to learn to live without that intimacy, but it's hard not to hate this maimed half-life I've been left. Working on it.

((((Hugs))))) That's a scarily accurate way to put it. I feel like I'm circling it endlessly-- but I never quite manage to whoosh out. I can't quite escape the downward pull, though. :-/

(((((Jess)))))) From where I'm sitting, it sounds like your brain trying to come to terms with the massive changes over the past year-- parts of you resist them, other parts welcome them. It's so hard to be where we are, trying to build our lives over again. I think you're doing an incredible job, for what it's worth.

I'm a little hesitant to post this-- I had a significant (I think) shift today, and I feel like I need to get it out. It may not amount to a hill of beans, as my granny used to say, but, then again, it might be another corner turned. I don't know. This morning I woke up at my usual time-- and I just couldn't do it. I could not face another day. I hid under the covers and mumbled, "Please don't make me. Please." I've been taking my mom to work, because she's 71 and it's hard for her to make the hike from the outlying parking lot into the big teaching hospital where she works, so I did force myself to get up and put some clothes on and get in the car. I drove her there and then came back home, told my youngest (the only one awake) that I'd be upstairs if he needed me, and got back in bed. I didn't go to sleep, at least not right away-- I lay there and thought for a long time. I didn't cry, I wasn't hysterical (I've been prone to crying jags lately, not sure why), I just... thought. And I came to the conclusion that I'm done. I've been saying that for a long time-- since Jim died, in fact. I think now that I finally mean it. I'm just done. No more hurting. No more feeling. I'm done. I wondered for a little while if that meant I had made up my mind to stop living-- to kill myself, in fact. There's really nothing left in this life that I want, other than things I can't have, so what is the point, really? Why struggle on, day after empty day? I considered it. Then I heard my son laughing at something he was watching on television, and the idea went straight out the window. It's just not an option. I'm here for the duration, like it or not. If my life is empty, then it's up to me to fill it somehow. I've got to make a life I can tolerate, something more than work and family obligation. I've got to-- I don't know. Take up piano or learn French or become an armchair expert on Sumerian archaeology. Something. There has to be more to this existence than this vast sucking void inside me. I dozed off at that point, woke up an hour later when the doorbell rang-- the FedEx guy delivering the international cell phone I bought for my trip to Amsterdam. Oh, yeah! I'm going to Amsterdam in 2 weeks. That's something, right? After that-- well, I have no idea. But there has to be something. Has to be. So what if no one ever wants me? I have to want myself, since I'm the one who's stuck with me. I'm tired of being miserable and lonely. I'm still me, and there used to be a fair few things I liked about myself. They must still be in there somewhere. I can't change what's happened to me. I can find another way to define myself, though. I guess that's my new task. Or maybe it's been the same one all along.