Anytime I do anything in my life after loss that I never got to do with Don because he died – it gives me this nervous feeling in my gut. I get all shaky and nauseous and I feel faint and hot, like I might fall down. People always tell me “dont feel guilty for being happy” or “he would want you to be happy” and all of that stuff. Yes. I know this, and its not guilt. That is simplifying it and inaccurate for what this feeling is. Its a feeling where my heart sort of stops, and Im holding my breath just waiting for the other shoe to drop.
It happens during all the big milestones, or when something good happens that he isnt here to be a part of. It happened the day I realized he had been dead longer than we were married, or the day I became “older” than him, when in life, he was 7 years older than me. It happened when Nick and I found our apartment together last year and then moved in. It happened leading up to our private New Years Eve wedding – especially when I went to Davids Bridal for dress shopping. When I married Don back in 2006, we had my dress made by a seamstress friend of the family. So there was no trying on of anything, and I had never had that experience. Now, here I was, at a bridal shop, during a pandemic, trying gowns on while wearing a mask and not being allowed any family or guests to come with me. It felt lonely and sad, and I started getting that shaky feeling again that is hard to explain. Anxiety. Panic. Widow Brain and widow heart. The heart knows what has happened, and what CAN happen, and why the hell wouldnt it maybe happen twice? If I dare marry again and find love again, maybe it will all be taken away again for no damn reason. And then I would have to figure out the next steps. What to do next. How to breathe again. How to exist. How to start from a blank slate. I cannot imagine ever having the energy to go through this twice. The thought of it makes me sick to my stomach.
So I try not to go there. In my brain. In my heart. But there are times, days, months, years, where its impossible not to go there, or live there sometimes. And here I am, one decade after Don’s death, one month away from turning 50 years old – and my brain is focused on how little I knew back when I was one month away from turning 40, and my life disappeared in a second. I cant help it. What if it happens again? When those thoughts come, I do my best to squelch them, because Im fully aware that I cant let them control me or take over. But its hard. And sometimes, its more than hard. Its a lot of work to keep those thoughts at bay. That feeling of holding my breath just lingers, until I feel like I might pass out.
Ill be okay. I just need to remind myself to breathe.
