So You Do It Alone

Loneliness.

One of the more painful realities of this life turned upside down.

It's burned into your heart the longer time passes and the more you watch friends out on date nights and vacations and holidays with the ones they love.

It's sandpaper to the soul to watch others achieve their happy moments and to know that you can't be as happy for them as you should.

So because the loneliness won't go away...I suppose I just need to accept that I do this Life thing alone. I was blessed to find my 1-in-a-million. I hit the jackpot in meeting and loving my soulmate, even if we never got enough time.

My Wish

My wish...is that people would stop lying.
My wish...is that people who could not be a real support would not promise someone grieving that they could.
My wish...is to stop having strangers enter my life only to leave.
My wish...is to stop being the recipient of false promises.
My wish...is that I could avoid the pain of abandonment, over and over.


Maybe, if that happens, then I could trust people again.
Maybe, if that happens, I could stop being angry with so many people.
Maybe, if that happens, I could stop waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Maybe, if that happens, I could stop feeling like something is wrong with me, that I'm diseased.
Maybe, if that happens, I could stop feeling like I only had value to my Sweetheart.
Maybe, if that happens, I could find some of the nice pieces of myself again.

Letters to Ryan: It Wasn't Long Enough

Hey Sweetheart, 

I saw this day coming weeks ago. Another anniversary.
10 months. 

It felt more real months ago. Not now.

I'm so broken. I'm so complicated. I'm so tired. 

I miss you.

I miss you so much

Your light, your smile, your way

And everything about us. 

Now you're gone, but

You're still here
In my heart
In my tears. 

Yeah you sure left your mark

We were just getting Started...

It wasn't long enough, 

It wasn't long enough together

But it was long enough

Yeah it was long enough

To last Forever.

Sometimes I get so mad

I scream, I swear at this

Cause this isn't how we planned it.

I sit here, in a cold room

Prayin' 

Waitin' on You

To Run Back Through That Door
To the Way it Was Before

It wasn't long enough

It wasn't long enough together

But it was long enough

Yeah it was long enough

To last Forever

I've been Cheated

Defeated

To believe that you're gone.

(You're gone, You're gone)

Oh it was so wrong

It wasn't long enough

It wasn't long enough

It wasn't long enough

No

It wasn't long enough

It wasn't long enough together

But it was long enough

Yeah it was long enough

To last Forever...

It wasn't long enough

It wasn't long enough

It wasn't long enough

It wasn't long enough

It wasn't long enough

It wasn't long enough

Always Yours, 

Stephanie

Letters to Ryan: What I Never Told You (Anniversary)

Dear Ryan,

It's been 9 months exactly. I miss your smell, the security of coming home to you and having your arms around me. Your confidence to assure me I'm doing the right thing or help me to know what to change to keep improving. I'm not sure I ever told you how much I love sharing the story of how we met. I absolutely love what became the beginning of loving you forever.

Nineteen days after driving 2 hours through traffic from an I-85 class in Oak Hill to meet a cute guy from match.com for coffee (or tea in his case) off Parmer I made myself a note. I had left it undisturbed in the 4 years since because even early on, I knew I'd met someone incredible. I wanted to tell this story and share this picture one day. I thought it would be at our wedding. I saved a note with just the date we met and your name: "8/11/11 Ryan"

I had iced coffee and you had tea. We talked, laughed, connected. As our cups ran dry I flirted a little: "So just in case this went poorly, I'd planned on going to this pho place down the road to make up for it...ummm, have you had pho before?" You said "Yes." "Well, you're welcome to come, if you don't have anything else going on tonight..."

They tell you not to do spaghetti for a first date. We didn't give a fuck. We kept the conversation rolling. I followed your black BMW 325i out of the parking lot and down the road to get noodles. We ate sloppy Vietnamese noodle soup because it didn't matter. It wasn't about showing off - we'd connected already and as long as we could keep talking we were happy. You were captivating.

It's been 9 long months Sweetheart. It's unreal still on so many days. I should have been a Mrs. by now; should have continued a lifetime of experiences with you - one of the most compassionate and sacrificial people I've met; should have my best friend next to me helping me with the zoo of fur babies we have; should be cracking jokes and fighting over who gets to be little spoon at night. I know that the "shoulda"s won't bring  you back but it hurts nonetheless. It's inconceivable that I've not held you, not talked to you, for 9 months already. I miss you every damn day. I am grateful for the people who have come through and been helpful - less than a handful over the last few months. But I'd trade every since one of them to have you back. You are irreplaceable. You are so painfully missed, Sweetie.

