Breakthrough

I joined a website for widow/ers at about a month out, and a lot of times I can use it as a sounding board for my feelings. It makes me realize how "normal" my feelings are. It is a pretty well known thing there that you are NUMB for awhile after the loss of your spouse. I'm pretty sure I've talked about it here before. Obviously you miss your spouse and you are incredibly sad, but your brain doesn't GET IT.

I keep thinking that I'm out of that fog, and then I regress. I hate the fog. It sounds like it would be nice to not feel things as intensely, but it is hell for me. I can't understand my feelings, I can't understand my life, I can't understand my thoughts. Well, I can't really ever understand any of that lately, but it's different. It's so hard to explain.

I've realized in the past month or so, that I've been changing. My grief seems to focus on one thing for awhile, and then I get used to focusing on that thing. Then, I fall back into numbness, have a few breakdowns, and come out with a new grief focus. For example, I would be heartbroken over losing my best friend for about a week, and then my brain will shut down for a few days, and then I'll be SO sad for Steve for not getting a full life, and that will be the main thing I'll be sad about for awhile. It is almost like my mind can't handle being sad about more than one thing at a time.

I feel like I have regressed hard. I think it started right before Steve's birthday (this last Sunday) and Memorial day (this last Monday). I felt an emptiness. I couldn't understand what happened. Logically, I knew Steve was gone, but the emotional side of my brain felt like he was just gone to Guam or something. We spent to much time apart it was kind of a normal thing. I think it might make grieving harder for me in the long run. I've been hiding from my feelings. I've been busy the past few days, and so I've been focusing my mind on that as much as I can.** Getting out of "the fog" is sort of like riding a bike up a hill. You have to work to get to the peak, and once you're to the other side, you fly to the bottom. I keep trying to push myself out of the numbness, because it feels so wrong. I don't want to feel so disconnected from Steve. It confuses me and I don't like it.

Well, I've had a breakthrough tonight, and I'm back to my grieving. I think I might be in a "grieving the future we lost" phase. Doesn't help that I'm looking for a place to move. I don't know.



**It is amazing how much my mind is able to multi-task. It doesn't matter how busy I am, or what I am doing, I'm thinking about Steve every waking minute.

Happy birthday sweetie.

Happy birthday sweets! I love you.

Sharing

A few months ago (ok, I'll admit it, it was at least 3 or 4 months ago), Kammi at Misadventures of an Alternative Navy Spouse started doing guests posts on her her blog about different life experiences of mil-spouses. I emailed her saying that I was interested in writing a guest post, because I don't think many people hear much about the experience of being a widow. About once or twice a week since then, I have tried to sit down and write something, but I couldn't form the words to explain my feelings. Each time I tried to write it I focused on something different. Finally, last night, I realized that I don't have to explain what happens. I don't have to give a play by play of what you go through (even just on the military side of it). I just wanted to show a piece of myself.

I think the problem I had every time i tried to write it, was that I felt like I needed to give the back story every time. I needed to talk about how Steve and I started dating, and our experience with the military. I needed to talk about his death, and the things that happened after. Honestly though, sometimes those things don't matter to the story. Obviously they are a huge part of my life and who I am, but it doesn't matter how long we were together, or when he was stationed where, or how he died. The story I was trying to tell was about the pain I feel.

This was as close as I could get to showing how I feel the large majority of the time. When I'm sad, those are the things I think about. When I'm having a decent day, those are the things I think about. When I'm angry, those are the things I think about.

You can see my post here, and check out the rest of Kammi's blog. I've been reading her blog since before she was pregnant with her adorable daughter, and I think she is an amazing woman, mil-spouse, and mom.

Time does not bring relief.

Time does not bring relief; you all have lied 
Who told me time would ease me of my pain! 
I miss him in the weeping of the rain; 
I want him at the shrinking of the tide; 
The old snows melt from every mountain-side, 
And last year's leaves are smoke in every lane; 
But last year's bitter loving must remain 
Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide. 
There are a hundred places where I fear 
To go - so with his memory they brim. 
And entering with relief some quiet place 
Where never fell his foot or shone his face 
I say, 'There is no memory of him here!' 
And so stand stricken, so remembering him. 


Edna St Vincent Millay (1892 -1950)






I'm basically posting this because I can't keep my thoughts together enough for a coherent post.

Lost

I just don't know what to do. It's been five months today. I miss my best friend. Even the annoying, stubborn, know it all parts.

One of these days I'll get around to posting about our wedding. It's a lot of pictures though, and I'm lazy and unmotivated. On a happier side, things are starting to work out. I mean, they still suck, but the other things that added to my stress are starting to go away.

May Flowers.

May can suck it. I'm not ready for it.

May 2009

Here's what I will thinking about this month. May 7, 2007, Steve asked me to be his girlfriend. In my car, in the parking lot of the high school. Awww. May 23, 2008 I graduated high school. Baller. Steve went to the grad night party and we got back together. May 29 should be his 20th birthday. May 31 last year he was on his way to Guam. I wish he stayed there forever and ever.

May, we're fighting. I hate you.

We loved with a love that was more than a love.

I was looking at some of the stuff I had saved on my computer, and found the poem Annabel Lee by Edgar Allen Poe.

....


And then I realized Steve's name fits nicely. I have too much time on my hands. And no, this is not meant to be serious at all.

It was many and many a year ago, In a kingdom by the sea, That a dude there lived whom you may know By the name of STEVEN C; And this dude he lived with no other thought Than to love and be loved by me. I was a child and he was a child, In this kingdom by the sea; But we loved with a love that was more than love- I and my Steven C; With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven Coveted him and me. And this was the reason that, long ago, In this kingdom by the sea, A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling My beautiful Steven C; So that his highborn kinsman came And bore him away from me, To shut him up in a sepulchre In this kingdom by the sea. The angels, not half so happy in heaven, Went envying him and me- Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know, In this kingdom by the sea) That the wind came out of the cloud by night, Chilling and killing my Steven C. But our love it was stronger by far than the love Of those who were older than we- Of many far wiser than we- And neither the angels in heaven above, Nor the demons down under the sea, Can ever dissever my soul from the soul Of the beautiful Steven C. For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams Of the beautiful Steven C; And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes Of the beautiful Steven C; And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side Of my darling- my darling- my life and I’m his bride, In the sepulchre there by the sea, In his tomb by the sounding sea.