Tired Of Being Strong

[brat#2]

Beautifully put Mitch and Kay and so true and am working on trying to remember that he is always with me in my heart and soul.

Joyce

 

[newnormal]

Im sorry but 10 months later, his words were right.  He always said the world still turns and everyone is in a hurry to get to McDonalds.  I am not.  His siblings don't speak of him.  My children remember but try to forget.  This is normal and healthy for them due to their young ages of 24 and 27.  The world is just he and I now in memories and thoughts.  I don't want this.  I didn't ask for it.  But I contributed to it whether intentional or not.  It still holds true in my responsibility.  Just life.  I accept it.

[scba]

Dear Newnormal, I'm sorry for your loss.  I understand each of your words. We don't want this and didn't ask for it. Peace to you.

[scba]

[mittam99]

Ana, that pretty much sums up the way our grieving minds work, doesn't it?

[Gwenivere]

Thank you, Ana.  That is as simple as it gets.  To the core.

[scba]

It's been a month that I am not living with my parents. I have changed one routine for another. Every day, I realise that I'm a widow. It didn't feel that way before, but now I do. I got used to thinking alone, strolling alone, wandering alone.

Last weekend I was pissed of so I left the apartment. I thouht I knew where I was going to, but when I reached my destination (a park) it striked me that I had nowhere to go, I could not call my boyfriend, I could not go to his place, I could not have a conversation to tell him what was going on and receive his advise, I wanted to share and I couldn't. And for the 5th million time, I realised he was dead, that I cannot go where he is, that I'm left here. I asked why. I had the best man for me and he is gone!! I didn't have to look any further, he was there and with me. But now, now I have to search for distractions, to distract "from him". 

I found a corner on the park to sit down and cry. I knew before that he was death, but I keep discovering it in new ways. I asked him to come back, once again, once again. God you couldn't have done this. Why did you do it?

 

[MartyT]

I'm so sorry, Ana. So many unanswered questions.

I imagine this not living with your parents is affecting you in ways you hadn't expected. Changing routines often leaves us confronting our grief anew, as if we've made no forward progress at all. I just read a post over at Soaring Spirits about this very thing (that "every change has its difficulties, especially after loss"), and it made me think of you: Breaking Silence by Sarah Treanor  ♥

[KATPILOT]

Sarah is a great writer as well as a damn good photographer. I bought a print from her web site called "Sanctuary". It is one of her self portraits and now hangs in my kitchen.  It is powerful and speaks volumes. When my granddaughters asked me what it was, I simply said she is nested in a place where you can go and feel safe.  I didn't tell them that it made me think of how I wished I could go there and pretend nothing ever happened.

[brat#2]

Stephen - what a beautiful photograph.  I know the feeling and wish I had somewhere like that I could go.

Joyce

 

[MartyT]

Yes, Stephen, Sarah Treanor's photography is amazing. The print you shared is from a stunning series of self-portraits Sarah created entitled Still, Life: 

 "In 2014, I began a year long self-portrait series to tell my story of being widowed just two years prior, at the age of 29. Through 40 weekly photos and accompanying essays, 'Still, Life' captures a deeply emotional and psychological journey of what it means to grieve, to heal, and to live on." - Sarah Treanor 

 

[kayc]

Stehen,

That picture depicts how we all feel...wish we could just be in a safe cocoon.  I thought it was fitting that you posted it after Ana's heart cry...I imagine she imagines herself in that place as well.

[Gwenivere]

5 hours ago, scba said:

Last weekend I was pissed of so I left the apartment. I thouht I knew where I was going to, but when I reached my destination (a park) it striked me that I had nowhere to go, I could not call my boyfriend, I could not go to his place, I could not have a conversation to tell him what was going on and receive his advise, I wanted to share and I couldn't. And for the 5th million time, I realised he was dead, that I cannot go where he is, that I'm left here. I asked why. I had the best man for me and he is gone!! I didn't have to look any further, he was there and with me. But now, now I have to search for distractions, to distract "from him". 

Ana, you made a drastic change.  Even if we are around people that drive us crazy, to go from that to solitude is big time stuff.  It now magnifies just how alone we are.  I know that repeated feeling of realizing AGAIN they are gone forever.  We know it yet we keep feeling it like its new over and over.  Sometimes I just want to scream......I get it!  How could I not?  My world I so empty without him, I truly get it!  I think we just keep finding more ways our world was intertwined with them.  Mine today was a renewal of a magazine that had always been in his name.  Now it is in mine.  Little, small, tiny change but huge to me.  I don't know when or if they will stop hitting.  my only hope is that they soften a bit over time that drags by so slow now.

[KATPILOT]

I would recommend clicking on those links Marty posted.  There are a lot of images that we can connect with for if you have lost someone you see what others might not.

Joyce don't we all feel the desire to be in that "safe place".  For me the closest I could get was my own little home where I would curl up under the covers and hide. When Kathy was there I always felt safe.  I don't think I will ever feel safe again. I want too, badly.

[Patty65]

Yesterday the walk-in refrigerator broke, full of thousands of dollars worth of food.  My cashier quit, the new employee didn't show up, and my chef left early. I also went out to lunch (first time) with a couple (first time) to talk about their distribution company promoting, delivering and distributing our pasta (good thing, could save the business, so I HAD to go).  I fell apart inside with a smile on my face amidst cordial business conversation.  Today I pick up the pieces.  But it is the 3 month anniversary.  90 days. 2,160 hours. 129,587 minutes.  You deserve the minutes counted, Ron.  Every day is a groundhog's day repeat, intensity and pain. I didn't even know I had the ability to be so consistent at anything as consistent as this has been. I'm soooo tired of "being strong" if that is what you can call this.  This is a picture of a painting I did in the first years of our marriage.  It won an award, we celebrated together, and it hangs above the couch.  Now when sitting on the couch it is right there, no longer a picture of two horses at the nearby horse farm, but it is a metaphor of us-gone-by.  I want to take it down sometimes, but I can't, either.

