I don't write here as often as I used to. I think maybe I need to write a lot more. Maybe this is the only place that I can express myself. I know that very few people see these posts, and I don't know if anyone that I know reads them. Maybe I should write more because there is no other outlet for the grief. The world moves on, and people expect that I have moved on, so grief is no longer tolerated. I'm supposed to accept my life and see the beauty in it. I accept that Brian is dead. I don't look for him around the corner anymore. I don't expect that he will come back. I live in today; I accept my reality.
I didn't know true happiness until Brian came into my life, and I haven't experienced it since he has been gone. That isn't to say that life is awful. Watching him die was awful. Being unable to help him was awful. This isn't awful - it's just not good. I miss him. I miss who I was when he was here. I miss the life we shared. I miss being "us". When Brian was in life we were two perfect halves of a wonderful whole. We fit. We made life meaningful. Now I'm a whole of nothing. I don't really matter to anyone. Nobody asks me what I want, and I couldn't answer. I don't even know. I no longer dream or plan or hope. I just get through one day at a time.
This week we wrapped up the holidays. Hanukah, Christmas, New years. It was a hard week. It is always a hard week now. I miss celebrating with him. From Thanksgiving until his death date in April is hard - so many occasions without him - so many memories. Thanksgiving, his birthday, Chanukah and our Jew Bear celebration, his families Christmas, the anniversary of when he got sick, the anniversary of his diagnosis and all the bad luck in the hospital, the day we moved to hospice, Valentines Day, our anniversary, and ultimately his death. All of these things. I feel his absence through all of these. So if I invite people to celebrate with Jew Bear, for me it is a very hard bitter sweet event. For others it is a party. On New Years I remember just four years ago when we spent New Years Eve day in the ER and New Years day in bed. How sick he was - but that we still had hope - before that horrible diagnosis.
I seem to have forgotten how to live. I don't know how to be happy. I don't know how to allow anyone in. I know that I could love again, but I'm afraid. I want someone to know me again, but I can't imagine anyone knowing me like he did, loving me like he did. And the idea of losing again is too too hard. I am angry at life, and at the people in my life. Maybe it isn't fair - maybe I have nobody to be angry at but myself, but I feel like I just don't matter.
These holidays sucked. On Christmas day I went out with friends - the same friends that Brian and I went out with 4 years ago - but it wasn't fun. Then that night I got food poisoning. I felt awful, and I cancelled the Jew Bear celebration. I had another small get together planned for New Years, and woke up that morning with a horrific migraine. Every time I stood up I was overcome by waves of nausea. I couldn't cancel though - nobody cared enough to tell me to take care of myself. And then a friend mentioned that I'm having a party in front of others and I ended up with double the people that I had invited. So I doubled up on pain meds and I suffered through, and it was fine. Everyone had an ok time - even me, despite the headache. But I was angry. It was like my life isn't even about me. I had to have this party for others despite that I was sick. I don't have my partner to help set up and clean up. I don't have anyone to lean on. And I became furious. I'm not going to put others first anymore. I'm not inviting people or hosting out of a sense of obligation. I'm not doing things because other people think that I should. I'm not pretending to love my life because anything less makes others uncomfortable. I want to matter to someone the way that I mattered to Brian.
I am so sad, and so lonely. I am so angry. I am so tired of living like this. I feel like I don't know how to relate to people anymore. I don't even know myself anymore. I don't know what I enjoy and don't enjoy. I don't know what I want. I don't know how to lighten up and enjoy the gift of life. I hate that this is who I have become. I hate what my life has become. I am so tired of hurting.
Grief doesn't go away. We learn to live with it, but we don't heal. I haven't healed. I have moved forward in time from those horrible days when I heard that he was dying and that there was nothing we could do. I have moved forward from the multiple surgeries, the sepsis, the chemo. I have moved forward from urinals, and drainage tubes, and vomit. I have left the sights and smells of death behind, but I have also left the joy of life behind. Grief is no longer raw, but it is as whole as it ever was. Others may have forgotten, but I never will. If there is beauty somewhere in my future, it will never erase the pain of my loss. I can't pretend to be who others want me to be because pain is too hard for them to deal with. I need to give myself permission to be fragile.
