Ok how do I mark the time darling. Do I say this past Tuesday marked three months you are gone since it was 12 weeks or is it next Wednesday on the anniversary day? Why is there an extra week it seems and where did those extra days come in? I will wait until next week to say 3 months. Has it been three months? It hardly still seems real.
I have done a lot in three months but not enough. I am hoping to get more accomplished by the end of this month but as I move forward from that day, I become farther from you. I don’t feel you around me like I hear of some people who do. I hear your voice because I know you and know what you will say, I also hear the echoes in my heart of your voice as I replay the message on the answering machine again. I don’t know why it has been so rough this last week. It has been by far the hardest emotionally since the funeral week I think.
I don’t like feeling out of control and this sense of wondering that keeps me awake. I am still wondering what went through your mind as the angels came to your side. Did you think of us, or were your eyes only focused on your Heavenly Father? I wonder too much about whether you were in pain and if I missed the warning signals and didn’t push you enough to go to the doctor’s. I know I couldn’t have prevented this, but could I have prolonged us being together for a little while longer? I wonder if you knew this was coming or suspected it since you told me I needed to buy a little black dress the month before all this came to pass. You were too insistent and I stubborn and said I had something I could throw together if I had to and I did for your funeral. I wonder if we were ever meant to be together for a lifetime.
I wonder if you will know me and remember me in Heaven. I know what I believe which is you will know me and be waiting for me, but now I have cause to really want to know. I wonder if I loved you enough on this earth and did our marriage give you some of the joy you had been seeking. You worked so hard for your family and trying to keep it all together for us despite the emotional pain you were in. You overcame your past but were unable to fully enjoy life because of it. I am so sorry for all the pain the world caused you before we were married and am greatly relieved you do not suffer from that now. I wonder if I am strong enough to move on without you. I know I'm strong, but together we were so much stronger. I feel like I am alone, very alone and I don’t like this feeling. Even in a room full of people I feel alone right now. I have lost a connection to your heart and I feel like I am dangling from a precipice somewhere in the Arctic waiting for you to grab my hand. It is very cold in my life right now and I just want to feel the strength and warmth of you again.
My head tells me I am doing well, God is with me always and He is taking care of me. There is just a longing for a hug or a sure smile from you from across the room or across the miles. I am still addicted to you too and our life together. How to move forward without feeling I am leaving you behind? This is such a bothersome thought which plagues me night and day. I want to move away and put this behind me, but that would mean you too. I will be leaving our old haunts and as exciting as it seems to start anew, it is frightening; it is a betrayal to all of our dreams and plans for growing old together. Here I am the one who gets to grow old alone. That is hardly fair and yes I am angry for that. I'm stuck here making these huge decisions about my life, not our life. I am so stressed to see my name on the caller id when Mary calls because it has never been there before. I wonder if I will get used to seeing just my name on everything and not a Mr. and Mrs. Travis. These little details of my life are so painful. I remember practicing writing Mrs. Steve Travis before and after we were married, and how excited I was to be able to sign my new name. I know all the women’s libbers are probably fired up by now, but I was proud to be your wife and glad to acknowledge it by taking on your name.
This adjustment is very unsettling. I miss so many simple things like cooking you a meal or washing your clothes and I miss you doing that for me sometimes. Wow I miss being a couple because a single is lonely right now. I wonder if I will ever get used to this and start to enjoy it again like before we were married. I guess it will all come back to me I just have to practice being alone again but this time will be different. I am older, wiser and a lot slower, but I still like to have fun so I don’t know where it will take me, but I hope it can pay my bills. I wonder about all the financial stuff now too, hating this most of all even though I paid the bills, there was money coming in to pay them. Now I am the total responsible party, just another adjustment for me and I hope I don’t grind the gears while I am shifting again.
I will be okay, I don’t worry about that, I am just still seeing things in my mind and wondering. I want to turn my mind off right now, but for some reason it is in overdrive again and maybe I am phasing into another level of this grief game. This level involves sporadic crying fits similar to the ones I experienced 3 months ago now. They are usually sparked by a memory, a stupid piece of mail addressed to just me, or a thank you for the gift of your loved ones tissue donation. Occasionally a telemarketer will call asking for Steve and the only reason I answer is because it doesn’t look like a call from a telemarketer on the caller ID so I get duped. Then there is the call with the Social Security people finally closing that chapter and getting told you can’t receive benefits for at least another 10 years from your poor husband who worked so hard. They really hope I die or get married so they won’t have to pay me at all. I may live and stay unmarried just to spite them.
Anyway life is moving on, so am I although it doesn’t seem like it most days. I am in slow motion and have to literally tell myself where I am heading when running an errand into town. Maybe God wants me to slow down even though I feel it isn’t good for me, but I may need to. I guess I need to have some Margarita Ministry again by this of course I mean take it slow and sip slowly from the glass. Enjoy the salted rim, but drink the frozen concoction slowly because it will make for one heck of a brain freeze headache and a hangover headache afterwards if I don’t drink slowly. Bartender I am ready for my Frozen Margarita now.
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