Earlier this week a few of my cousins had texted me about my birthday plans. I had completely forgotten that my birthday was coming up. I had been so focused on the twins and Erik’s birthday that I had forgotten that mine was the same month. Since Erik’s passing, I haven’t really been into celebrating much of anything, unless it was for the twins, let alone my birthday. As it settled in a little more I realized that I was going to be turning the age that Erik had passed away at. That reality was truly unsettling. To think about how much life should be left and how young he still was hit me hard. I knew in my mind that he was young. I mean I was only 29 when he passed. But to have it really sink in that this year I was going to turn the age he was when he died was tough. It took my breath away and I remember just sitting for a moment thinking about nothing. Just astonished at how this was reality. Still not fully believing everything that had happened. I took a second to think about my life up until now. To think of all that I still felt like I had to live and look forward to. And to just imagine being Erik and having all of that gone. What a tragedy. Barely a third of a way through life. That realization has stuck with me every day since. It has made the anticipation of my birthday this year a little tougher. And then it hit me. Well, next year I would be outliving him. Outliving his entire life. I would be older than he ever was. Then he would ever be able to be. Next year I would surpass him in age even though I have always been younger than him and that made my stomach drop. I try often to live in the moment. In the present. Because since Erik’s passing the thought of looking too far into a future I knew he couldn’t be a part of anymore made it that much harder to get through the minutes of the day. But down the rabbit hole, I went. Those two realizations really stuck with me. It buried itself into the pit of my stomach and has been there since. It’s days with those realizations that take me out of my day-to-day mentality. It wakes up the grief that I try hard to bury most days so I can survive. The grief that I bury because I know I’m not ready to fully face it. The grief that is buried right now so I can focus on being a solo parent to toddlers and be as present for my kids as I know I need to be. It’s those realizations that make me frozen in my tracks. The realization that my husband will forever be frozen in his age.
