Reflections and musings

[kayc]

I read Marty's article, I've done all that, but I still feel lonely some of the time.  I guess like Marg said:

17 hours ago, Marg M said:

We are all just fighting the battle.  The only way we lose is if we give up.

 

[Margm]

I know that Brad was going to be gone a long time and I certainly hope that he can enjoy himself even though he was dreading it.  We all know how he feels, but I do hope he can find some happiness during these weeks.  

[kayc]

Anyone remember when he's coming back?  I have a hard enough time remembering my own engagements!

[MartyT]

On March 20 Brad posted "I leave in two weeks and will be gone for two months.  I'll check back in when I return."

[Margm]

Well, today is the 17th, so I hit it pretty close.  Dammit, I just remembered, the 17th is the 19th month, and I had kinda decided not to notice the date and how long Billy has been gone.  I should not have looked.  

[Cookie]

On ‎05‎/‎15‎/‎2017 at 11:47 PM, Gwenivere said:

I've lived with panic disorder for 30 years.  My real pre existing condition was/is watching my best friend lose his life.  I hate labels  in grief as they try to catagorize us.  Our relationship with our partner is so unique.  It cant be compared to others beyond what we miss and experience because of it.  So what might be complicated for me might not for another and vice versa.  All I want from my counselor and people I run into is validation that this is most changing experience I will ever face emotionally.  

Perfectly stated Gwen....

[Gwenivere]

Cookie, I am into year 3 and I feel it worse.  Some is physical complications wearing me down, but I know a lot is the stark reality of this is how it is.  It's SO real he is gone.  Every day is hell in this deafening silence without his voice and presence.  The thing that really gets to me is things we looked forward to like eating lunch now feel like chores I have to get thru.  From littlest to largest, it's all a reminder.

[Margm]

Sometimes I think too much, talk too much, but sometimes don't really think.  I can cry at a moments notice just by thinking about Billy.  Thinking about all our different griefs.  Two of  my friends remarried pretty soon after their husband's passed away.  One's husband had been very stingy and had saved a fortune which she and a friend are now married and he never liked working, so he is enjoying the wonderfully handsome (I thought) prize of the man she had been married to for so many years.  Now she is just deliciously happy, and they are enjoying all the other husband's stinginess.  Their business.  Another close friend, married Billy's close friend, and hints at things I am not sure I want to know.  Her husband is very ill, the newest one, but he "treats her like a queen" which I figure must mean the other marriage was not what I thought.  We never know. My life was an open book, some pages got stuck, but Billy knew everything about me many years before he left.  I knew all about him also.  We loved each other.  I have regrets, lots of them.  Why weren't we this way, why didn't we live a different life?  We lived like we had to, we made lemonade lots of times.  We were not through with the adventures yet.  

Riding home from the trip I got lost on (about 50 miles out of the way), Bri was asleep, had seen the doc and probably next week has the wisdom teeth operation.  But next week has an abdominal ultrasound scheduled also.  She was asleep and my mind wandered.  (It wanders too much sometimes).

Okay, supposed I found companionship.  It would have to be around my age.  I am not a spring chicken anymore, kinda tough for the boiler also, and doubt I would make good Thanksgiving dressing.  Still, I don't want an old rooster.  A younger rooster would only hope for a nice soft place to make his life and I am no fool.  I think I have enough family to keep me busy and doubt very seriously I would make a good companion for anyone.  I had 54 years of the best.  Wanted more.  Didn't happen.  Don't think I will ever be totally happy again except to find out some medicine helped my daughter or granddaughter and hoping my son does not get too unhappy living by himself.  His girlfriend seems to have enough sense to know they only get along on the week end.  

Life is a bitch sometimes.  Yes, this fits here, it was my today's "reflections and musings."  

[kayc]

Thanks, Marty.  Okay Probably early in June then he'll be back.  I hope his trip is going well!
 