I've spent more than four years intrigued, infatuated, or in love with you; you changed my life.
You'll be carried with me for a lifetime Sweetheart.

All my Heart,
Stephanie

I came home today

I came home today.

Traffic was light. I pulled up at 4:48. Turned into our neighborhood and realized

...I am early, but it doesn't matter.

Because he isn't there.

I have 7 hours and 12 minutes left in my day. And no one to spend it with. Because they all left. But even if they were here...the person that I could survive even alone with he isn't here.

I could have spent hours with him, snuggled into bed, made a meal, gone out for dinner or a drink.

Talked. Touched. Smiled.

I don't walk around expecting him to appear. I know that, I learned that, I've lived that for the last 8 months and 5 days. But I still get the heart pangs when something hits me unexpectedly and I realize - it can't go back to the way it was. It will never be the same.

I miss you Sweetheart

The "Worst" Loss

“Losing a child IS the WORST”

I don’t know…

 

I don’t know what it is like to create and carry a child for 9 months

I only know that I was supposed to – that I had picked an OB/GYN who would let him deliver when the time came because it was an event he wanted to experience more than anything.
“I’ve delivered enough crack babies, I want to with my own.”

I don’t know what it’s like to birth a child

I only know that when our gross little mess of new life was laid on my chest, that I’d look at him or her and say “Hello Nolan” or “Hello Elyse”. That this step in life was ours to take together, and he was the only one I'd wanted to try it with. I only know that he had claimed the name of his first son years before and had signed off a week prior to his death on my suggestion for our daughter.

I don’t know what the "firsts" were like: to hear the first words, first “I love you”, or see the first smile

I only what it feels like to play on repeat our last conversation, remember our last words running them through my brain every day, to hear his last “I Love You”, and to remember how he smiled at me specifically - to remember the unique smiles of intimacy and love.

I don’t know what it’s like to pick a little boy up from scraped knees, broken bones, and tell him “It’s ok”

I only know what it feels like to get the call that he’s in the hospital and to leave dinner to go be with him, to rub his feet because he’s been on them all day, to massage his back because the muscle that tore still hurts just standing for too long. I only know what it’s like when he tells me it’s hurting and he’s frustrated and he’s tired, to wrap my entire body around him and tell him it’s ok while wracking my brain to figure out what I can do to keep him from hurting any more. And for my answer to still not keep him here or stop the hurting before it was too late.

I don’t know what it’s like for a teenage boy high on hormones to yell “I hate you!” and to still love him

I only know what it’s like for a grown man at a low point of depression to say
“I don’t want you” and to still love him.

I don’t know what it’s like to pour my life into someone every day for 18 years

I only know that it was my responsibility to take care of him now. That for many every day “will be” different now, but for me every day “IS” different because he was the most important person in my life and he was present every day. I only know that I was blessed to have him for 1,252 days, and that it will never be long enough. I only know that I feel robbed of 50 more years with my Every Day.

 …I only know how frustrating and unhelpful it is to have your pain, which is so excruciating and overwhelming, not justified and to hear from others that it is still not as bad as another.

I only know me. I know that I hurt for his mom; that thankfully she is seemingly the only person that hasn't attempted to compare. Thankfully we have looked at each other and said "I don't even know how you..." and we respect the different love, the different relationship, and the different travel within grief that each other is going through. For that I am so grateful.

An Assault On Myself By Myself

Maybe I’m remembering this all wrong. Maybe I’m not the person I think I am. I have grasped tightly to the label “widow” as its definition most closely mirrors how I view myself, but is that even wrong? Do I even deserve that? I would have done anything for you, Ryan. We talked about this and I was setting everything up to make that happen because it was best for you – so it was necessary for us.

The abandonment by those around me, the ones who promised when no promise was requested, the ones who never made a promise to begin with, the ones you expected by default to stay and the ones you truly felt would…have they left because I carry a tag they think I do not deserve? Have they made the connections in the string of events, cast their blame, and turned their backs on me because of it? I hate them for doing that but I understand that decision, because I do carry the blame. I have chosen, months later now, to learn from the regrets but am nowhere near forgiveness for the guilt. The bits and pieces that are separated into those 2 piles are very well defined now; I am rational at least, enough to see that. Regrets would not have changed the outcome, they would have simply provided better memories to me, the survivor, and maybe for my Love, though not survived. The horrible details that are placed in the guilt pile are the ones which undoubtedly would have kept him here by my side. I do not wish for them to be in that pile, I do not choose them to be. They simply are. Perhaps then, to others, I am a person so unloveable and painful to be around that removing me entirely is a rational decision I just cannot see for myself. 

