half a decade

[Mizpah]

Random thoughts in my 5-year anniversary week:

 

- About two weeks ago, I felt unhinged and unstable.  Now I feel fine. 

 

- I keep seeing things about the 5-year anniversary of bin Laden's capture.  Back then, I didn't know we'd gotten him until 2-3 weeks later, because I was in the all-encompassing bubble world of hospital and death and shiva and grief.  It was the first thing that upset me in that particular widow(er) way: because DH wasn't here to know it had occurred.  The world had already begun to change, was different from the one he'd witnessed and inhabited. 

 

- I believed myself to be extremely well-adjusted to his death, because of intensive therapy and a great support system and lots of working out and lots of writing and outdoors and lots of delving and processing, and I still do to a certain degree, but....  I'm realizing as time goes on that perhaps aspects of  my difficulties in my current relationship are due to... not COMPARISONS necessarily to my relationship with DH or to DH himself, but....  Aspects of healing I have perhaps not achieved, let's call it "applied healing."  I'm reconciled with what occurred, but my idea of what relationships are and should be, or my behavior/gratitude/attitude in relationships, or my idea of what a man should be in a relationship), maybe I'm not there yet - it's all still entwined with my experience with DH.  Before DH, I'd never known that people could be so in love, so mutually obsessed, so mutually worshipful, so harmonious together, could sustain that early "in love" feeling for years.  I want to feel the way I did.  I want to *be made to feel* the way I did.  I'm so angry at my boyfriend for not making me feel that way, for not giving me that kind of love.  But no one is DH.  He was extraordinary.  I knew that, he knew it, everyone around him/us knew it.  So why do I not *KNOW* it in the context of my new life?  My boyfriend is not perfect in his treatment of me, but (I think because of DH) I am emotionally insatiable and always disappointed.  And the love he gives me is nourishing in other ways, has a different kind of value, that I am either failing to appreciate or choosing not to appreciate.  I have returned to therapy.  I told her at our first session last week that I'm not sure whether I'm there because my relationship is destroying me, or because I'm destroying my relationship.  Hopefully it's neither.  I'm ready to stop this pattern. 

 

- I feel uncomfortable typing this, but I don't miss DH.  Of course I wish he hadn't died.  I loved him "with a love that was more than love."  I can't imagine ever being happier or as happy as that, it sounds like delusions of grandeur but I can't imagine anyone being happier or as happy as that.  My life would not be as difficult and emotionally painful if he hadn't died.  It will never be ok that he was denied a life that extended beyond 28 years.  He loved life and would have continued to make a great one and he would have appreciated the $h!t out of every tiny drop of it and those around him, as he did.  His death is the great tragedy of my life.  But I don't miss him.  I'm accustomed to his absence.  Maybe it's because I'm distracted by being in a relationship or by raising a young child.  But I don't miss him anymore.  And I don't feel guilty, even though I can say "he should be missed," while also saying, "I don't miss him."

 

And that's what 5 years is like for me. 

[SoVerySad]

Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us, Mizpah. Your posts are always so thoughtfully and honestly constructed which really benefits the rest of us. I hope the actual anniversary date goes as well as possible for you.

 

Tight hugs...

[Guest TooSoon]

I just want you to know that you are on my mind and I think you are brilliant, strong, thoughtful and a a great role model for your daughter. 

 

Just last night I asked Andy if I was a horrible person because I really don't think about Scott anymore.  He said no but then I went on to dredge up all manner of memories.  Go figure. 

 

I am happy to hear that you are feeling better.  It does come back sometimes, doesn't it?  And there is nothing wrong with that.  And it was Passover (as it was Greek/Syrian Easter, not that I care really but rituals, memories).  Lots of love. 

 

PS - I'm going to start reading The Green Road by Anne Enright - any interest? 

[Trying]

I find it so hard to put my complex and often conflicting feelings into words, you do a much better job.  It's interesting that you talk about not missing him.  I find that I miss the things he did, his role in our family, the skills and knowledge he had with things that I don't. Those things are easy to talk about, to think about.  I don't allow myself much opportunity to miss who he was as a person because it's still painful so I save those thoughts for specific times.  Sometimes I feel like this makes me a cold, hard person but really I think it's just my coping mechanism.

 

Your life has changed so dramatically in these 5 years, it must seem like another lifetime for you.  I hope that therapy gives you more insight although from your posts you seem to always look at things from all angles.

 

Hugs to you as you mark a half decade.

[Mizpah]

PS - I'm going to start reading The Green Road by Anne Enright - any interest?

 

Thanks, all.  So glad today is the last of the (what feels like millions of) anniversary dates.  It's like a cloud that I try to ignore, but can't, even though I feel ok.  It's nagging in the periphery, just with its presence. 

 

As for the book, I'd love to, but I'm only on book 2 of Karl Ove Knausgaard's 6, and it's slow-going, with my 2-year-old whirlwind and the dumb full-time job, grrrrr.  The pile of what's next keeps growing though, so maybe I'll add it, let me know how it is.

[ieh21]

It was the first thing that upset me in that particular widow(er) way: because DH wasn't here to know it had occurred.  The world had already begun to change, was different from the one he'd witnessed and inhabited. 

 

I had the same feeling, during the Arab Spring.

 

Your feelings regarding not missing him are very familiar. Life literally does go on and patterns are created that fill the initial void. There are still events I would like to experience with him. There are still thoughts I'd like to share. But overall, he isn't there anymore, and that's the reality of it.

[mo12]

"Applied healing"- well-put.  It's amazing how much one's world, and the whole world, can change in 5 years, hey?  Thanks for your posts, they often bring to light what I can't quite articulate myself!