15 hours ago, Gwenivere said:

Cookie, I am into year 3 and I feel it worse.  Some is physical complications wearing me down, but I know a lot is the stark reality of this is how it is.  It's SO real he is gone.  Every day is hell in this deafening silence without his voice and presence.  The thing that really gets to me is things we looked forward to like eating lunch now feel like chores I have to get thru.  From littlest to largest, it's all a reminder.

I think our going through physical problems only serves to make our grief all the more pronounced.  I know when I've gone through things it's made it all the more apparent just how alone I am and how if George was here he'd be taking care of me. It's dang hard knowing you're not first to anyone anymore.

And you, Gwen, are going through so much more, my physical issues were temporary, nothing a surgery and some healing couldn't fix, but you've had ongoing problems.  I'm so sorry you're going through all this.  It really hits home and hard when we realize this is what our life is right now.  I've had to work so hard at trying to build a life, and yet even so it's nothing, nothing at all like it used to be, even with all the effort I put in, and you're not even in a place where you can do that much even, it affects even your being able to do your volunteer work that you loved.

[kayc]

14 hours ago, Marg M said:

I don't want an old rooster.  A younger rooster would only hope for a nice soft place to make his life and I am no fool.

Marg, I don't even go there, with my luck I'd get an old crow instead of a rooster!

[Margm]

1 hour ago, kayc said:

I don't even go there, with my luck I'd get an old crow instead of a rooster!

Thanks Kay.  I woke up to my granddaughter not feeling like getting out of bed and I've got to do something and don't know what.  The teeth are to come out next week, hopefully, but I cannot get her to eat to make her "go to the bathroom" because her mouth hurts.  No fever.  Anyhow, you made me laugh and I needed that.

 

[kayc]

Oh gosh, I'm so sorry about your granddaughter!  Yogurt, soup, ice cream/milkshakes, applesauce, smoothies?

[Margm]

15 minutes ago, kayc said:

Yogurt, soup, ice cream/milkshakes, applesauce, smoothies?

I just got another Ninja thingy that I used to use to make us smoothies and gave away.  Will fix her some fruit smoothies.  I mentioned throwing in a carrot or two and she was grossed out.  I used to make them for me and Billy with baby spinach and used kale once.  Don't think I am going to get by with veggies, but have plenty of frozen fruit.

 

[kayc]

My two favorite smoothies are:

Spinach, bananas, strawberries, yogurt, protein powder, granola...has all the food groups!

or

Kale, celery, bananas, applesauce, rhubarb.
 

I have one every day mid-afternoon as that's when my blood sugar drops.

[Margm]

When they cut out my fiber, then I quit making smoothies.  Selfish of me wasn't it?  Scott's girlfriend enjoyed making them so much I just gave it to her and she loves it so much she would fight someone for it.  I bought lots of frozen fruit and I have honey and bananas, I will fix her one tonight.  

[kayc]

Good, I hope it helps her.  The spinach one really is good and you can't even taste the spinach, but you can see it so no fooling anyone.

[Margm]

No, you cannot fool anyone with that or kale either and that kale smells terrible fast.  You know down here in the south we eat a lot of collard greens (they do, I don't), but Mama could cook them the best because she used so much bacon grease.  Heck, back in those days we did not know bacon grease/meat grease was bad on a person.  She made a "wilted" salad using greens from the garden (she always had a garden going), little green onions, and the wilting dressing was hot bacon grease.  I'm afraid my family does not eat healthy and I do very little cooking.  Oh, we get lots of chicken.  Billy would fix the "fried cabbage" which was just butter/margarine and the cabbage cooked slow with top on and no water.  He would fix it because I even hated to smell it cooking and that was the only way they were going to get it.  They loved that and cornbread and sweet tea.  I fixed kale "chips" in the oven for Bri one time and she loved them.  I just won't cook anymore.

