One Month

I find us interesting. There is a website for young widows www.youngwidow.org that I go to quite a bit these days. The bulletin boards can be very helpful, especially in moments of pain, frustration, and longing. I don't know why, but it is comforting to know that I am not the only one going through this and reacting in the ways that I am. Here are some interesting things I have come across on the boards that you might find interesting as well...

Many of us...
1) sleep on the couch for months after our spouse dies.
2) choose to follow the tradition of wearing black for a year.
3) cling to something that smelled like them and find it comforting.
4) suffer from skin hunger and long for some type of human contact
5) comment that the thing we miss the most is our "go to" person - the one we call whenever anything happens.
6) wish we could join our spouse.
7) put a timeline on our grief only to discover that the second year is worse than the first.
8) take months/years to throw away personal items.
9) struggle for months to find the energy to clean the house/prepare meals/go back to work.
10) are young. There are LOTS of twenty and thirty-somethings.

Before you tell me that these people are wierd, let me tell you that they are not. Every book I've read mentions these tidbits. The problem is that as a society we don't like to talk about being unproductive or paralyzed or out of control of our emotions. And certainly not for any length of time. So when we are in the middle of it, we think we're the only one and that we should be over it sooner than we are.

Today is a month and I suspect that there are some folks out there who think I should be starting to "recover". I don't think I will ever recover; I will just learn to live without a part of me. Unfortunately, I think that I am just barely starting to acknowledge the pain. I made it to the gym today. I ate healthy. I went to the grocery store. I worked a full and productive day. However, all day long I felt like I was on the verge of a panic attack. Anxiety gripped me constantly. It was like someone squeezing my chest so I couldn't breathe. And now, I am sitting in my living room, staring at the mess called my house while the groceries sit in the car.

Every day I have these grand plans for the evening - clean, cook, sort through pictures, write thank you cards, do laundry, clean out drawers - and every night, I am too tired to care and just want to curl up with my glass of wine. I'm not even sure what I am doing with the time since I haven't watched any tv or done any reading and I'm up until 1am on most nights.

Anyways, I am not very focused today. Sorry for rambling. Perhaps tomorrow will have more humor and insight. Thanks for reading.