I can feel stuck and brave at the same time, right?!

Hi Babe,

I would be lying if I didn’t say these last couple of weeks have been very hard for me.  It feels like I’ve digressed and back to the first month of mourning. I wake up sad, anxiety-ridden all day, on the verge of tears at any moment, and go to bed feeling very alone.  Somehow, it’s hitting me very hard that you’re not here anymore; you died and I will never see you again, and I have to start making changes (or as you would like to call it “moves”) in my life to accommodate this new “realization.”  I guess looking at your stuff in the closet everyday to try to mentally prepare myself for the “purge” that awaits is causing more pain and grief than I had expected. Now, I know why people hold on to their late spouse’s things for so long while just carrying on with life; it’s easier to live in denial of your reality and pretend your husband is on a business trip than to confront the pain and anguish of having to "face the music" and accept the ugly truth of my new reality.  You know it’s bad when I’m grieving while on business travel. Usually, I look forward to the break from my life when I’m on business travel, but this time, it looks like grief has caught up to me. I guess you can only run away for so long before it all catches up to you, even in places that was once a safe haven.

I feel like I’ve had a lot of triggers lately, maybe this is the grand finale before I can say, “I can do this” without faltering.  I feel like you have to leave me now and embark on the next part of your spiritual journey, so you’re really testing me to make sure I can "fend for myself" in this world without you (yes, like your "fend for yourself Fridays" where nobody cooks dinner and we have to figure it out for ourselves.)  You are definitely testing me real hard right now, sometimes taking me down to my knees, questioning whether I’ve made any progress on my journey through widowhood and grief. Sometimes, I hate you so much for leaving me, how can you do this to me?!  How can you rip my heart and soul out and leave me like this?! Half a person living a life built for two.

I just want this pain to end.  I want it to go away. I don’t want to feel it anymore.  I can’t submit to it anymore nor can I subject myself to it anymore either.  I feel so numb to the pain that at times, I think I delude myself to believe it doesn’t hurt anymore just so I can live in denial and “carry on” with life.  I can’t live our old life but I don’t know how to move on either when I can barely figure out how I’m feeling from one minute to the next. I just feel “stuck” and frustrated with myself for not being able to push myself or help myself.  I am not the type of person that is bounded by fear, but nowadays, I always feel like I’m always at the boundary where fear and courage meets with one foot in both but never really able to step out and put both feet on courage so I can take that next step in this new life of mine.  I hate you so much sometimes. I hate you for leaving me. I hate you for leaving me like this. I hate you so much yet I miss you so much more. I hate that I feel like this all the same time. I hate that I can’t move on. I hate that the only feelings I feel nowadays are fear and pain.  How can anybody live like this?! How does anyone survive this?! It’s completely unbearable and all consuming.

On the way to Taiwan, I watched a movie called “Hearts Beat Loud” about a single-father and college bound daughter who’s about "to embark on a journey of love, growing up, and musical journey."  Yeah, my kind of movie, right? But what I later find out is that the single-father is actually a widower. (I probably would have passed on the movie if it made that aspect of the movie more evident!)  Anyways, there’s a scene where the daughter’s love interest says, “You gotta be brave before you can be good!” I guess that’s the mantra I have to learn to live by right now (so I can get pass whatever stage of grief I’m on right now since it feels more like month 1 than 9.5), I have to be brave before I can become a good “widow.”  I have to find every last ounce of strength and courage I have left inside of me to survive this experience; pull myself out of denial and accept my new reality.  This is my life now.  I better start embracing it or get sucked into the darkness!! 

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