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After widowed, I never slept on a double bed again. I can't do it. Mine is a small size bed and fits perfectly with what remained of myself.

I read somewhere that your wife had horses....I guess you can find a piece of her in them. They are remarkable healing creatures. Just a thought.

Hello Metal. I'm sorry for your loss. I was young too when my boyfriend died. And because of our youth, it's very very hard to find compassion and support. Because none gets it! Our friends are planning their futures and they will tell you to go there, not to look to the past. You will hear: they would want you to be happy. Nothing makes sense now. Our past, our present and our future have been crashed. This forum is the right place. We were, we are, going through something that feels like hell. We lost our soulmates and our old selves too. I have a cliche made by myself: I was killed and have been left alive. It won't be easy but you are not alone. I nod at everything you said and I have been were you are. You will make it today and you will make it tomorrow. One day at a time. Find spaces to talk. Counselling. Support groups. I found it here.

This is all very sad. I see what's going on in other countries and it's sad. Some relatives of mine are seeing each other, some compounds are letting/looking the other way/ people to gather for lunch or dinner. I'm trapped in an apartment feeling like a stupid. Since the city council allowed going out with a mask, people just went out. Wearing a mask is not enough and only if used correctly. Which I wonder.... This isolation won't last any longer. The equation health vs economy won't hold too long. Anywhere. You may think who is gonna buy clothes next month? In Bangladesh, people are back to textile factories (together with Turkey, they are major suppliers of clothes for Western low cost and luxury brands). People in Berlin were saying: we are gonna die one way or another. Well....

Oh Gwen, I woke up at 8 to catch up with study, and I realised I missed reading some material posted on the virtual platform for today's lesson, plus a meeting on Friday which was not on the weekly calendar and I didn't check for updates. I'm someone who tends to be too much responsible with the things I am committed with, and I felt very bad. I left the online class after an hour because I didn't read the bibliography they were discussing. At noon I was supposed to go online for another meeting about a project I have been invited to collaborate with, a friend of mine suggested my name to the group, and I missed checking on my email with the URL to the meeting platform. I waited for a message but I was already late. I felt devastated, like I was so tired and worn out since 8am that I couldn't think properly, with clarity, I went to bed and stayed there the whole afternoon weeping....for things I know are just Nothing! I miss my boyfriend so much lately, so so bad, I looked at pictures, my heart was totally broken. I listened to Adam Driver's song in Marriage Story and I cried more. I thought I could manage this confinement and perhaps I was wrong! Two weeks ago I was totally well and ok, now I'm not. Maybe I won't make it through this experience the way I thought I would. My boyfriend spent long weeks and months in quarantine. How he could do it? How he could make it? I write this and I'm crying at the thought of it. I'm not as strong and resilient anymore. But then....feelings are not facts. My body hasn't changed. My hair colour is dying, yes .and the circles below my eyes are getting darker, I don't use make up but they are too noticeable on a conference call. Concealers help a little bit. To hide all the imperfections I should wear a Kardashian style make up I want all.of this to end soon.

You're right Marg. Politics should not be discussed here. I have cancelled my post.

I felt the same for the first 3 years. I totally understand. I'm not good at meditation, but contrary to my previous beliefs yoga has been a tremendous help to relax. I practice 20 minutes each day. I reached to yoga because I was struggling with grief, physically and emotionally. I couldn't go to gym, couldn't practice sports because I had to team up with someone and I wanted to be left alone. My body was tired all the time. Yoga softens whatever is going around in my body and in my mind. I follow a yoga YouTuber so it's free practice. I love to read magazines. I was an avid book reader but I can't do that anymore. It is a good substitute.

Check-in in. I'm in good health but dealing with a lot of mental stress because I'mm not dealing very well with the home office stuff. I have been isolated from the world for a year after my boyfriend died, so I'm kind of re living and re shaping the experience. It doesn't affect me AS THAT. Perhaps I became very good at survival tactics. Perhaps I'm very good at adapting to constant change. Somedays are fine, others I'm anxious. I stay at home as much as I can and I buy groceries online. I miss having a cup of coffee in a bar. I miss my groceries shops. I don't watch the news. I have no idea what is going on in other countries. But I spend a lot of time on my phone, my neck hurts in the evening. It feels safe here to make a confession: I don't want to wear a mask. Not even the home made ones. I was wearing one when my boyfriend was dying. I have had some PTSD events. If I put a mask, I will break. I don't want to break the law so in the event of going out I go with a scarf arranged in a way in which I look as someone from Discovery Channel. I look like crazy, but I'm crazy. This is However, if nobody is around while I walk I take off the scarf. The wanting to feel free and breath fresh air is stronger. This is a very challenging time. Stay all well and safe Ana

This is too a beautiful definition of Love

In year 2 I was visiting a religious temple on a cultural visit. There was a moment for making questions about religion. I asked: according to your religion, what happens after we die? The man replied: you will be reunited and you will be together in a life that has no end. I am far to be a faithful person, yet I carry his words in my heart as a certainty, as hope.

