3 months

[bromans]

At just over 3 months, I feel like things are taking a bad, bad turn. I'm so lost. The days feel like they are getting longer, and Im faking it at every turn. The only person who ever knew me is gone; not even I know who I am without her... I don't want to know. I feel myself slowly forgetting what that person was like. I'm scared and I'm lonely and I'm sick of acting like I'm not. Im tired of watching 70s gameshows just to fall asleep.  I'm tired of cleaning bird crap off her headstone. I'm 24 years old, why am I doing this? Don't you dare tell me it will get better with time; I dread the passing of time. I dread the day day that I turn 46, double her age. One day I'll have to make a living for myself and I dread that day. I feel like a burden to everyone around me. Only one person promised to be there during my worst moment. To make me laugh. To hold me when the nightmares wake me up, or when I'm panicking for no reason. But now she's gone and I don't know how to move forward. Or sideways. Or even backward for that matter. Ugh.

 

Im sorry you had to read this... this is one of my worst days yet... until tomorrow.

[Wheelerswife]

Of course you have bad days, bromans.

 

This is not how life was supposed to be.  I think that most of us have felt this way after losing a spouse.  This isn't supposed to happen at age 24.  (It isn't supposed to happen at age 47 and 51, either, but it did.)  I seems so cruel that some people have to learn this lesson at such a young age.

 

This is the time when you can't look forward too much.  It is too difficult to imagine life in another year or another 20 years without your love with you.  So...we figure out how to get through the next day or even just the next hour.  You have done it for 3 months.  You will do it another day. 

 

I have done this twice, and even though I made it through the first time, that knowledge didn't necessarily help me in the early days after I lost my second husband.  So...I won't tell you that it will get better.  I will just tell you that we will be here with you along the way.

 

Hugs to you,

 

Maureen

[Trying]

Wheelerswife says it all so well.  I barely remember 3 months because it was such a dark time.  Shock had worn off, the immediate rush of details to attend to had passed, the people around me moved on with their lives and the days dragged on with no ability to see a future.  I also did not believe that time would change the way I felt and in many ways I didn't want to feel differently.  I didn't know who I was without him and I didn't have the energy to find out.

 

Keep posting and reading here, we understand.  Try not to look too far ahead, you aren't supposed to have it all figured out yet. 

[MissingBilly]

I'm at 11 weeks, so almost three months, and am feeling so many of the same things. I am 50--we were just getting ready to cut back from full-time work and start to see what new lives we could create (no kids), and now I am alone, worried I could live many years still without him (and kinda hoping that fate intervenes and I don't), with absolutely no idea who I am after 24 years together.

 

We were so intertwined--everything in our lives, every decision, every move, was a team effort. And now I am so guilt-ridden to be here alone, moving on while he can't, and so overwhelmed that I have to come up with a completely new "me', because there is almost nothing left that wasn't one-half of "us," and half-of-an-"us" is not especially well-suited to being middle-aged and alone.

 

Our hobbies were shared, our interests were the same, we spent so much of our free time together, that I just have almost nothing that's only mine. And, as Trying said, right now I have absolutely no energy to try to figure any of it out. I watched TV for 12 consecutive hours yesterday. It was all I could do.

 

I guess we just have to trust what those further down the road say, that the mind does begin to process things differently as time passes. So I am trying to tamp down my intense internal expectations to Do Something, and just try to sit with it all for now. But it's so painful.

 

[Mrs.johnson]

[Mizpah]

Don't you dare tell me it will get better with time; I dread the passing of time.

 

I remember this thought so well, though I remember the 3 month general time so little (thank Gd).  I remember thinking that each moment just took me further from him, and took him further from life.  Each moment separated us more and more, and I hated it.  Like you, I didn't WANT to feel better - rather, I wanted to be close to him.  (He was 28 and was hit by a car while he was standing on a sidewalk.  My therapist told me early on that I was not just dealing with loss, but also with trauma.  I was angry even at that - I didn't care about what I had to go through or "the process," I only cared about him - what he had lost, the him that I had lost.  Everything that wasn't him obliterated him.)  Like Trying, I barely remember "the early days."  Writing memories helped me continue to feel close to him, or at least to resist thinking about anything other than him, like I was preserving pieces of him that could otherwise disappear, since I was now the only bearer of all things only he and I knew.  Perhaps it could bring you some comfort.  Now I have journals full of stories.  I don't have him.  But I did.  And for that I will always be the luckiest.  Like you.  Just keep surviving.  And honestly - just keep hurting.  It's what is natural and normal.  What's the quote?  "The pain now is the love then - that's the deal."  Something like that.  Or from Joyce Carol Oates' book about losing her husband: "Suffer.  He was worth it."  I'm babbling.  Just trying to give you anything that could possibly be of value to you, as you now is me then.  We all walk next to, beside, and behind you. 

[bromans]

I'm babbling.

 

That was some darn good babbling, Mizpah. Everything that you said about not wanting to feel better, or go through the process is exactly what was going through my head.

[Adley]

Hey Bromans, I was 31.  Just gonna have to lay it out there for you, I'm sure you still get the "you're still young" thing often enough. I did even at 31. What people don't expect and what many of us come to find out is that we'll never be who we were anymore. That person was her husband, as much of an identity as any other trait. Just take all the time you need, and post here all you want.

[Julester3]

Yeah, you'll never be the same person and you need to figure out who you are now as a result or who you want to try to be and then attempt to come to terms. I tried to find the independent, carefree girl I was prior to meeting my husband thinking that was a strong version of me. I can pretend to be that version of me and tap into that spirit but I still had to come to terms that I am not that crazy, sassy, naive girl anymore. I'm much older, wiser, a bit more reserved and careful, but I can compromise and take away what qualities I liked from that version of myself. I'd say it involved a lot of self reflection. In the beginning, I wrote a lot to my dead husband in a journal I created on my laptop and then the entries just started morphing into figuring myself out and then predicting what he'd advise. I'd try to challenge myself to say what are my current goals (all my goals are pretty much revolving around my kids and I don't like any long term goals or my own personal goals) and what I need to do to keep myself going from day to day (crafty hobbies - the busier I am, the more peace I seem to have because it clears my mind and as a result eases my spirit). Am I still a mess? In the inside, I am honestly still on the fence trying to balance and not fall off but on the outside, I am functional and people see me standing ready on the ground.

 

Just be kind to yourself. It's all still so early for you in the grief state. Just know that it's harder to recall a good day versus the many bad days. Again, I blame the time vacuum for that! Don't look too far ahead, just make tiny goals, by the hour, by the day and hopefully you can find little silver linings in your day to focus on instead of the void we all know that's there and can't be avoided. Hugs!

 

Time is irrelevant for us, I think. I think that's why we go through similar motions but in different phases and times. I feel like I am in a personal vacuum since my husband passed. I know and realize that time is passing but I don't feel it not that I care to.

 

Hugs for you today. We all need a hug some times.