Perhaps I an addict to grief and unwilling to admit it.

I know my brain is warped. In a bizarre way it’s almost as if I can feel that I am not just chemically but structurally different.  Feeling physiologically incapable of tasks that you were otherwise competent to perform is so incredibly frustrating.

I want Ryan back. I also want my brain back. I don’t need a diagnosis because I already recognize this environment that I am residing in – one so atypical for me. I sit back as a casual observer wondering who this person is with an obvious aphasia, with anxiety, the woman who cannot retain information, who cannot carry conversations on with multiple people at a time because the conversations in her head cannot be kept separate from those flowing from her lips. Who is that person? This woman who observes herself externally…she studied this, this was her passion, the study of neurobiology put a smile on her face and woke her up for years on early mornings and kept her locked in a dark room late at night to better understand this phenomenal structure that is the mammalian brain.

That woman is now trapped by a mind she cannot escape, by a brain that attacks her when she least expects. Her decisions over the last 7 months and 15 days have not always been logical or appropriate, though she extends to herself forgiveness for those. But how do you continue to wake up when waking up entails constantly fighting yourself to hit a level best described as functional? If struggling for that is the best I’ve got, and if that alone exhausts me, how will I ever expect to hit a plane dubbed successful again? Why, Brain, why are you attacking me? Why, Body, are you so slow to recover and so quick to break down? I am not wallowing, I am fucking trying!

The Difference Between Losing the Battle & Winning

A friend posted the photo this morning.

I've spent the last 3-4 weeks so busy I'm left exhausted, frustrated, defeated, and mostly numb & empty. I mostly prefer numb to the searing pain that was the weeks before. I have transitioned I think to speak of details of Ryan's death as statements of fact, separated from their emotional connection. I worry how this makes me appear to others (i.e. "insensitive", "crazy", "strong", "detatched") and while I say I don't really care - I do.

My fight is almost exclusively in my mind now. I've packaged up things so well that I am no longer the reactive, teary-eyed person in public that I'm anticipated to be or that people are scared I will turn into. I'm the occasionally screaming, silent tear mourner that lost her Every Day nearly 6 months ago now. The battle remains almost exclusively in private now.

I fear not seeing the year 2016 by my own hand. I fear looking back at 35 and wondering why I am still where I am at. I fear that if I move forward I will be subject to a different level of insensitive comments.

I want to take a trip. I want to challenge my brain and take the MCAT, continuing on with school. I want to crush it on the marathon next year. I want to be the little white lady one day drinking Guinness and telling stories and sharing experiences that leave people's mouths wide open and who then walk away inspired. All of these take day-by-day and even moment-by-moment struggles to challenge the way I can't help but think and the darkness I'd prefer to disappear into.

Just because I want those positives doesn't mean I still don't want Ryan. Running well next year, experiencing another birthday, finding my passions and trying new things doesn't negate the feelings of wishing for him to be there with and for me. It doesn't dull the pain of him not being there; it probably intensifies it. Because I'll look for him and not find him at the finish line, I'll cry for the empty spot on the beach next to me and the seat that won't be filled at graduation.

People are confused at times: "moving forward" = "moving on" they think. Ryan won't ever be forgotten. His memory brings me JOY, not pain! My Sweetheart won't ever not be loved, mourned, and missed. He was my first choice - robbed from me not by my own or his wishes. I can still carry him with me, literally and metaphorically, as I search for my own meaning in life and push myself to live in a way that he would be proud of. For now, I wander numb through the house - private tears running down my face searching for enough strength to begin the arduous task of feeding myself or even getting out of bed, hoping for strength to be gifted to me by a stranger or a less-than-handful of friends that didn't lose hope in me.

Oprah's Lesson to Me

As it's the day before July 4th and no traffic was on the road I was running early to work this morning.

I felt compelled to stop at Starbucks to treat myself. While my standard is a skinny vanilla latte or maybe a cappuccino, for one reason or another the Oprah Cinnamon Chai Latte caught my attention....things are getting crazy 'round here.

