Chocolate

How awful for you relative to your husband. How long were you together? No wonder that you'd like to find a new relationship. You didn't have what some of us here have had. When did he pass away? I didn't live with my boyfriend. We were at his apartment sometimes and sometimes at my house. I didn't see much of the addictive behavior, but as the relationship progressed I realized where it might be headed. The drinking destroyed his pancreas. He drank instead of ate, at times. The tumor was in the pancreas and wrapped around his liver. It progressed very rapidly. He was basically a good soul. His drinking started after his mother died when he was 21.

I'd been divorced twice before I met my boyfriend. Although I loved him dearly, if he had not died I would have probably ended it eventually. He was a practicing alcoholic. My husband who just passed had also been married twice before. He was the other half of me. With him, he just showed up when I was doing something I needed and wanted to do. It was the same for him. After my dad died, Mom (65) was alone for 18 years. She didn't want anyone but Dad. Then she found a man at church. They married. Two years later he died. She then married the widower of my dad's niece, a long time friend. He died a couple of years later. Once she was in the nursing home she fell in love again. The man was a sweetheart. He passed away, and she said, "Why do they always leave me?" About a year later she died at age 91.

After my boyfriend died of cancer when I as 39, I was sure I didn't want anyone. A year and a half later I went for a walk to the river. That's when I met my husband who recently died. I knew we were supposed to be together. What I'm saying is that it is possible to meet someone. No one can replace another, but if a relationship is what you want, I'd say go for it. There is a forum called Buzz50. They used to have a dating site as well. You might try them. I'm sure there are others. Some of them have been advertised on tv. I just don't remember their names right now.

Have you tried online dating sites? There are a few for people who are no longer kids. You could do an online search. My sister's widower found two more women online after my sister died. He married the first one. He was 70 at the time. She died after a few years. He's currently living with the second one. He's now 84. He is no prize. If he can find someone, so can you. Have you tried taking classes in things that interested you in the past? You could meet someone there. Brainstorm, see what you can come up with on ways to meet someone. For example, you could join the Sierra Club and meet others who were interested in saving the environment. If you are in a group that has similar interests, you would have something to talk about. If I were interested in meeting someone I'd become involved in SOLVE. They have gatherings of people who in groups pick up litter. Or I would join Friends of Oregon. They are also environmentally concerned. You could volunteer somewhere doing something that in the past has interested you. I'm in my 70s. It's not the same as being the one's 50s.

Thanks.

So just guessing, you live approximately 80 miles from me by car. I live on the west side of the Coast Range. What is the air quality like there now? I saw on the news last night that the evacuation alert level were low. Here the air has cleared out.

I'm so sorry for the loss of your sister. I miss mine too. Sometimes I just want to call her up and go have lunch with her. The phone service to the afterlife is sketchy.

Thanks for caring enough to do this.

Yes, we do share commonality. I find that comforting. Locally, here people are very different from me. The town, 2 miles away, is smal, and the folks are not in the same headspace at all. They never have been. I can relate to you spending time with your dog. I sometimes call my cat my dog-cat. He can be quite attentive.

When you've had the best, the rest would never measure up.

That's exactly where I am. Thanks for your input.

Yes, our soulmates are the center of our universe. Mine will never be replaced. I would never want anyone else, even though I am miserably lonely. I am lonely for him, not anyone else. Even when I visit with other people, once they are gone my facade comes off, and I am alone with the exception of his spirit. His spirit is with me, but that isn't enough. I want him with me in all ways and for always. So I wait trying to be patient. It's a learning process.

Update. Just needed to follow this thread.

My heart and my soul are with you jathas. It sucks what you've been through. I joined this site yesterday, so I have not had time to read all the responses to your posts or how you are now. I felt protected by my husband who died too, even though I never sought protection. My life is empty without him, like yours is without your husband. I'm so sorry you are having to go through this so young. My love to you.