Hello Gwen, I have same kind of dreams too. I never met you, my story is different from yours, yet we share that same experience in our dreams. I remember one which was very vivid. We were walking on an empty street, there was only one light on, he was walking away apart from me, like leaving me behind. He seemed careless about that and I was growing in despair at realising we were walking through different paths. He didn't seem human anymore, he was not expressing any emotion. He behaved like a being not from this world. This dream happened in year 1 and I was in so much pain.

Thank you George and Kay for your kindness and good hearts. I didn't mean to say that my life or I should be better because of his death. Kay, I know what you mean and I feel the same as you do. Perhaps due to my Catholic upbringing I think I'm supposed to learn a "higher" lesson or something like that, grew up to be this or that. Well, I haven't. Thanks for your prayers. I appreciate them.

This crisis is triggering PTSD on me. The virus, the ICU, isolation, social distance, washing hands. I knew them too well. Because he died from a virus. All those things I will never forget but those images, memories, they are at my "front page" now and I'm not doing well. I feel a pain I haven't recurrently experienced in a long time. The "knife" pain, as I call it. That and a heaviness on my chest. I compare myself to his hospital confinements. I now see how it must have been for him. This realization is too much. Did I need this global crisis to acknowledge that? He was young, strong, he was a unique human being capable of standing all that, and I did too by his side, worried, upset, yes, but eventually he made it, for 3 years that is how it has beeb. We had an ultimate purpose. We didn't get there. He died. If I am asked to wear a mask to go out I think I will scream and break into tears. I don't go out. I was wearing ICU clothes the last time I saw him, half dead. I was wearing a mask. I can't do it. But now.....I go through this crisis with resignation, "this too shall pass". I'm looking forward to put all this behind me and forget. I am a terrible human being. I haven't grown a better person after he died. I don't care if the world will be better or worse, If we are going to learn a life lesson, all this about gym at home, work at home, bake at home, Netflix at home. I do them but don't care about their ultimate meaning, because to me there is none! I will survive this confinement, but it is me without him. He is already gone. This Covid would have killed him. It was another virus. They work the same. We will survive. One day at a time.

I'm very sorry for your loss. I wrote a thread in this forum, the title is Tired of being strong. We understand how you are feeling and this is a safe place to express your grief. No judgement, and so much compassion. It is going to be 6 years and I sort of re-learned how to manage and behave at those good and happy moments when before I hated them with my whole self. Sometimes I numb myself, sometimes I play the part, sometimes I avoid them, sometimes I truly and really enjoy the moment. The thing is, this grief puts you in a place where you have to learn again the skills you took for granted, even to breath. You awake to a new life. And this new life is unfair. And in so, One day at a time.

In those links you can find too info about use of masks

Check reliable sources for information, such as the World Health organization. Useful links with q&a https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/q-a-coronaviruses Use Kleenex. Wash your hands when you enter and leave your home, restaurant, bars etc. Carry on your bag, on your car gel-alcohol type.

Good to hear from you again. Peace to you Mitch

I'm a Political Scientist. I put a "Like" to this Marg. LOL

This is very beautiful said and written, and also very true. Time is rewritten in the face of tragedy. (In between, Star Wars came to my mind)

He would have been 37 now. I have the whole life ahead to feel that way as you well said. Sometimes I stare at young couples. I may look like a lunatic. I keep a pair of sunglasses in my bag for when the tears show up unexpectedly. So much misery, yes.

Last week I needed to check an old notebook where my bf kept our passwords. It was sad and painful to open it. There was a list written by me of places to send my CV when I moved to his city. New beginnings..... It broke my heart, for a moment it all seemed like a dream I made up in my mind. It is a feeling that never left and didn't evolve into something else. I closed the notebook without finding the password.

I agree with you Kay. In fact, what is "healing" in grief?

Yes, it's very difficult to describe what being wounded to the soul feels like. I cannot convey the words. Can the soul heal from this wound? I don't have the answer. I'm sorry for your loss.

I am in year n.5 and I miss him more, not less. Did I survive? Yes. Can I make it? Yes. I guess. So far I have had. But I miss him, I miss his presence in my life. All the much and the little that his presence involved. And I cannot explain why this is the way it has evolved. The thing about "his essence/legacy/love" that remains, well It hasn't made me miss him less, accept more and etc. I too still cry at times the thought of him being gone, and it happens suddenly, out of nowhere. I'm back at crying at the bus stop. Sunglasses and Kleenex are always in my bag for this event.

Very beautiful metaphor, Kieron. It is a major crisis, right? I remember thinking the same, how evil people are still alive and our dear ones don't? I also felt a big disinterest for people who had the same illness as my fiance had, if they survived or were still alive living well lives. If a cure was found. I unfollowed their stories. Yes, we have all been cheated. Mostly, cheated in our core set of beliefs, at least that is how it felt to me in the early years. Love, our love wasn't enough, it couldn't save their lives, it couldn't avoid the accident or the illness, I felt cheated by love itself. How this pain, this void, the feeling of hopeless in living without them, this absence, the idea of not seeing them ever again on this Earth, how these could be caused by loving someone so much? I can spend time reflecting over this and that, but I can't reach to a definite answer. It is a mystery. And so, I stopped looking for answers. I stopped making questions. But it's OK to make the questions, is part of the process.