Got to work, drink still in hand, and hopped onto Facebook to see about putting up a post first thing on my work page. Was logged in to my personal, however, and at the top of my feed was a friend's post which had a Maya Angelou interview from OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network) called "Love Liberates".

I bawled.

A lot.

Being a widow to suicide has been an overwhelming and personally destroying process.

He was mine. To love, to take care of, to support. We had no children yet so every last ounce of attention and nurturing and every last drop of care that I had was poured into him. I cannot yet forgive myself for losing him. The last minute of the video just twist the knife so deep into my gut this morning.

"If you need permission to go, I liberate you...You see love liberates, it doesn't bind....Love says I love you...I would like to be near you; I'd like to have your arms around me; I'd like to hear your voice in my ear. But that's not possible now, so I love you. Go."

His first words to me in our last conversation were "I have to let you go." He asked what I thought about us and I said "Sweetie, sometimes things are rough and sometimes nothing can go wrong, but it doesn't matter what's going on outside because I love you either way." I repeated "I love you" perhaps 50-60 times in the 9 minutes I was on the phone with him.

I cannot let him go. Her words are so beautiful and as awful as it is to say, I've thought to myself multiple times "At least he isn't hurting any longer." It's so shameful to think because I know the stress and the frustration and the thoughts flooding over his mind were things that could be managed, mitigated, or removed entirely from their grasp on him. That the pain could have subsided and we would shift into more carefully and intensely managing his needs. I don't understand this concept. I want him released from hurt but not like this.

I imagine, though it is so far off it's inconceivable, that one day I can reach the point where I not only forgive myself but where I say to him "Ryan, Sweetie, I love you and I liberate you."

The Terror of Coming Changes

I'm going to admit: the next few weeks are probably going to be brutal...

• My brother heads out of town, so it's reasonable that there will be days where I have no human interaction. As...
• the list of "let me know if you need anything people" that responds to a text/call has been whittled down to just 1 in-town and 'longer than January' friend. While I've found 2-3 new girls/random kind strangers in the last few weeks, acquaintances aren't exactly meltdown companions... 
• Everyone has disappeared-even my therapist. I haven't even talked to a professional in a month...
• It's time to get some work done inside the house
• New flooring installed in bedrooms
• I need to paint and have patching done in at least the living/kitchen and bedroom
• Flooring updates & painting it means I have to start sorting things into the garage for purging/donation. Nothing has been touched since January. This will be awful.
• I don't really have anyone to ask help from for all of the above
• I'm moving back in. Less than 20 days. To our home. 
• Saturday is 5 months. Wow. Ugghhhhhhhh

I expect there are going to be some bad days and some really bad days coming up. I'm terrified of the solitude through all of it, terrified of having to go through every item he owned and the things we owned together, terrified of the necessary process of changing the house from a place that was "ours" to what will now be just "mine", mostly terrified of going through another meltdown solo. Of sending a text for help and no one responding. Of being blown off yet again and reminded that the one person who treated me like I was important isn't here anymore.

I'm terrified of the nights where I remember why that is. Terrified of the filing cabinet in my mind where thoughts I've spent months packaging into manageable folders suddenly spilling out uncontrollably, leaving me paralyzed. I'm terrified that what's left of my heart will be stredded all over again.

The silver lining is after the next 3 weeks I will probably look even better in my bikini, may have shaved off 0:30 from my run time or finally pushed past the 5.5 mile distance...?

Ultimately, after it's said and done...

I'll be home again.

Gut Check: You Promised

No, baby don't

You're making my heart hurt

Don't say those words

Take it back 

You know you don't mean it

You swore when you (said you wanted to marry me)

It meant forever

Oh, you promised


...But no matter what you do

You know I'll always love you

Well I have to 

'Cause I promised

The First Dream, The First Nightmare

I don't dream much. I've had one, very beautiful dream a few weeks ago, I woke up crying I was so happy. I never saw his face and ultimately it ended with him leaving:

I was in a large hall with hundreds of people. Everyone was milling around, smiling, laughing, enjoying themselves. I found myself standing behind Ryan, rubbing his back and hugging him from behind. Someone called us all to "attention" in essence and people began to sit down facing the front of this massive room. I sat behind Ryan with my head against his back feeling him breath, my arms wrapped around his waist. I sat there breathing him in. At some point people were being called and were getting up to head off to the right. I thought nothing of it, focused on being with him.