Why do you care what your family thinks? Since your family is not there for you, their opinion is irrelevant, as I see it. The meditation I do comes from the east, not from hippies. John Denver had a beautiful soul. I got turned onto his music with the song Take Me Home Country Road. At the time I was unhappily married and living in the big city for the first time. I wanted sometime to take me home. I love his song High Calypso which was for the avid conservationalist Jacques-Yves Cousteau. Gordon Lightfoot was a jerk. My husband, his first wife and some friends went to his concert in NY. His wife went home with Gordon and had an ongoing affair with her. Gordon would call the house and ask for her. Eventually my husband dumped his cheating wife. I like Jim Croce and Bread. I never like Heavy Metal or hard rock. It grates my soul. I don't think it's suicide to not eat what you don't like. But I am sure it could be contributing to the way you feel in terms of what you call Autism symptoms. I'm sure Annette will come to you when you pass. She loves you. She will be there for you, guaranteed. I don't care about actually dying either. One of the ways I do fear dying is burning to death, since I live in the area of wild fires that can get out of control quickly. Being dead is not a problem for me. It comes whether we want it to or not.

I understand about PTSD because of caring for your wife. I have some of that relative to caring for my husband. But for you, you are still living the stress because of caring for your mom. The reason I suggested guided meditation is that it's easier to do if there is someone there walking you through it, step by step. As for your Diabetes diagnosis....the medical community lags behind. I had to go the a naturopath to get my hypoglycemia diagnosed. They gave me a 6 hour glucose tolerance test. The medical community just thinks low blood sugar is related to diabetes. Well, it can turn into diabetes, but it does not have to. I've controlled mine with diet for nearly 50 years. I noticed there's a lag time on this site as to when something is posted, the online person is notified and when it arrives in my inbox. I was notified of your latest post while on here. I looked for it. It wasn't there. I had to get off line and then come back a little later to read it. I like John Denver a lot. I was upset when he died prematurely. Hang in.

Have you tried meditation? It takes practice, but it can help calm the mind. There are all kinds of meditation videos on YouTube. You could look up guided meditation. You could look up mindfulness meditation on YouTube. Mindfulness involves being in the present moment. I do some of that. We are, after all, spirits living in a material world. So what you are feeling is natural. I know this is hard, probably one of the hardest things we will ever do. Don't be too hard on yourself for being where you are. You say your interest is music. What kind of music? Do you play an instrument and/or sing? The kind of music that works best to calm me is what I call New Age Classical. Some of the musicians I like best in that genre are Deuter, Phil Coulter, Gheorge Zamfir, Bernward Koch and a number of others. They can soothe the savage mind...at least they soothe mine. Sometimes when I can't turn off my mind it's because of what I've eaten and when. I have chronic hypoglycemia - low blood sugar. I have a heck of a time sleeping because of the blood sugar and my grief.

Thank you, kayc, for your caring response. The article you wrote is most insightful. I attended a grief support group that the hospice place provides, but it was 80 miles round trip once a week and at the time I attended it was emotionally draining rather than helpful. Once upon a time I trained to be a counselor. So I know the stages of grief and how it all works. The hospice social worker came out to see me for a while. She was a sweet gal. It helped. Unfortunately they eliminated that part of her position. I love where I live. It's in the mountains. The wild animals are comforting. The trees and vegetation are soothing, although the fire danger is high and there's always the chance I may have to bug out. The social groups I could join are 40 - 60 miles away, one way. Right now I'm working on how best to proceed. Yes, adult children get caught up in the own lives. I remember how it was for me when my dad died. I know I wasn't there enough for my mom, but I tried to be there all that I could. Now, I know what she was feeling. She and Dad had been married 46 years when he died. Thanks for caring. My love to you.

