One of the things that always amazes me about this whole experience, is how long the damn thing seems to dig it's claws into you for.
Going on year 3, and I still find it difficult to sleep at night. I still find it difficult to relax and unwind, (admittedly I was somewhat uptight anyhow.) I can't resist driving by my kids school and looking for them on recess, even though I'm too far from the playground to see individual faces.
All day every day, there is a constant litany of reminders of how things used to be.
I miss the accused, who was my best friend for 10+ years, and suddenly disappeared. We had all of these inside jokes, all of these silly moments, all of this wonderful family time together. On the days we woke at the same time everything felt RIGHT in the universe. I miss his family, I had learned to love and respect these people, and every day I wake up, something reminds me of all I have lost personally, all my daughter has lost, all the kids have lost and even sometimes all the accused has lost.
I am grateful for what I have gained, my new husband is wonderful and takes good care of me. The extra time to paint, or write or play music, or whatever it is I decide to do, is a welcome benefit of this whole shit storm. He spoils me rotten, but I know I'm not quite where I once was yet. He feels like I'm running the household, and I feel like he is, but neither of us is really at the wheel, and that's not to say that the boat can't handle itself. It just isn't directed much of anywhere right now... or maybe it's just directed everywhere. We're floating on a thing and we have no idea where it's going. That's both liberating and terrifying, and completely what we are doing right now; running around feeling both liberated and terrified.
I honestly feel that I am losing my mind much of the time now a days. The anxiety attacks that cause my throat to close up, the tears welling up in my eyes and falling so fast down my face that I cannot even reach up to dry one before 27 appear in its place.
It's like the grief is an embodied thing, whose weight sits squarely on my chest from the time I wake up until the time I leave work, then it kind of gets off of me a little bit. Just a little. Like it's teabagging me or something, but it's no longer directly on my chest.
You'd think that'd make it somewhat easier to breathe, and it does. But you still feel something is off.
And, truth be told, something IS off.
I find myself repeating again and again the same things... This is not as it should be. Something is wrong, God I would give you all that I have to see my children one last time and at least say goodbye, even if I can't tell them why.
And these thoughts become my soundtrack throughout the day. Usually around noon the "Not Good Enoughs" chime in with their hit "You Should Probably Just Jump off the Damn Roof Now." but after some lunch and nicotine that tune changes to their next famous hit "You Probably Wouldn't Succeed at that Anyway you Big Fat Loser." Followed by the "Self Critics" single, "Why did you put your Ex in Jail where he'll die?"
It feels like a broken record playing in my skull every damn day. Like I am doomed to a hell of same thing-ness. The greatest hits of all my failures. All at once, again and again.
Nothing new happens, and when new things do happen they are not always good things. In fact, most of the time it's some bad thing that happens. I just kind of feel like yelling at people and saying "Can't you see I am barely holding myself together as it is??!?! Do you think I really NEED to be dealing with your bullshit right now?"
But the cars in traffic don't really seem to care much.
They still keep hitting their brakes.
Even though I've gone plenty of places and moved well beyond this, I don't feel like I've gone anywhere at all.
