My heart hurts tonight. And last night. And the night before.
It just hurts.
I feel sad. I feel scared. I feel everything.
Remember those first few weeks and months after the loss, when you literally spent all of your time going from sobbing so hard that you gave yourself a migraine – to sitting on your bed or in a chair and staring at the wall for hours upon end? When you tried to get through the day at work, or get through doing even the slightest task, or get through anything at all, but you couldnt focus on anything else except that they were dead and your heart felt like it had been shoved up inside of your torso? Yeah. That.
I’m back there again. Its been almost 5 years, and Im right back there again.
Back to start.
I don’t mean to be vague in this post, but I really have to be. There are other people’s feelings and emotions involved, and other people’s lives and experiences, and I just can’t get into specifics here and I’m really sorry about that. I highly doubt that this person will ever read this anyway, but on the tiny off-chance that he will, I have to stick to just writing about my own feelings and keeping the rest vague.
So I will just tell you all, my widowed community / family / friends, that I really need you right now. I really need you to all tell me that it will all end up okay, and that it won’t always hurt like this, and that one day, someone besides my forever dead husband, will be up for loving me again. Tell me that I won’t have to be alone forever, that I can be broken with someone else, and we can be broken together. Even if you don’t believe these things to be true, tell me anyway. Tell me it’s going to be okay.
I had a new something with someone, and now I think I may have gone and screwed it all up somehow. I said too much. I feel too much. I scare people away with my enthusiasm. I frighten them with my inability to not express the way I am feeling. I said the wrong thing. Too many things. I messed it all up, and now I just miss my friend. And at the same exact time, that just makes me miss my best friend – my husband. And then I get really sad because my best friend is still dead, and my new friend has gone silent.
I miss the life I had. I miss my husband and all of our simplicities. I miss everything just being easy. Yes, we struggled financially. Yes, we didn’t have much. Yes, we didn’t get to realize our dreams together. But the truth is, life with my husband was easy. It was beautiful, simple, effortless, and easy. He was easy. He was like a breath of fresh air. He was easy to deal with as a human being. He rarely got angry at anything. He rarely got flustered. He didn’t believe in resentment or bitterness, even though he had plenty of reason to feel both. He never blamed his shitty father for being a shitty father, or his batshit crazy mother for being batshit crazy. He approached everything and everyone with tenderness and love and kindness. We never had fights. I literally do not remember arguing with him ever. A few heated discussions over the years about important things – disagreements – but that’s it. He never yelled. And he was patient. He was the poster child for patient. When we met, I was so screwed up, and he was patient beyond words with me. Life with him was so damn good. And easy. And then gone.
This new life, this life after-loss, it is so damn hard. Everything is so damn hard. Why does everything have to be so fucking hard? Everything is so complicated. Family. Jobs. Friends. Memories. Grief. Healing. Starting again. And again. Opening your heart. Feeling rejected. Trying not to take things personally. Working through past “stuff” that keeps haunting you. The possibilities of newness. The very idea of maybe loving again. Every single cell of it is hard.
Since my husband died, I can count on one hand the number of days that have felt simple, peaceful, zen. I am so tired. Tired from living. Tired from trying again. Tired from helping other people try again. Tired from acting like I don’t need just as much help as everyone else. Tired from being inspirational, when half the time, I just want so badly to be held and needed and protected. Tired from being so tired.
I don’t know what else to say. I’m just tired.
Can you guys do me a favor? Just for this one time? Can you please not need for me to be the hopeful one, or the one who gives all of the others some hope? Can you please just sit with me in my pain, and just let me freely feel it, and not ask one other thing of me than to sit here in a ball of nothing and cry? I just don’t have the energy right now to tell myself it will be okay. I will need you all to do that for me. Because my heart hurts tonight.