I am here. That’s the best I can say. I have used several coping strategies to be able to say that. All are inadequate.
Ice cream only lasts so long. Reading works for a while, but too much makes my head hurt. And I can’t read while I drive. That’s when I need help the most, seems like. So of course, they only play hurting songs on the radio. Five stations I have programmed in my crappy little twenty-year-old radio, and they all hurt.
The other worst time is when I go to bed. I stay up until I can’t keep my eyes open, but that doesn’t stop me from staring at the ceiling. Or sleeping on the couch, so I can pretend he’s upstairs. Who would have thought I’d miss being seasick? (Due to a waterbed and restless dreams. Thanks to the WRONG DIAGNOSIS)
I keep quitting smoking, because I don’t want to get hooked again, but then I decide it’s too soon to expect to succeed, and start again.
Pictures helped for a while, but now I have pictures all over the place, and every time I catch sight of his face, I cry. No way can I bring myself to take them down, though.
Cooking is getting more creative, because I’m running out of food and I can’t seem to find a time when I can face the grocery store. I could still clean more, but lately I’m just too tired. All the progress I made is sliding down into squalor. I’m washing clothes out in the sink, because carrying laundry was his job (hotly contested, he hated being delegated to grunt work!), and I can’t do it without crying so much I’d fall down the stairs.
I have people interested in all three kittens, and in the rats, but now I don’t want to give them up. He loved those rats, and was delighted the one time he got to see his feline “grandchildren.” I will give them up, I must. But I don’t want to.
The lady at the school district came through, Hope has been approved for open enrollment at a good, small school. But every time I think about it, I think how he was going to take her to her first day. I’m registrar at a middle school that starts the same day, no way I could take her myself. But I’d planned to get permission for him to be there for her. Now she’ll go with the other kids from her day-care. She’ll be perfectly happy, but I was so looking forward to making it an event, even if I couldn’t be there!
I took her by the school today, so she could see it. And had to pull over and cry.
I can’t think more than a day or two ahead. I remember the plans I had, three weeks ago, and I can’t think at all. When other people try to talk about the future, I want to hurt them. Can’t they see there is no future? There is only an endless procession of empty days, with only my Hope to cast any light at all. And my darling’s joy is dimmed, perhaps even blighted.
A few days ago I bitched that I was recovering, and I didn’t like it. Now I don’t think I am, and I’m scared. I THINK I’m just going through a normal grieving process, but I thought Chris and I could handle anything life threw at us. I THINK I’ll be okay, but I thought Chris was going to be okay. How do I know anything?
And if I’m not okay, and I do need help, what then? How do I get it, without giving the bastards an invitation to take what’s left of my life? Any licensed counselor is required BY LAW to report what MIGHT be an unsafe situation for a minor. And they’re not exactly hesitant to jump in with their version of what’s good for her.
So I keep going, and try not to let anything show. And I know damn well THAT isn’t healthy.
Oh yeah. They’re really interested in promoting functional families.