I know it sometimes must seem like I’m a glutton for punishment. To someone who isn’t forced to live like this, it’s probably easy for you to wonder why I spend so much time talking about how I’m feeling and what I’m doing and how I’m managing. And that’s okay with me—it must be exhausting to see this stuff from the outside, so I don’t blame anyone who needs to take a break from thinking about Kellie being gone for a bit.
I don’t have that luxury, though. This IS my life. I don’t have the option to think about this earth-shattering experience only when I have the emotional energy to handle it. I have to feel these feelings and inhabit this new reality whether I want to or not. And believe me, I don’t want to. I don’t want any of it.
I was reading about someone’s grief experience today, and they talked about how a loss this massive entirely changes one’s self-construction of the world around them. How it feels like you’ve shifted into a parallel universe where everything tastes different and all the colors are just slightly wrong and nothing feels like home anymore. You spend your entire life constructing your own reality and worldview and how things are supposed to be, and when it all changes in an instant, the only thing that hasn’t changed is your own brain. That’s the piece that lags behind everything else. The rest of the world is fine going on in its new wrong orbit, and those colors didn’t care whether they were violet or azure anyhow. But to my eyes, they’re not the way they’re supposed to be. I feel that, deeply.
Fewer people check in with me, these days. I don’t feel less-loved by my support system, but I think as we get further and further out from her death it all just ceases to be something that most people are going to regularly think about. But I think about her all day, every day. I probably need to do more reaching out myself, and maybe I’ll put some energy into that reconnection this weekend. It’s probably not fair of me to assume that I don’t need to check in with other people myself, or to expect that my friends will know what I need if I don’t tell them. When I’m having a hard day, or am feeling like life is just too much for me, saying hi to someone I love often feels like something I can’t possibly force myself to do. It’s about building those new habits, and I haven’t done enough of that yet.
If you think that I’m dwelling on my grief and that it’s unhealthy, I have to disagree with you there. I’m not living in the past—I’m getting up every day, I’m trying new and scary things, and I’m taking care of myself as well as I can. Sometimes I do better at that and sometimes I struggle to muster up enough energy to handle those everyday tasks.
It’s pretty normal to feel like I’m feeling. The more contact I have with other widowed folks, the more I recognize that. I’m doing better than some people, and worse than others. I’ve been in a new chat for newly-widowed people all over the world over the course of the last few days, and that’s been nice. The breadth of our shared experience has been refreshing, in spite of all our differences. Definitely something worth pursuing for me.
I still haven’t heard a response from any of those local widows I sent messages to several weeks ago, so back to the drawing board on that one—like I said back then, I probably wouldn’t be excited to hear from a random guy who wants to be my friend either.
I don’t have any major plans for this weekend, and that’s an exciting prospect right now, as of Friday night. Maybe that’ll change if I get bored or lonely or feel cut off from the rest of the world—but as of now, it feels refreshing to not have to do anything I don’t want to for the next two days. I suspect the dogs will be happy to see me without being left alone for a few days too!
I got a lot of sorting and organizing done in my office today. I was able to pack up some things of Kellie’s that I’m hoping someone is going to be able to sell for me (since I’ve tried, but just don’t have the energy to make it happen). It’s mostly health and beauty items that I don’t have any emotional connection to, but that might bring me a little bit of much-appreciated cash. The plus side of having gotten them out of my office is that I don’t have to look at them on Kellie’s desk every day and feel like a failure for having not dealt with them for almost seven months. It feels more and more like a peaceful space to me, the more I de-clutter. It’s been good.
The other major project I accomplished today is making myself lasagna tonight—it’s my favorite recipe, and one of Kellie’s favorites as well. I haven’t cooked it in about eight months now, and all the pieces just felt like far too much for me until today. I made two small pans, one to eat today and tomorrow and a second to freeze. I cannot overstate what a big deal it is to be able to cook something moderately complex just for me. And I did it, and it tasted good—not great, but definitely good. Better than I’d expected, even. Maybe that’s just the taste of pride spicing it up a bit. Either way, yum.
Have a great weekend, and I’ll be back in your inbox on Monday. And hey, text me or something! Odds are good that I miss you, if I know me (and sometimes I think I do).
XOXO,
Matt