[Gwenivere]

I'm always amazed when I get hit with what should be obvious.  Steve's been gone 2 and a half years, and I am in such deep depression feeling the lack of daily banter.  Thoughts, ideas, things happening in the neighborhood, reactions to stuff in TV shows or movies, thinking of changes or fixes for stuff around our home.  That's a lot of hours to not vocalize all the things we think about but there is no one to hear them, nor reply back.  Can't talk about what I do when I go out or hear about his.  My mind doesn't even bother to archive much because what is the point?  Also making decisions about things I would never need like where to put a life alert box.  Didn't need it when there was someone here and really emphasizes the emptiness.  I see the effects of this when I do get an opportunity to chat with someone that I haven't really much to say because I've dumped the information. I once heard that relaying or writing down things etches it more into our memory.  I don't journal much unless posting here or talking with counselors counts.   So I ask people a lot about thier lives and much of what they tell me intensifies the loneliness because they are so involved with thier families.  I can't respond by saying......oh, that's cool, Steve and are going to (insert whatever).  I get asked what I am going to do at night and just shrug.  What am I planning for dinner....my standard date with the microwave, no wafting aromas of meal to share.  Every place I stop and buy something I am wished a good evening.  If only that were true and possible. My latest need is to have my desk computer memory fixed.  I have to call strangers to remote in and do it.  Steve would normally dive into it and do it.  Every day is a challenge because I need so little on my own now.  To fill that time used to be shopping for us or errands he wanted to do or askin me to get something he needed because he didn't care for shopping.  The point is, life felt full as it does for others now and I see it all the time.  I have 2 dogs, but they are more 'work' now because they are totally dependent on me and I'm so down and worn out that everything is.  Plus I have found conversing with them not very fulfilling.

  It so sucks being alone.  The days are so long.  Ramble over.

[Brad]

Hello All,

I'm back and am starting to settle back in.  The trip was better than I ever hoped for.  It was a journey Deedo would not have enjoyed as it was centered around all of my interests and passions like operas, concerts, museums, history, and churches; and walking and walking and climbing and more climbing.  It was wonderful for me and allowed me to put my life in a different perspective; I hope.  I met many wonderful, kind and caring people everywhere I went; eleven countries, seventeen cities.  Once I catch up on my sleep and doctor appointments I'll participate more.

Hope all is well and know that more than once I lurked in when I couldn't sleep.  

 

Plitvice Lakes, Croatia

 

[Margm]

Beautiful.  Somehow or other I understand.  When I do the things Billy didn't care for doing, like going to musicals, it does not hurt as much because he would not have enjoyed it.  

[Margm]

Gwen, honestly I don't discuss all this stuff I discuss with you all with other people..  I discuss it on here and sometimes it turns into a chapter in a book and I know people think "oh no" but see, you do have someone to discuss this stuff with.  HERE WE ARE.

[Margm]

And don't worry about what you say.  Let it all hang out.  I let it hang so low sometimes (now, I mean that sincerely, not jokingly) that I do have to go back and delete some of it cause sometimes I share more than I think I should.  And, I do have that habit.

[scba]

Welcome back Brad!

 

[kayc]

Gwen, I do understand what you're saying.  I guess, after 12 years I've gotten more used to it, but it doesn't change how I feel about it, alone is still alone, no matter how many years go by.  You do get tired of always having to make all the decisions, no one to discuss things with, no one to take care of you when you're hurting...an example is my falling this week.  I had a really hard time getting up/down from chairs, in/out of car, but no one here to help so you manage somehow...but it is hard.  I don't know what we'd all do without each other, I know it doesn't change how we spend our evenings or the fact that we're eating alone again, but I feel helped by knowing there is this community here that understands and truly gets it.

Brad, welcome home!  Beautiful pictures!  It looks like you've been to paradise, I'm not sure I'd want to come home!

[KarenK]

Glad to see you back home safe and sound, Brad. Rest up and share when you can..