What I Now Know

 I know it's been a while since I've blogged and I hate to come back with bad news but there's no getting around it.

On November 22, 2018 (Thanksgiving day) I had to say goodbye to Mr. T forever after 34 years together. I'm still pretty much in disbelief and sadder than I've ever been in my life.

2018 was the best year we've had in a long time...until it wasn't.

I have lots of thoughts and I want to share them as I make this journey but right now I want to share a few of the things I've learned in the last 3 months.

For me, it’s more like sitting in the beautiful house, a bomb goes off and when you open your eyes everything is still exactly the same, the beautiful house is still there around you just like it was before. And yet, everything is different. It’s like the oxygen was sucked out of the room. Everything around you is still in color but you feel like you’re in grayscale and fading even if other people don’t see you that way.

It’s a million different things and I think it’s different for each person. Some people detach and can’t feel any emotion. Some feel every emotion but way out of proportion. Some people crawl into bed and never want to get out until a friend/family comes by and forces them out. Some of us know there is no one there to pull us out of the abyss so we can’t even fall in.

Some people can’t stand to be at home because there are too many memories or too much silence. I’m the opposite, I take comfort from my house and love to be there. My house makes me smile. It helps that Charlie is there with me.

It’s going from being a fairly self-sufficient individual to someone who feels inadequate to the task of daily living.
It’s driving to work every day with tears streaming down your face, sometimes silently, sometimes accompanied by noises you didn’t know you could make.
It’s waking up on Christmas morning totally and completely alone. No one else is around and no one will be around or contacting you all damn day.
It’s feeling disappointed that there are no presents and then feeling small because you’re disappointed at something so meaningless.
It's having to spend Christmas day dealing with your ancient and needy mother.
It's knowing there is no one who is ever going to help you with your mother.
It's knowing that the future you had looked forward to with your sister and husband without having to deal with your mother's needs will never come.
It's knowing you never even got a chance to grieve for your sister.
It’s dreading weekends and holidays because endless hours stretch in front of you.
It’s not caring about what or when you eat.
It’s practically passing out when hunger finally kicks in.
It’s feeling physically weak when you’ve never felt weak before.
It’s knowing that no grief you’ve ever known before, not even grief for a beloved parent, feels like this or has the same impact on your daily life.
It’s knowing that no one that’s not “in the club” really understands even though they think they do.
It’s being part of the shitty club.
It’s hearing people in the club still struggling 10 years later.
It’s knowing you’re going to let down a friend by not taking a job but you know you won’t be able to physically put in the hours and that it’s not right for you.
It’s losing yourself in a book or movie and forgetting for a little while only to have it explode in your heart when you remember.
It’s walking through a place you used to enjoy together and then you smell the glazed almonds, which you don’t even like but they were his favorite treat, and you suddenly can’t breathe.
It's not being able to wrap your brain around the fact that this really happened and waiting to wake up from the worst nightmare ever.
It's knowing you'll never wake up.
It’s being at a place you used to eat together or sit together or laugh together and feeling a knife slicing through your heart.
It’s making yourself stay up too late each night, until you’re exhausted, so that you can go to bed and pass out and not think.
It’s waking up exhausted each morning because you went to bed too late and didn’t get enough sleep.
It’s rejoicing over finding pictures you didn’t remember, wallowing in them and then having to stop because it’s making him too real and it’s going to hurt too much to never see him in person again.
It’s being sad about friends that have disappeared from your life.
It’s worry about how your future is going to change and not for the better.
It’s being terrified of being homeless or ending up the unwanted relative that has to move in.
It’s wondering how you’re going to make it through the next 40 years.
It’s anger over life’s circumstances that took you from being prepared financially for all of this to not being prepared.
It’s pain knowing that you not being prepared and having to struggle was his worst nightmare and worry that kept him up at night..
It’s horrific knowing his worst nightmare came true.
It's worry that you're not going to make it.
It’s missing his cooking.
It’s apathy at ever cooking again.
It’s embarrassing to burst into tears and not be able to talk about some subjects.
It’s frustrating about needing to talk about those subjects.
It’s turning to writing, which you love, to work out the grief and then having to stop because you’re dissolved in tears and you’re at work or you’re at home and you’re scaring the dog.
It’s needing to bring more Kleenex to work.
It’s knowing that your reactions make people uncomfortable.
It’s looking up at an event and catching someone staring at the widow.
It’s wondering if you’re crying too much.
It’s wondering if you’re smiling too much.
It’s wanting to be out and doing something fun.
It’s suddenly wanting to go home.
It’s desperately needing to be home to the point that you think you might not make it there from needing it so much.
It’s talking out loud in an empty house.
It’s missing those daily phone calls on his drive home that used to annoy you because you needed to fix dinner or you wanted to keep watching that tv show.
It’s being glad you stayed on the daily phone calls and listened anyway.
It's joy that he wanted to make those daily phone calls.
It’s being happy you were able to travel so much.
It’s being angry you weren’t able to travel much the last few years.
It’s being eternally grateful for the perfect week in Carmel in September.
It’s sadness that you’ll never live in Carmel again.
It’s knowing that it wouldn’t be the same anyway.
It’s wanting to travel but feeling grief at not being able to make those new memories together.
It’s needing to make those memories for him.
It’s wanting to travel but knowing you can’t even afford the gas for a road trip up the coast.
It’s defeat.
It’s getting back up again.
It’s the day you make it to work without tears.
It’s the next day when you don’t.
It’s knowing you’ll keep trying.
It’s laughter when you do something stupid on the road and you can hear his voice.
It’s joy at a happy memory.
It's knowing that this will make people uncomfortable and feel like they don't know what to say.
It is what it is.