No idea what I want to say today.
I am feeling so restless. Right this minute, this week, this year. In life.
I have always been someone who knows what I want. Someone with specific goals and dreams, and a certain and roundabout way of getting there. I have always had a vision.
Lately though, I’m having a lot of trouble seeing things. Everything feels blurry. Everything feels up in the air. My thoughts change from moment to moment, and I feel like some indecisive teenager who is discovering life for the first time. Some parts of this feeling are a bit exciting, but mostly, it scares me and feels foreign. This isn’t me. It’s not the me I am used to dealing with. I don’t know this version of me, and therefore, I have no idea how to navigate her.
So many questions. So many thoughts. So much anxiety.
I guess, maybe, perhaps, that after almost 5 years since the sudden death of my beautiful husband, I have finally reached that point in life where my main thought has switched from the old standby of: How am I supposed to do this without him? to more of: Okay. What next? What now? Where do I belong in this world that I exist in today? Where is my next home?
The life I knew with my husband is no longer. This still feels surreal to me most days, but I know more than ever that it’s the brutal truth of things. So, after 5 years of surviving and trying to breathe, maybe I’m just now trying to figure out that next step. All I know is that I can’t stop feeling restless. Like I want to do something drastic, or different, or not expected. My heart feels all over the place. I’m dating again, and while a big part of me is very much enjoying that, another perhaps bigger part of me sits inside of a situation with a person that is very special to me, and who isn’t anywhere near ready to be more than my awesome friend. I feel torn. I feel anxious. I feel like nothing is keeping me anywhere, and on a daily basis, I have this weird urge to pack up all my stuff and just move somewhere else. Where? Who the hell knows.. A new city. A new start. Something different. Shake things up. When I tell you I have NEVER felt this way before in my life until this past year, it’s the truth. This is not the me I’m used to. I don’t know how to navigate this or figure it out. I just know it’s there, and I don’t know why.
And yet, I don’t have the luxury of doing anything such as this. My life is stuggling. Working paycheck to paycheck. Paying the bills. Trying to keep health insurance I can barely afford. Making it on my crappy paycheck. Having obligations. Having the 2 cats my husband left me with to drag with me wherever I end up. Trying to hold onto the one job with the one steady income I have had in the past 15 years. Responsibilities. I can’t just pack up and go somewhere. That isn’t what my life is about. Maybe I wish I could. Maybe this is some form of rebellion or resentment I’m feeling at the fact that I’ve had to do everything alone the past 5 years. Maybe I’m just tired and over it. Maybe I want something different.
Part of me wants to leave here and try a new city. Part of me wants to just make my life easier and live in a place where the cost of living is a lot cheaper, so my entire life doesn’t consist of just paying the bills and barely scraping by. Part of me wants to keep my promise to Don that we would move to Florida together and retire there. And yes, I know that’s crazy. First of all, I’m only 44 years old, so obviously I can’t retire for a very long time, if ever. Also, Don is dead. So I won’t be moving to Florida with him anytime soon. But, when I’m down there, I feel a sense of peace and closeness to him that is difficult to describe. I feel like he is really, truly with me, and that I am somehow back home. I don’t understand any of these feelings. Florida is way too fucking hot for me. And I have never felt like wanting to leave NYC. Until this year.
This probably isn’t very interesting for anyone else to read today. I’m sorry. It seems like the kind of thing that one would discuss with their husband – what to do next, where to go, life decisions. But I don’t have a husband anymore, and so now I talk to myself in a blog post in type, and I feel a little bit crazy.
It’s like I’m one of those paper or plastic bags that you see outside sometimes, in city parks or playgrounds, or maybe near the boardwalk of a beach. It’s just there. Sort of floating. Back and forth. Drifting. Slowly coming down, then being brought back up by the wind. It’s destination is unknown, and it has no real purpose at this specific moment. It just stays mid-air, teetering on nothingness. I feel like that paper bag right now. And what I need is for someone else , something else, some force, to step in here – and make my next move obvious. I need for the wind to take me wherever it is that I am supposed to be going.