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"Now it’s only mine. How this day means nothing special to anyone while my heart is bleeding yearning for that love. Doing my daily things so alone. So emphasized. Flashbacks of prior years like they do when celebrities die of their remembered moments. No one can see mine". 

I feel the same Gwen. Even the flashbacks. This is total reality to us. 

3 hours ago, KarenK said:

Gwen, it sounds like an adventure for sure. Funny how some of us had dubious beginnings and yet our relationships lasted a lifetime. If someone had suggested I would meet my future husband sitting at a stoplight, I would have laughed in their face. Only a fluke that it happened.

Keeping you in my thoughts.....

I met him on a bus stop on Easter.

On 1/25/2021 at 9:34 PM, Kieron said:

This came to my mind last night about 3 or 4am, when I got up to feed the cat who was insisting it was time to eat.  After putting the food in the dish, I went back to bed half-asleep, but nonetheless I noticed the empty other side of it.  It will be 4 years in about 60 days' time, and I thought, "I have adapted.  I'm used to being alone."   Just a resignation to this realization, this time, but already the days are lengthening and soon the light will be at the same angle as the day he died.

 

Yeah. I have adapted too. I have adapted to be a widow, live alone, live in a pandemic world. But what about the clichés surrounding people living alone. "Your evenings must be so quiet and peaceful". They are not! Everyday I make the choice to cook my meal, to eat it, to wash the dishes and clean the kitchen mess. To leave everything tidy to get up the next day and do home office. And this goes on everyday. A complete "be present" routine.

I go to bed and for a second I hear my own voice: "oh God, I can't believe this is my life now, I'm a widow, I'm alone. I have loved and have been loved and this is the result. He's gone to never come back. How am I going to make it?"

Then the silence....

And I can't fall asleep......

I have adapted to this too and coexist with whatever pops up.

3 hours ago, Gwenivere said:

 You possess an empathy you gained in your biggest loss too. 

Thank you Gwen. Because of that I'm now incapable to dismiss anyone's loss to death of any type. Even if I don't know the person directly. 

I still struggle to feel empathy towards breakups and divorces....

2 hours ago, kayc said:

It still kills me that I lost Arlie.  I've lost 24 dogs & cats but none were as bad as this one!  He was my constant companion!  And such a good boy!  To me, there is no "healing" from it, only trying to live with it.  And that's rough.  I wish there were some way to wave a magic wand so we wouldn't hurt but I don't know of any.  Same with our guys.

I fear for my brother because she was his companion. Truly. He is so sad. How can I help him? I know I can't fix it....but I wish there's something I could do. 

I never expected to feel the pain I felt while "preparing" for her goodbye. And I never expected to actually feel her absence even if she lived at my parents. This is real.

To me, time softens the edges of pain but solves nothing on itself.  I've acknowledge that with time I will loose more and more. People, to start with. I don't see any poetry in time moving forward. I guess for parents is different.

Thanks to everyone who reached me and for your prayers. My beloved dog is gone, released from her suffering, but us are left behind with our broken hearts. She was our family dog and she was a loving companion. I asked my boyfriend to welcome her and look after her until we reunite. Catholicism doesn't believe that dogs go to Heaven (regardless the news about the Pope apparently saying so). I want to believe that God and Jesus are beyond the theological discussion and my dog is in Heaven too. As all His creatures should be. We humans aren't so special to keep it all for ourselves, we even destroy our Planet. 

Thank you.

Ana

In two days my beautiful dog will be put to sleep to start her journey to the Rainbow Bridge, as Kay sweetly calls it.

My heart is broken in million pieces. I don't know how to say goodbye to my dog. 

15 hours ago, kayc said:

I definitely am grateful to have known George and shared this wonderful love with him.  I wish it could have been much longer, I wish we could have grown old together.  No one ever loved me like he did and that it was reciprocal was the only time in my life that I had this, at least I knew and experienced love and true caring.  We were each other's everything.

I feel the same. I've had the same experience. And I hope it's written in Heaven. 

I met a friend and I discussed about my "career prospects". Fine. Then I got home and no future was waiting for me. I felt I had faked something, that I was selling someone who doesn't exist. My career didn't feel that important, more an invention in my brain to keep me busy. 

I count my blessings. But I have no answer: what is a life without the love of your life? 

It would be wiser to give your friendship the space and time you both, I think, need. You did well to set up your boundaries.

Very beautiful. Very true

Hello,

I wanted to add to the conversation to google Megan Devine Refuge in Grief. She offers excellent advise on how to support a grieving friend. 

I'm so sorry about what you have been through Kay. Glad you are doing better. It takes a lot of time to get to a better place

I have never been in that state in my life, but I thought it was just grief.... It wasn't. I still don't know why that has happened to me. But I got better. 

