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Breathing In and Breathing Out

Posted on: July 2, 2016 | Posted by: Rebecca Collins

I’m batting jet-lag to write my blog today, so I apologise in advance for any typos (or any more than usual!) and if I ramble on a bit. I got home to Brisbane, Australia on a red-eye flight from the USA this morning, after three weeks away.  It was a wonderful holiday, with the highlight being Camp Widow West in San Diego, however I reeeeeally missed my boyfriend.  

We’d been in constant contact while I was away, counting down the days, and then hours, until we would be reunited. He was waiting for me at the airport this morning and when I dragged my tired ass through the arrivals gate and into his arms, I hadn’t realised I’d been holding my breath in fear that I’d never get that moment with him.

You see, I haven’t missed someone like that since Dan died and it reminded me of that feeling I had almost every day for the first year or so after – that sensation of aching to hold him and touch his face.  However, unlike missing my dead husband who I would never get to hold again – I was missing someone very much alive and waiting to hold me too. The excitement of that was such a stark contrast to the agony of missing Dan, it was a very strange and confusing feeling.

After three weeks of missing my boyfriend, waiting to be reunited, I hadn’t realised how scared I was that something might happen to him while I was gone and I’d never get to see him again. I hadn’t voiced my fear, but I was worried he’d die in his sleep or have a car accident and when I finally returned home to him, after all this missing and counting down, he’d be gone too. 

I didn’t want to spook him with my morbid thoughts. I know I could tell him, and he’d be ok, as he’s been so understanding about everything in this new relationship.  But I didn’t want today to be about death or grief or my widow-hood. Not today. 

I would love for my brain to stop worrying and over-thinking and trying to figure out what everything means.  I don’t know how the rest of my life is going to play out.  I don’t know for sure that I won’t get hurt again. I don’t know if I’m destined to grow old with this man but that’s ok, I’m not supposed to know that right now. I don’t have to have it all worked out. 

I can’t see the future and I don’t want to go through every day anticipating it and have my worries over-shadow my ability to live in the now. It’s too exhausting. I can’t keep holding my breath, wondering if someone I love will die and I won’t be there to save them. Because I just can’t control it.  All I can do is keep breathing in and breathing out. And wait and see what the next day brings, despite how scary that might be.  

Categories: Widowed, Widowed and Healing, Widowed and New Love, Widowed by Suicide

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