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Does this train wreck ever slow down?


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I hear you Darrel.

Almost 2 1/2 years for me too.  

One day at a time.  Better than one minute at a time - that place we all have been.

One of my Mary Kay's favorite sayings, embroidered on a pillow in our bedroom "Live laugh and love".

Wish I could.

 

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Me too Darrel. I'm at 1 yr 2 ms. We have a little deck on our 3rd floor home and Susan used to love to plant her flowers. I have pictures if her surrounded by gardening things with her huge smile. So we've had a few nice days and I had to plant a little to honor her and have been sitting on the deck reading today. It looks beautiful, and mainly makes me sad. When I die will anyone remember that this lonely guy was once Susan's beloved? 

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Darrel, Tom and Bill,  this journey is so hard.  Hard to imagine anything good coming from it.  I planted a few pots on my patio today.  It sure lost the meaning it used to have when Al was so excited about growing things.  Things that were happy are now so very sad.

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Gosh, do I ever know what each of you are talking about. The things that I used to enjoy I don't even give a passing thought to now. The old me would have a radio or CD playing practically all the time. Not any more. I used to love to read. If you gave me a book as thick as War & Peace, I wouldn't be able to put it down until I finished it. In the past 2 1/2 years since Cookie died I have read 2 books, and I couldn't tell you what either one of them were even about if my life depended on it.  Now I just go through the motions, and don't even do a very good job of that. There just doesn't seem to be much point to anything.

Yesterday and today have been bad days for me, and I suppose I'm feeling sorry for myself. My apologies folks. 

One foot in front of the other...

Darrel

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3 hours ago, Gin said:

Darrel, Tom and Bill,  this journey is so hard.  Hard to imagine anything good coming from it.  I planted a few pots on my patio today.  It sure lost the meaning it used to have when Al was so excited about growing things.  Things that were happy are now so very sad.

Gin, change the name to Susan and that could be me talking. I look at these brilliant flowers in the sun and try to enjoy them but I mainly think about the gardner who's missing.

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This journey doesn't end but we do get more used to it.  Someone asked me yesterday if I planted any vegetables.  It struck me like a knife through the heart...George always did that...I'm not the one with the green thumb.  It jarred me!

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19 hours ago, DarrelW said:

 

I don't suppose I'll ever get over my wife's passing.  

I wonder sometimes if I will ever get to the end of this grief "journey". 

Dear Darrel,

I understand what you say. I`m closer to year 4. I am told that we´ll eventually learn to carry with it.

Sometimes I feel I have been cursed for the rest of my life. I must be honest with myself, this is the other side of the soulmate-finding coin.

Last night I`ve been to a friend's dinner. There were single people looking for a relationship, married couples with kids, and me the young widow. I could not empathize with anyone in the room beyond the ordinary daily things such as work, colleagues, bosses, groceries. I looked at the married couples and wondered if they would hurt the way I did and still do. If they won't, maybe they are the lucky ones after all.

I understand when you say that you feel you have no more words to contibute here. Myself, I feel I haven't learn any remarkable lesson nor found any special wisdom on this.

Not easy. 

Yes, one foot in front of the other. 

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This picture tells me how it really is.  This is something we all know.  What we are doing is walking paths with other people, but they cannot walk it for us and we cannot walk it for them.  We can just commiserate and sometimes that empathy helps.  I see that little girl in old pictures of myself. (We did not have color pictures then)..  I remember Mama had my picture with  the "rat hole" hair-do colored and is still on her wall.  That little girl is me walking down that path by myself.

rumi.jpg

 

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"Unable to perceive the shape of you, I find you all around me. Your presence fills my eyes with your love. It humbles my heart, for you are everywhere."

Last night I watched the Academy Award winner, "The Shape of Water". It is pure fantasy, of course, but I enjoyed it very much. After much research by the Library of Congress, it has been determined that the above poem(used in the movie) is a translation of an Islamic poem which probably has religious connotations. I did not interpret in that manner, but perhaps in a manner that relates more to what so many of us feel each day. It is somewhat comforting, in a way. Perhaps we are not walking this road alone, after all.

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3 hours ago, Marg M said:

This picture tells me how it really is.  This is something we all know.  What we are doing is walking paths with other people, but they cannot walk it for us and we cannot walk it for them.  We can just commiserate and sometimes that empathy helps.  I see that little girl in old pictures of myself. (We did not have color pictures then)..  I remember Mama had my picture with  the "rat hole" hair-do colored and is still on her wall.  That little girl is me walking down that path by myself.

rumi.jpg

 

 

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2 hours ago, KarenK said:

Unable to perceive the shape of you, I find you all around me. Your presence fills my eyes with your love. It humbles my heart, for you are everywhere."

Just rewatched the ending of the movie.  Those words were said at last and I believe they lived "happily ever after."  As long as "ever after" is.

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On 6/3/2018 at 7:50 PM, Marg M said:

Unable to perceive the shape of you, I find you all around me. Your presence fills my eyes with your love. It humbles my heart, for you are everywhere."

Karen, sometimes it takes me more than once to understand a movie.  Some movies I watch many times.  I understood this one more the 2nd time.  Thanks.

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On 5/31/2018 at 3:19 PM, DarrelW said:

Gosh, do I ever know what each of you are talking about. The things that I used to enjoy I don't even give a passing thought to now. The old me would have a radio or CD playing practically all the time. Not any more. I used to love to read. If you gave me a book as thick as War & Peace, I wouldn't be able to put it down until I finished it. In the past 2 1/2 years since Cookie died I have read 2 books, and I couldn't tell you what either one of them were even about if my life depended on it.  Now I just go through the motions, and don't even do a very good job of that. There just doesn't seem to be much point to anything.