 

 

[KATPILOT]

Extraordinary Patty!  Let it be. It belongs there.

 

I'm sorry it's so hard right now. Maybe something good will happen. You deserve it.

[Gin]

Patty,

Beautiful painting!  You are very talented.  I know what you mean by groundhog's day. I feel it all the time.  Same old pain and sadness every day.

Gin

[KATPILOT]

I watch Groundhog Day like I was living the movie. As a matter of fact, just last weekend.  Every morning it's like I am waking up in Punxsutawney and she's not still not here anymore. Only in this movie, she never will be.

Come to think about it, I am reliving every day and it's not the best day. I remember when Bill Murray said "That was a pretty good day. Why couldn't I have gotten that one?".

Maybe that's what heaven is.  A pleasant thought to fall asleep with don't you think?

 

 

[Margm]

Love the painting.  

[Patty65]

Katpilot,

The image of afterlife comes in two forms for me.  For me, personally, it evokes/used to evoke the movie "What Dreams May Come" with Robin Williams, with heaven being your perfect world, whatever you want it to be, and in one scene, it is a field of flowers that turns into a Monet painting, vivid and bright with beauty. The paint splashes as they run through the fields. So yes, the perfect day - life - environment "just as you want it" in eternal form. When I think of what Ron thought about it, I imagine him - his soul - traveling through the universe, discovering it all, just like all the "non fiction" tv he liked to watch.  I used to call him "non-fiction man" for fun.  He was fascinated by the endless space out there, that's what he would love. We would talk about the universe, the time warp of space, so many more "heavenly" topics in our nightly jacuzzi under the stars when we were all sore from a hard day's work.  When I'm not in depressed atheistic misery, that is what I imagine for him.  And why I look for him in the stars.  I have moments when I can go there, but only fleeting, and hard to hold onto.  My painterly personal image from the movie -- that's more like something I used to believe.  I can't get to that anymore. Maybe I need to watch that movie again.  But I don't know -- I feel completely cynical now -- that any "nice" image of a heaven gets wiped away with thoughts of that being only my own construct to make myself feel better.  Fiction.

Have you ever seen Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close?  I didn't mean to watch it, I got hooked into it a few weeks ago, frozen, unable to turn it off.  It is a movie about 9/11 but mostly about grief.  To watch that emotion play out on the screen. Well. Anyway.  There's a lot there with that one.  I don't watch movies anymore - I don't know how I ended up watching that one.

Patty

[Gwenivere]

Patty, I think that is a gorgeous painting you did.  I love horses and was an artist myself so there see pictures I did all over our house.  It's an expression of yourself and now symbolic of a bond between 2 beings.   Only you can decide if it stays, but I hope so because 'looks' like love. 

[Cookie]

2 hours ago, Patty65 said:

Yesterday the walk-in refrigerator broke, full of thousands of dollars worth of food.  My cashier quit, the new employee didn't show up, and my chef left early. I also went out to lunch (first time) with a couple (first time) to talk about their distribution company promoting, delivering and distributing our pasta (good thing, could save the business, so I HAD to go).  I fell apart inside with a smile on my face amidst cordial business conversation.  Today I pick up the pieces.  But it is the 3 month anniversary.  90 days. 2,160 hours. 129,587 minutes.  You deserve the minutes counted, Ron.  Every day is a groundhog's day repeat, intensity and pain. I didn't even know I had the ability to be so consistent at anything as consistent as this has been. I'm soooo tired of "being strong" if that is what you can call this.  This is a picture of a painting I did in the first years of our marriage.  It won an award, we celebrated together, and it hangs above the couch.  Now when sitting on the couch it is right there, no longer a picture of two horses at the nearby horse farm, but it is a metaphor of us-gone-by.  I want to take it down sometimes, but I can't, either.

 

 

I love the eyes....so loving, so sorrowful...Cookie

[Patty65]

8 minutes ago, Gwenivere said:

... because 'looks' like love. 

Thanks for saying that Gwen - in the original, the one on the right looks sad, the one on the left looks- well like she is eyeing me and doesn't trust me, taking the photo.  Now, the painting looks like love which is heartbreaking.  It didn't used to mean that, not until he was gone. I didn't see "love" i saw two horses in our neighboring horse farm. We were in Ron's big ole truck, driving around the island just for me to take pictures of animals to paint, having a fun afternoon... he was so into it, so patient and accommodating. "Wait Wait Stop!" I'd say... and he would, safely, on a dime, happily. Damn its not fair

 

[KATPILOT]

I like the way you put the mountains of Maui in the horizon. The look in their eyes......you captured that so well.

I watch a lot of movies these days. It's the news I turn off.  I first started watching What Dreams May Come after Kathy died. Then after Robin Williams took his own life, I watched it again. To me the movie is fantasy but appeals to me very much. I don't know why I'm drawn to movies about death and grieving. I'm really not a masochist but I have watched Extremely Loud-Incredibly Close four times now. Both movies I saw after Kathy's death and perhaps it's feeling the pain of others but I think it's mostly the love that remains. Wether she realized it or not, Kathy left me with a quest. To find that sixth Borough. The reason I'm still here.

[KATPILOT]

This was the photo I found after Kathy was gone. It was in a bunch of old pictures from long before we met. Most likely this would  have been taken by her boyfriend when she was living in Canada. The look in her eye haunts me. Not in a bad way. I'm captivated by it so that's why it was my first attempt. I find myself frozen unable to draw her from memory yet. One day perhaps.