I panicked when I hear someone call "James..." Ryan was about to leave me - disappearing from my arms, leaving me there helpless and abandoned. I reached up and wrapped my arms around his chest, pinning his arms against him, crying into his back and resolving that nothing would make me let go. He would have to poof from between my arms if he was going to be taken. I held my breath, terrified that I would hear his name.

I woke up. No name called. He wasn't taken.

Except he was. The empty spot beside me reminded me I had been robbed.

Tuesday night's dream was, what felt like, 6 hours of complete misery. It took just minutes to recognize this was not going to be pleasant even though he was there. I woke sweating and even more exhausted than when I'd crawled into bed.

I can't decide if it's better to have no dreams at all and to simply re-live the good times during waking hours or to endure what should be a few hours of an empty mind and peace with the gamble of a sometimes good yet sometimes hellish extension of everyday...

When It Just Hits You

Sometimes, when my day is going along "normally" - including my new norm associating with others who have lost, taking the dogs out myself, living in a place that is not my true home - I suddenly am slammed down to earth with the thought

Ryan is gone. He is dead.

I am not running around actively denying to people that I will see Ryan again, that I will get a text or a phone call or he will wake up in bed next to me (or I'll be woken up from him snoring while snuggled into the back of my neck...) I know, ok? My head knows that he's gone - it's not like a secret or any possibility. Sure, sometimes I still have the reaction to call him, to walk into a room and look for him. These are .001 seconds in time which used to cause break downs and now I chastise myself and shake it off.

The sobering moments are the ones where your heart just figured out the finality of what happened. 

I will move back to going through the motions of the day, taking care of what needs to be done and staying busy when I can. I will still spend time lying in bed, sometimes with sometimes without tears, but most definitely in sorrow and loneliness. There are no triggers for these events and their frequency is unpredictable but without a doubt there is no way to describe the feeling when you're smacked with that reality that he is completely and utterly gone.

Why you don't want to be a grieving fiance

I don't like sharing with people that I lost my fiance. It's not that it's hard to share it but that it's hard to deal with people once you tell them. You will forever be treated differently. Typical scenario:

Well, I lost my fiance 18 weeks and 1 day ago.

Question 1: Oh, wow. I'm so sorry. What happened?
Response 1: Well, his death was a suicide.

Now this typically goes 1 of 2 ways

• Compassionate response not dependent on details: "I'm so sorry, I lost my (insert relationship) the same way (insert time) ago" or "I have no idea but I am so sorry"
• Making things more awkward: *Fumble over words* or *Flag me as a "victim"* or (god forbid) "Did you find him?" <none of your damn business

Almost without fail my very next question if it comes (if they haven't run out of the room yet):

Question 2: So, how long were you together?

*Usually at this point, they also look down at my left hand. I'm not sure why...just to make sure I'm telling the truth?

Awesome. I've just shared with you the hands-down-most-difficult-event-of-my-life. And now the person that is questioning is setting themselves up to assess (in their mind) how difficult it is for me. Ugh. 

There are people married 20 years that hate each other's guts. Time doesn't equate to quality of the relationship or difficulty of grief. 

I opened up to his mother, an absolute Angel of a woman, that in some ways she has the 'benefit' (terrible word) of being a grieving mother in that I haven't heard of anyone asking "how close were you with your child?" or otherwise provides compassion contingent on first deciding the strength of the relationship... Usually, after question 1 it's something like "Oh my god. I can't even imagine..."

Guess what? You can't imagine what my heart and mind are like right now either.

If you want to know how much it hurts: I spent 3 1/2 years with someone that I was overjoyed at the prospect of spending another 50-60 years with. Within the first year of dating him, I was modifying some life goals because I wanted happiness in us more than just me. In the 6 months before he died, I was putting myself in a position to support him - no matter what it took (financial, geographical changes) I would let him decide. 

I lost my emergency contact, my best friend, my confidant, my advisor, my lover, my partner. I lost my Every Day. I marked up on my cell phone bill the number of times I called or was called by him, just in the last 2 weeks he was alive. The page was bled through with pink pen underlined multiple times every single day of the week. I'm now caring for 2 dogs, caring for the house we bought, except I'm doing it all alone. Try and think about how much that hurts before you judge how important he was by the length of time I was blessed to have him...

Wordless Wednesday: A Broken Heart

It's Hurting Again

One of those days...