So true Gwen

I watch the cooking channel. I have done a lot of baking during lockdown. 

13 hours ago, Gwenivere said:

That’s what I do.  As I do repeat myself, I’m trying to put a 'warning' banner at the beginning.  I do as you do sometimes.  Write my little novel, let it sit and decide to post as is or cut some out.  I need this place to get out so much stuff.  It’s not just other people, it’s also my own feelings I don’t understand these days.  I’m exhibiting the effects of extreme isolation and it’s not pretty.  It’s actually scary.  I try and talk myself down but it’s getting harder.  It creates a mental/physical cycle that is very hard to manage on your own.  Coming here gives me a partial release valve.

In SO many ways it’s hard to count.  I keep going out too.  Use the guidelines.  But it still feels alien.  I’ve watched people adapt well.  Didn’t know how they do it until observing showed they were struggling pretty much just with the virus.  Not other issues like grief, med.  Guess that is defined as loneliness, but there is a difference.  I do talk to people but I don’t connect anymore.  

 

 

It happens the same to me. I do talk to people, I have tons of topics to talk about. But I'm unable to connect on a personal level anymore. It happens on rare occasions. I'm now a good listener mostly because I can't speak about my personal life. I let the others speak and try to say something. But when it comes to marriage, coupling, dating and children, I say nothing else. I rarely refer about my feelings. I feel uncomfortable, I feel invaded, I feel I cannot reveal the truth: unhappiness, spiritual pain, not seeing the future any more, untrust, I don't have a "life sense" anymore.

The Dark Side is catching on Star Wars only.

Thanks Kay. This is very interesting. I have suffered from PTS after loss but I wasn't diagnosed for two-three years. There's so much that even therapist doesn't know about this condition. It doesn't only have to do with how my bf died, but what happened next and months and months later.  PTS loss isn't just "complicated grieving" IMO. I know very well what that "alert" feeling is like. I have made improvements in these 6 years but I think some of that will always be around me. 

I found yoga helps me with cortisol (didn't know this word) and surely a balanced diet helps too. 

12 hours ago, Gwenivere said:

 

 she often didn’t tell anyone she was a widow, like at work, because she knew they wouldn’t understand and think she should be 'better' after a few years.  

I do the same.

Dear Dee. I'm sorry about what your son's family is going through. Your son's service deserves respect and gratitude.

I agree with you that we are loosing a generation. This is going to create a massive grief-anger-frustration crisis in younger generations IMO.

One of my passion is history. A lot of ink has been spent discussing about events that took place in the past and are seemed to be back. However, we have no idea about how a globalized post pandemic world could be like. 

A friend of mine is a middle school teacher. The school has middle-low income students. The instructions she received from the school principal were: we must keep the students. A student showed up at Zoom wearing a big coat covering his head, he was sitting in his backyard, in the cold weather with his mobile and headphones. He wasn't taking notes, just sitting there, shivering. Who knows what was going on indoors with his family.

Home schooling has failed across the world. There's no vaccine to close this gap between poor and wealthy that seems to get wider and wider.

I know what you mean. I dropped my former in-person yoga lessons and turned to a YouTube teacher. The videos are there for when I need them and I don't depend of apps, bad wifi connection, small mobile screen and changing schedules. I also dropped my conversation classes because I was tired of conversing through a screen and maybe I'm old fashioned but I prefer to learn with a teacher and a blackboard, a pen and a notebook.

I took a course on finances. Videos were uploaded and I could watch them any time. However, I got behind schedule and when the course was over, the videos were removed from the platform. 

I may turn to self study. Borrowing a book and YouTube. Further isolation is very bad, I have been there for 2 years.

Unfortunately my therapist is doing Zoom meetings. I will keep them. 

You are left sitting where you were....

I take this phrase from Gwen to sum up what lockdown means when you live alone. At some point I cancelled all the online courses I have signed up. This resolution felt more isolating but I couldn't put up with seeing a teacher and people, which btw I didn't know, through a screen. I didn't feel connected at all with anybody and anything. 

I'm so sorry Gin. We are with you

I have had no Holidays plans in 6 years, except for one which I spent with a friend (we keep it as a fond memory of our mutual friendship, but I remember to fall asleep while crying).

I found a way through my brain to cancel them and feel nothing through the day. Seriously, I feel nothing about them. Total numbness. I have difficulties to write Holidays messages for friends who live far away. 

my therapist would suggest trauma. I suggest that the amount of cells which creates the emotion of pain are in use for something else.

If I think of my new life, it has a lot of pain avoidance and search for serenity behavior.