Thanks so much for your reply. Twenty years of pain is a long time. I'm so sorry you feel so alone. I understand the feeling, although I'm sure you and I experience it in a way unique to each of us. Intense grief can get in the way of our abilities to feel the one who has passed, with us. It can block it actually. I've lost so many I decided to learn to perceive their presences. Some of it involves freeing our inner limitations that we don't realize that we have. I know my husband is with me by way of my innate connection to all-that-is, physics-specifically quantum entanglement and string theory, and thoughts and ideas that come to me through myself and others. The merging of these and other things help me understand/know my husband is still with me. The things that I have come to believe have developed over the years, starting with nighttime dreams I had as a very young child. I lived in a rural setting. We didn't have television reception at the time. We didn't go to movies. My parents were country hard working country people who took me to church. Over the years I realized that there was so much more. By the time I met my husband, I had lost a number of people to death who were important to me, including my father of heart disease and a boyfriend to cancer. My father would come to me in my dreams. His presence was/is just there. In some ways I think it's because of the gratitude he has because of the way I helped him and Mom through a horrific tragedy triggered by my brother's violence. After my boyfriend died I decided it was time to find a deeper level of spirituality that worked for me. As they say, when the student is ready the teacher will appear. Mine did in the form of several people. None of them agreed about the "truth". They appeared at different times as I needed them. I gleaned from each one. Some of what they believed overlapped. The seeing of those who no longer have a physical body was one of those overlaps, although each teacher had a unique take on it. My husband and I found each other at the river. He was on vacation and fly fishing. I had just quit my job because my boss kept coming on to me. Otherwise, I would not have been there staring at the water healing myself of my latest loss. We were instantly comfortable with each other. We were in our early 40s. (We had both been divorced twice.) There was an inner realization for both of us that we had always known each other. From that day forward we were together, and our love grew. We were both writers. We married, combined our resources and moved to the boonies to follow our bliss. He wrote a couple of novels and then began a journal about wild turkeys. I wrote a number of books. By the time I completed my last one I had lost so many people I began looking into quantum entanglement, as it might possibly relate to the afterlife and other dimensions. I wrote a novel about how the love of two of my characters was quantumly entangled, permanently. It is said, we are all one. By the time my husband passed away, thirty-one years after we met, the intertwining of who we were had greatly deepened. The laws of physics say that nothing is ever lost, it only changes form and substance. My husband had a spiritual essence but he was big into science. I learned a lot from him and the documentaries we watched. Right before he passed away he said he would wait for me outside of the doors of heaven. Once he passed, nothing meant anything to me. All my motivation to write my books, all my motivation to paint my paintings, everything was gone. I was destroyed. I began writing a journal of my thoughts and feelings. Some of those thoughts were mine. Some of them were his, coming to me as thoughts. It took some time to figure out what was what, but several of the teachers I mentioned above told me this was possible. I'm a big skeptic, so it took a while for me to accept it. Some of the words that come to me are from my dad. Some are from other deceased loved ones, but mostly they are from my husband, dear soul that he is. It turns out that in some ways my last work of fiction was to help both him and me understand what was to come. Our souls are quantumly entangled. One of the things I did to help myself feel closer to him is to enlarge photos of him, ones where I can see into his soul, the love, the beauty that he is, and place them around the house. It helps. It helps with the connection and helps me feel less desperate. I also get feelings of his presence being with me. I get brief sensations of his hands being on my shoulders. I get mental images of him being with me. This is not dwelling in the past. This is using our connection to learn and grow into the next level of awareness. He has become one of my guides, a guardian angel of sorts. The day before he died these words came to me, "Follow him through the opening door." This I will do when it comes my time.

I'm afraid there were be no one to take care of my cat when I die. I have no kids, on purpose. I paid attention to the Zero Population Growth people. I'm glad I did. When my husband died I heard the death rattle...the plastic against plastic sound. He was in our bed. I was in bed beside him. He was on oxygen, and I kept it on long after I knew he was dead, just in case I was wrong. Once he died all the things I'd been interested in before no longer interested me. He died at the end of January 2022. I know he is still with me, and I know he is in the next dimension, simultaneously. We got closer at the end of his life than we had ever been. All the barriers were gone. He was in such horrific pain. I don't want to die like that, in that kind of pain. There will be no one to help me with what I need. I know he will be with me as I make the transition to what comes next, but....