I am still here. I wish I could somehow get that old blogging mojo back, but it is just gone for now. Yesterday marked 6 months since Kris died. I don't know what I expected, don't know what that milestone was supposed to mean in my mind, but it was a letdown. I want to feel better, I want to find some kind of "normal," but every day is a struggle. Every day I force myself out of bed, I take care of my responsibilities, I volunteer, I attend meetings, I drive the carpool ... but nothing means anything. Life is flat. I am desperately trying to keep the extent of my feelings from my kids, and I don't know how long I can do that.
Things are getting done, if not as efficiently as usual. The laundry is caught up, meals are being cooked, bathrooms cleaned ... the house is not ready to be shown at a moment's notice, but that doesn't matter -- no one has looked for 2 weeks. The April 30 deadline passed and apparently the market just stopped cold. Fortunately we don't HAVE to move, and at some point we had decided long ago we would pull the house off the market, do some remodeling to make it work better for our family, and stick around for a while. That's ok with me, and it takes some of the stress away.
As my kids have gotten older I have shared less about them, trying to honor their privacy as much as I can. We are still having some struggles with school and while it's possible we have found a solution, I am not particularly optimistic that I won't be facing this same issue next fall. That is a helluva burden to be lugging around.
I know others have it much worse than I, but the thing is, when it's YOUR struggle it is the biggest, most important one for YOU. I am struggling. I am still adrift. I wish I could find a way out, but I fear all I can do is keep moving.
Mom, wife, daughter, sister, friend. Scrapbooker, family historian, reader, cook, photographer. Volunteer. Political junkie. Springsteen fan. Loves deeply, strives daily to be a cheerful, kind and generous person. Fails regularly. Snarky, judgy and more than a little blunt. Some people don't appreciate my style. If you're one of them, that's ok. Get your own blog.
I don't know who Kris is to you - a child? My experience of losing a husband when I was 44 is that it takes a year to get going again. I was so angry at his death that I went for counseling and that helped. It also helped to write letters to the one that is gone. I even wrote a series to my dog who ran away.
ReplyDeleteJust don't suffer in silence, be kind to yourself.
I thought I had posted earlier to tell you in my experience, it takes a year to heal the wound of a death,and then the person never is really gone, but lives on inside of us. Thirty-eight years since the death of my first husband at 45,I think anew of him on each birthday. Bless you.
ReplyDeleteI hope you will remove that from your list of worries because there is no correct answer...there is no set time period when the grief will subside to the point where we think we can breath normal again, it's different for everyone.
ReplyDeleteI was so lost, I actually had to go to counseling after the death of my stepfather. After three months of pouring out my brain to her, about everything...not just his death...and countless buckets of tears, I finally felt like I could manage myself. That learning experience with her really helped me cope on my own when my sister died.
Unfortunately, life is never the same again. And the sadness usually comes rushing back at the most unexpected moment...but time does help numb the pain. :hugs: