This is One of Those Days, one where I got things I just gotta get out into the Universe. Don't read it if you don't want to know.
For the last 19 months, I have been lost in grief. Completely, utterly lost. It has defined me and in many ways has shaped me into someone new, someone I don't really know. This new me is weak, scared, lonely and often unable to deal with even the simplest of day to day things. This new me is not that much fun to be around, so I guess that is why so many of my friends don't come around much anymore. Dealing with someone else's pain is really hard for a lot of people, so I guess that explains why they are absent. Doesn't excuse it but it is a reason, I guess, although I wonder how long it takes to pick up the phone and say "Hi". I don't have anything contagious but you'd think I do, the way people avoid me now.
Sometimes I think that things are getting better and then something happens that just rocks my world and I am back to square one. Granted, I no longer sit for hours and stare into space, tears I don't even know I am crying rolling down my face. And I can sleep for a few hours at night now, not pulling the all nighters very often any more, so I guess that is progress. Lately, I have been able to listen to music again and that is huge. I was afraid I had lost that because for the longest time, every song that came on the radio triggered some major emotional breakdown for me...especially alone in the car. Driving is not a good place to have a panic attack, trust me. I still dare not listen to the IPod, Dave put most of the music on it and I don't think I am ready for that....I may never be ready for that.
Most people I am close to have some idea of what I went through after Dave died. The utter and complete betrayal of someone who was supposed to be family, someone who was expected to help me, someone who was supposed to love me, someone who abandoned me and left me in such a bad situation that here, 19 months later, I see no end to it in sight. Now I am left with those wounds, too, not just from the loss of Dave. They are still painful and raw and not healing very well. I would welcome them as scars but cannot abide these open oozing sores on my psyche. I have felt emotions I had no idea I possessed the ability to feel this strongly and I wrestle with that every day. Dealing with this anger, the betrayal and treachery I experienced has taken a toll on me and I wonder sometimes if I will ever stop feeling like this. I try so very hard to counter these feelings and replace them with something positive, but it is a constant struggle to do it. I don't like feeling this way, I want it to just stop, to go away, but there is no 12-step program for this.
The only thing that keeps me from going over the falls with all of this is the fact that even through all the negative things that keep happening to me, I am still able to remember and feel love...big love...for Dave, for my family and for my friends, even those who are not exactly on my happy list at the moment. At least that part of my heart isn't broken. Once before in my life, I had things happen that caused me to build such a wall around my heart that there was no room for love to get in. I was so very afraid that through all this, the wall would be rebuilt, would encase my heart in stone again. It hasn't happened and I doubt it will. Being loved by someone so freely and unconditionally helped me to find that place in my heart where love is the only thing that matters. And once you find that place, it feeds on itself. The more you love the bigger it gets, until that is all there is in your heart.
I guess when Dave died, I forgot that a little. I need to remember how special he was, how incredible, how amazing. I never knew a purer soul, almost innocent in so many ways and sometimes I wondered if he was too good to be true. But he never let me down, never showed me anything but love, never wanted anything more than for me to become the best I could be and was always there to guide me when I needed it. He was my teacher, my muse, my lover, my best friend, really and truly my soulmate. I struggle to remember that when this grief starts to take over but I am just not quite able to sustain that yet. I will get there eventually, I know I will, because this fire burning in my heart came from a love so pure, so real, so amazing that there is no way it can fail. It is just taking time and right now that is something I do have on my side. And who knows, I might even come out stronger on the other side of this.
