So many people have told me that I’m doing so well. But that makes me uncomfortable and feels wrong. I’m not well. I’m not okay. I still cry every day. Yes, I’m functioning – I have to. I have no choice. Our beloved pets have to be taken care of. Bills have to be paid. The world keeps spinning. I am still here, living, without you. I can still smile and still appreciate positive things in my life, but even then I’m still hurting, still grieving.
Some days, I can nearly feel you here, living with me still. An alternate world. A world where you are lying in bed next to me at night, where we are still trying to grow our family together, where you send me messages when I’m at work during the day, and greet me lovingly when I get home. Where I can reach out and caress your cheek and kiss your lips. Where your smile lights up our home.
It just feel so strange, going through the same motions, day in and day out, that I went through when you were alive – except that you’re not here. The fabric of our reality has been torn, and it’s like you’ve slipped behind a curtain. If I were to peek my head behind that invisible curtain, there you would be, also living, on your side of our reality with our son.
Despite life feeling wrong, and still being so surrounded by grief, I know that I have to continue to keep on loving. To love is to make myself vulnerable to more hurt, more heartbreak, more tears – but the alternative is even scarier. I don’t want to become someone immobilized by my emotional scars, built up and hardened. I have to keep moving, keep loving, to prevent my scars from taking hold.
Right now, love looks much different than it did before. Before, our romantic love was the center of my life, and filled my cup. I’m someone whose social needs are generally easily met by my chosen person. Now, I have to look to the love connections I have with friends and family – different types of love than I am used to depending on. I also have to keep loving myself; tending to my pain, looking at my world and doing what I can to make it bearable.
I will keep looking at sunrises and sunsets, and keep asking how I can be the best version of myself, reminding myself what really matters in life, and doing whatever I can to center my life around love. Right now grief and love are tied together so closely within my soul. I hope that with this work to keep going, keep loving, those ties will loosen and I will be able to connect with love without the ever-present underlying current of grief.