Hello love. Today, I was bombarded with messages that are just slaps in the face for me right now. I’ve struggled with people’s status updates on Facebook where they say how beautiful life is, or that you should never give up, or that dreams come true, but it’s even harder when inanimate objects start with the same crap.
Coke cans tell me to ‘live positively’ and to listen for happiness being unleashed when I open the can.
Splenda dispensers announce ‘life is short’.
Ads on TV for vendors of outdoor gear, boats, bicycles, caravans and camping, fishing and ski resorts go on and on about how I should be getting the most out of life, living to the full, not just surviving, and that this is generally about spending money and being outdoors.
All I hear is Brad Pitt’s voice from Fight Club telling me I am not a beautiful and unique snowflake.
I understand the logic when people say positive thoughts are the key to a happy life. Putting a negative, miserable spin on everything would make for a miserable existence, but, like any extreme, putting a positive, upbeat spin on everything isn’t necessarily healthy, I think. I see people who laugh all the time, at everything, and I think there’s something a bit wrong there too, just as much as the person who’s never happy. Life isn’t all laughs. Sometimes it shits on you. Surely it’s OK to be sad when that happens?
It’s not like I haven’t smiled or laughed since the day you died. I’ve even laughed really hard a couple of times and enjoyed the ride, brief though it was. The difference is I can never laugh like that and not think of you lying dead in the hospital bed. I try to think of you laughing instead, but it’s not the image my mind conjures. I laugh and I see you dead and I know you’re gone and I feel so incredibly alone.
So; that’s where I am at. How about you, love? I can’t tell you how much I hope you’re off checking out that green crystal rain NASA found falling on a proto-star somewhere in Orion. I worry you’re lonely too, waiting for me, having moments of laughter that end with thoughts of me crying. I worry you need me to let go before you can be free, but I can’t do it. I know that’s wrong. I’m just not sure if that’s what you need, what you want. Try to let me know. Your happiness is still more important to me than mine, so just let me know, if you can. I’ll try.
Love you, dear heart.
You're gone 
I had exactly those thoughts during the first year … I worried that I was endangering Cliff somehow. The truth is he always could take care of himself and I think they stay near us until we are ready to let them go a bit … after all although we are separated physically from them today, nothing can separate our souls, which remain safely entwined as soulmates ❤
I also remember the first time I felt happy for longer than a 5 second timeline … it was after nine months and it was a whole evening.
One step at a time, there's no point telling you that it's okay to wish him near and not to let go of him … just as there would have been no point telling me a year ago … it's tantamount to asking you to stop loving, caring and worrying about the love of your life. Instead I send you light and love , Boo xx
Thanks Boo 🙂
Yeah, what Boo said. I remember when that kind of stuff made me SO angry. I remember when having an hour or two of happiness made me feel guilty, like I was betraying my love by letting go of mourning for even a little while. It’s been fifteen months now, and I’m still grieving a lot, still sad and lonely without him… but last Saturday I was sitting on a patio with my best friend, enjoying a delicious burger and a pint of draft beer, and it was a beautiful day, and I looked at her across the table and said, “Y’know, life is good.” And I meant it, in that moment. And that was a HUGE step for me, a real victory. I know my husband wants me to be happy, if I can, when I can… so I try to grab those moments when they come.
Everything in its own time. And everyone’s timeline is different. To pretend you don’t feel sad and lost, to pretend you’re not grieving, is to cut yourself off from your true feelings… and I don’t think that does anyone any good.
Thanks L – I find it very hard to deceive people I care about, so I’m useless at pretending to be happy with the people I love most. They do understand, or at least they are trying to understand, and I appreciate that enormously, but I still hold back a lot. My love and I did the same thing during his illness – we kept the bad stuff to ourselves as much as we could. We just didn’t want our family and friends to have to experience that and it hurt us enormously at the end when couldn’t keep them protected from it all; we needed their help too much. There are things about what my life is like now that I don’t share with family and friends, places I don’t take them because I don’t wish this place on anybody. I wish I didn’t know what this was like. Hugs xxx