Yesterday and today have been bad days for me, and I suppose I'm feeling sorry for myself. My apologies folks. 

One foot in front of the other...

Darrel

Darrel,

It took me ten years to get to the point where I could read books all the way through for enjoyment again.  And I used to have a couple of books going all the time!

It took me a year before I could watch any t.v. or a movie.  

And I still don't have my previous enjoyment of my hobby, making cards.  George used to love watching me make cards, he said I made happy sounds, like whistling and humming.  

So you're not alone in how you're feeling.  Keep plugging along, it can take a very long time but it can improve a bit, perhaps your interests will change, but you will find something eventually.  I do enjoy being around people again.  And I enjoy my dog immensely.

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Darrel, I notice you took your post down.  I do that often myself and go back and revise it.  I think it is kind of like going back and cleaning the blood off the floor where I bled for awhile, then I am better.  I have a bandage over that open wound that has to develop the scar tissue, but while it is still bleeding, I have to keep it from being too messy.  Grief is messy.  

I am going to have to put my arithmophobia aside for a moment, I see on the bottom of the screen that the day is the 17th.  And, unfortunately, the 17th is a significant day.  Some months I can forget it.  Also, some months I wonder if I have the year of "15" mixed up with the date, so I will have to do some finger counting here.  So, it is two years and eight months.  How about 32 months.  That is as far as I am going.  I only have 10 fingers, counting thumbs too. 

I can now listen to music.  I can also listen to music and cry to where I have to pull over to the side of the road.  I can look at pictures, but it is still painful.  I finally did notice the change in seasons.  So, even though time does not heal the wounds, it does make the pain bearable.  

Now, if I could only get my family straightened out where I could just live, life would be doable.  I do not know if I will live long enough to see that and somehow, I don't care. "I'm not that important, life does go on, if I wasn't here, then I'd be gone."  Who knew my own quote from 1982, would be my most significant.  

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3 hours ago, kayc said:

Darrel,

It took me ten years to get to the point where I could read books all the way through for enjoyment again.  And I used to have a couple of books going all the time!

It took me a year before I could watch any t.v. or a movie.  

And I still don't have my previous enjoyment of my hobby, making cards.  George used to love watching me make cards, he said I made happy sounds, like whistling and humming.  

So you're not alone in how you're feeling.  Keep plugging along, it can take a very long time but it can improve a bit, perhaps your interests will change, but you will find something eventually.  I do enjoy being around people again.  And I enjoy my dog immensely.

Our summer activity was sailing. We were a perfect team and were always ready to go on a nice day. Our favorite was "cruising", going away for a week or so and living on the boat. Last year I managed to reach out and get groups of friends to go out for the day. No cruising. Being together on a 33' boat is very intimate, and even if I could get someone to go with me, I'm not sure I would be comfortable with a non-Susan.

Now it's a year later, and I haven't been sailing. What's kind of disturbing is that I have no motivation to recruit people to go. I haven't got better, I've got worse. Do I not love sailing anymore? That would be a big loss.

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Tom,.  Al and I used to go to LOTS of plays and concerts.  We were fortunate because we lived in an area with lots of theaters.  We went to over 600 in the 16 years we were together.  How many have I gone to since Al died??  Zero.  That was OUR thing.  Have no desire to go without him 

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1 hour ago, TomPB said:

Now it's a year later, and I haven't been sailing. What's kind of disturbing is that I have no motivation to recruit people to go. I haven't got better, I've got worse. Do I not love sailing anymore? That would be a big loss.

Tom, if we were not RVing, I was reading RV forums, anything, everything RV.  It was how we loved to live and was the happiest in that 19 foot 5th wheel.  Had everything we needed and the roof was almost arms length above the mattress in the 5th wheel part above the truck.  Raining was wonderful.  I was never afraid.  We had a bad time once and separated for six weeks.  He was over every evening but left at night.  I was never afraid in that tiny space.  But, that was his and my life and dream.  Half of that dream is not with me anymore and I have no reading of RV forums and do not even see them on the roads anymore.  I have a friend who picked back up the life after her husband passed.  Actually surprised me.  A lot of things surprise me now though.  Still, what goes for one person does not go for another person.  It is your path, however you walk it is your business.  RVing with another husband was okay with her, for awhile anyhow, lost track of them and then did not look anymore.  Sometimes our interests change when one is gone.  

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Interests change, but for me interest in anything is gone.  A lot of it is I can’t do anything without pain.  The loneliness was enough but I could at least do things that felt somewhat rewarding, even if brief.   Steve’s interests became mine and mine his.  I don’t even like saying anything to anyone now as I get the same 'suggestions' and they miss the point.  First, I don’t want suggestions and two, I’ve heard them all before and if I could I would act on the ones I have thought of.  I have found that forcing myself into situations does not work.  I don’t get caught up in them, I feel more removed from life.  Heck of a dilemma.  

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My friends, I hear you. We are all different. I've been on and in the ocean since childhood. Water is my element. If I was thrown overboard 10 mi from shore I'd just start swimming. Susan and I sailed through 10' waves and gale force winds without fear. Sometimes she called me the Panda Fish 🐼🐋. So while sailing was ours, it is also mine. Samuel Johnson said "When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life". Change "London" to "sailing" and that's how I feel. 

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Last I heard from Kay she was in terrible pain also.  Had to fix Arlo's special food and was so sick.  Antibiotics making her very ill.  My girls, you gotta bounce back.  

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