Hard Things

Fact of Life:  When you lose your husband, the world expects you to step up and adult even if you don't want to, don't feel like it, are anxious about it, or dread it because it's dang hard stuff you must do.

And it sucks.

But you get up each day, and you do it anyway, because no one else can do it for you.  Oh, they can...But how selfish to expect anyone else to stop their lives to do it for you simply because I feel lazy or low, or fearful, or whatever else emotion I might cough up.   I mean, they all have things they must deal with and attend to and face their loss at the same time...surely, I can do just as much. 

I make decisions and I ask advice of strangers because they are the professionals and I hope I am making the right choices.  I'm not accustomed to this hesitation or worrying about making a decision.  Goodness knows, John pushed me to make decisions often enough!  It's not like I am out of practice or new to it.

But also true is the fact that making decisions before was something we did together.  We didn't always make the right decision even then with two or three minds working at it, but we'd console ourselves with the fact that the other thought it was a good idea as well if it was a wrong choice.  No such luck sharing the blame if I get it wrong all by myself!

I've had to push myself to go do the things that I didn't quite understand but which must be done.  Social Security, VA, certain banking decisions, dealing with the investment of our small IRA, now my IRA.  Again, I don't really understand my own hesitation.   These thing that must be done are not out of the realm of my abilities or intelligence.  They are just different from what I might normally tackle.  Yes, I do find I am lacking some of my past confidence.

I did them, anyway.  I did them with anxiety.  I did them with nervousness.  I did them sensibly, practically and carefully.  There's more to be done, appointments ahead of me, facts to be faced that perhaps I'd rather not face.  

But the biggest thing, the hardest thing was bumping into grief at unexpected moments.  I did, it hurt, I backed away, I shielded my mind, I busied my hands, I talked to myself or to John, I did anything, everything, except acknowledge that pain.  

That part is too hard for me just yet.  I will do it.  I know it's healthy to face it and accept.  But just now, I feel it might stop me too hard in my tracks.  I feel that I might not make the next move if I allow it to become my focus.  That day will come, when I can sit with it and feel it fully and acknowledge it in all its phases.  That's what I told myself.

A breaking point had to come, didn't it?  I was watching Bridgerton, and in season 1 episode 2 the Duke of Hastings died.  Perhaps it was because it was late at night, or because it was the first full 24 hour period I'd been alone in weeks, or I was overtired and too caught up in the program to realize it...Never mind the why, the point is that I found myself watching that man's death which was completely different than John's and suddenly I flashed back to sitting at John's hospital bedside as he breathed his last.  I saw his face, his quiet, peaceful face and I recalled how very wrong it had felt to walk away and leave him there.  That was my undoing.

I sobbed for a good hour or more.  One storm of tears would pass and then another would begin.  I went to lie down in bed and cried into my pillow until all the tears were spent and I was exhausted.    I say sincerely, there was no shying away from that bout of grief.  I had to face it and meet it head on and allow it to wash over me in great waves.  It was needed.  It was necessary.  It will likely happen again.  But it was hard, too.

I'm going to do the hard things.  I'm able to do them.  I'm just not used to doing them all alone. 

I can do this. One hard thing at a time.