Glimpse at Grief

This week wrapped up in a photo:

I think people are confused sometimes thinking a breakdown or

"grief attack"/emotional episode is what grief actually is. They really can't

know, but that's not in any way what it's like. That's the teaser

trailer of grief. Real grief is much much worse. 

I am very much missing your hugs this week. It's rough.
I just want your arms wrapped around me and you telling me it's going to be ok.

Three-in-one

I sat in a group therapy today. I listened to people share losing their estranged brother, their parent, and their friends. I could only sit there numb.

In a single day I lost my best friend - who I shared frustrations and secrets with. My #1 confidant. The person that knew when I was girl-cramping and brought chocolate over.

In the same day I lost a parent - the person in life that's takes care of you when you're sick and tells you everything is going to be ok. That gives you advice and helps you through problems that you just don't know how to tackle.

It gets worse. I lost my fiance - the man who I laid next to and looked into his eyes and promised I'd take care of him. Who I told whether things were good or they were bad ---- I loved him regardless. The man whose bucket list item was to deliver our child, or maybe all 4 of them.

I lost Ryan on January 13. I lost multiple people at once all wrapped up in a solo package...the single most important person in my life. He was my best friend and my caretaker, my lover. He was the person I wanted when it was a good day or a bad day, when I heard a good joke, when I was sick or hurting. He was the person whose life I wanted to make easier, whose feet and back I wanted to rub and who I relied on and who depended also on me.

The anniversaries are hard but so is every day in between then. He was my Every Day - from morning wake up call to getting to be little spoon as we passed out and everything in between, I'm reminded nearly every second of the day that he isn't here. I still expect him to show up; I do honestly hope for it down deep. It's pointless, I know, because I lost my life almost 3 months ago. It's why I ask myself everyday why I'm even still here; it really doesn't feel like there is life after loss like this.

Nailed It

I've copied posts from the folks at What's Your Grief? before and ran across a moderately humorous but spot on "Grief & Loneliness" post which really needs no additional commentary:

The shift caused by significant loss can lead you to feel more isolated than you’re accustomed to. While you try to adjust to life in the wake of major change, it’s business as usual for those around you and it’s easy to feel cut off from family and friends, left out, alienated and misunderstood.  Not to mention, many people intentionally isolate due to feelings of anger, sadness, mistrust, helplessness, anxiety, and depression.  Grief and loneliness go hand in hand for a number of reasons but I’ll name just a few…

• The person who died was one of your closest confidants or best friends.

• Your friends stop calling because they feel uncomfortable and don’t know what to say.

• Your partner has died and everywhere you go you feel like a 3rd, 5th, or 7th wheel.

• You don’t feel like those around you are tolerant of your grief.

• Every interaction you have is filled with superficial condolences.

• You don’t want to leave the house because you’re tired of making everyone else feel better about the death.

• You don’t want to leave the house because you’re tired of having to reassure everyone you’re doing okay.

• You don’t want to leave the house because you’re afraid something will trigger your grief and you’ll become emotional in public.

• The things that used to seem important now seem pretty unimportant.

• You don’t feel like you have anyone to really talk to.

• People are pushing you to feel better and you don’t want to admit you still feel bad.

• You don’t want to admit you’re lonely.

• You don’t care.

• You’re struggling with anxiety or depression.

• An illness or disability makes it difficult to get out of the house without your deceased loved one.

• You can’t possibly think of where you would go.

I think so many people are also confused by what grief actually is such that seeing an emotional release or agreeing to go out, even if it's the only time the entire dang week, leads them to believe that you're "doing ok". This awfulness (for lack of any real word) - it's not an event or a single place in time. It's this modification of all things life - from staring at a wall at 2:45 in the morning to begging your phone to show a missed text or call from him to realizing the only thing I've eaten is a thing of yogurt and not really caring anyways. To hurting every. single. time. I go out and do anything or getting reminded of what no longer "is" by triggers throughout the day. It's the thoughts and feelings inside your head that sometimes stay trapped and other times manifest. It's knowing that it's bad but knowing that it will get worse. It's a loss of his life and mine. Looking back on the previous weeks and recognizing that even attempts at self care were pointless: I go for a run and am overwhelmed with hopes that a car will jump the curb and I won't have to worry any more, it's buying a ticket to a concert and then having a break down the night before and selling the ticket on Craigslist because there's no way I can go, it's leaving a movie early and deciding to never go back because there's too much to deal with in a 2 hour movie that should have been "safe". It's lying every single day that things are ok.

Wordless Wednesdays: Never the Same