Ten Months

Jeff has been gone 10 months today.  I am living alone for the first time in my life.

The transition to living alone has actually been relatively peaceful.  I had more anxiety about living alone before I lived alone.  Now that I do live alone, it's really not so bad.  I am getting used to doing everything by myself.  Of course the first few days of living alone my porch light shorted out and my garbage disposal broke.  But I got through it and figured out how to get it all fixed.

Jeff was never much of a handyman so it's not like he could have fixed the porch light or the garbage disposal anyway.  I was always the one to figure out ways to take care of the issues around the house when he was still alive.  But there is just something about having a partner to not only suffer through life's difficulties with, but also celebrate life's triumphs.

I try and always remember that even though I am without him, I am not alone.  I have so many great friends and family and Jeff is still always with me.

I really feel that Jeff has been with me, helping me transition and relieving my anxiety.  I know I will have bad days, but right now I'm just grateful that these first couple transitional weeks have been ok, I am ok.

Happy Birthday Bober

Today is Jeff's 39th birthday and I'm off to Las Vegas.

Every year for the past 15 or so years, Jeff and a bunch of his friends would go to Vegas sometime in the month of October because so many of them had birthday's in October.  Once Jeff and I started dating, I started tagging along sporadically when I could, and since a few of my own girlfriends have birthdays in October, they started joining the party too. 

Jeff went every year with his friends.  I even paid for him to go by himself as his birthday present right after we got engaged, even though I couldn't go because of work responsibilities.  Last year was the only year he didn't go.  He just wasn't feeling it.

This year, we decided to go on his actual birthday and celebrate him and everyone else who has a birthday in October.

Happy birthday love of my life.  I am keeping your traditions alive.

Homework

I know I'm a teacher and I assign homework but I'm such a hypocrite because I don't like it when it's assigned to me.  I had therapy a couple of days ago and after going through everything with "the roommate situation," I got a homework assignment.

My therapist was right when he said that all of this stuff with Jeff's parents and brother was just a distraction.  Now that it's no longer distracting me, I can get to the real work of moving forward. 

He asked me what I wanted and what would make me happy.  When he asked me that, I was speechless for the first time. Usually when he asks me a question, I have an immediate response. This is the first time I've been speechless.  And then I started crying.  I had no idea why I was so emotional.

He told me that this would be a "homework" assignment. 

I told my therapist I didn't like that homework assignment and that I probably wouldn't do it.  Essentially, I came to the realization that I was afraid of it.

Then he asked me another question that made me cry even more. He asked me if I wanted to stay where I am right now, if I wanted to stay in this place and be stagnant.

I know I don't want to stay here in this anxiety ridden, unhappy place, but only I can do the work to move forward.  But moving forward also means moving forward without Jeff and that's terrifying,  that's full of guilt, that's just no good.  But where I am now is no good, it's full of guilt, and it's terrifying too.

So these past couple of days, I started thinking.  I have my dream job.  I have a fantastic house.  I have enough money to support myself.  I have my family and my friends.  I have everything I could want except someone to share it with. 

I don't have a partner in life.  I had the best partner in life, but he died.

So where do I go from here?  All I want is my partner back.  Since I can't have him back, what else do I want?

I'm stuck.  I don't want anything else. 

So I guess I have to keep doing my homework.  I have to keep thinking about what I want and what would make me happy. 

I know that this is the hardest homework assignment I've ever had.  I also know that it is the most important homework assignment I've ever had.  Did I mention already that I don't like homework.

The Roommate Situation Part 3

Jeff's brother officially moved out yesterday.  He's staying with a friend for a few days before he begins the drive to Texas in two days.

He left much sooner than I expected but I keep telling myself that this is a good thing.  We are both hurting so much.  It was very tense in the house.  He is still angry but I can tell he is trying to understand. 

I still feel terrible but am also tired of feeling so terrible and I'm ready to move on.  I'm tired of feeling guilty, tense, and unsure of what kind of situation I will encounter when I walk into my own house.  We have mainly been avoiding each other but there are times where it's inevitable to be in the house together and usually that involves some really deep conversation that is tense and most often angry.  We are both trying to express to the other how much we are hurting.

Strangely enough, this has been so terrible that I am actually looking forward to the next horrible emotion, loneliness. 

I am still very anxious about being alone but I'm trying to handle it as best I can.  I have tried to come up with coping skills.  I know that it is going to be difficult and I will definitely have lots of bad days but I will survive.  It will get easier.  I will get through it.  I have to do the work by myself.

Surprisingly, we are both so hurt yet we are having a hard time letting go of each other.  I was not expecting him to contact me once he decided to stay with his friend before he went to Texas but he has been texting and calling.  He wants to say goodbye one last time before he leaves.  He also left a couple of things here that he still wants so he needs to pick them up before he goes.

He is an introvert and doesn't communicate well, which was one of the biggest problems I had living with him, so I'm not expecting him to reach out to me very often once he is back in Texas.  From my experience with him, he is very "out of sight, out of mind."  I hated it before but am kind of glad he's like that right now.

I know I need to not have contact with him for a while.  I feel like I am extremely co-dependent and I know that I need to break away in order to become truly independent again.  Once he is on his way to Texas, I plan on deleting his phone number from my phone.  That way I will not be tempted to "check up" on him and find out how the drive is going, how he's settling in, how he's doing, what the weather is like, what he had for dinner, etc. 

I am a big girl.  I can live alone.  I can do it.  I have nothing to be afraid of.  But I will definitely not be watching any "Criminal Minds," "Dateline," or scary movies for a while.  Let's take it one step at a time.

The Roommate Situation Part 2

Jeff's brother got his old job back in Texas.  He starts November 3rd.  He will be gone in less than 3 weeks.  This is bittersweet for me.
 
On the one hand, once he told me he got his old job back a huge weight was lifted off of my shoulders.  The guilt that I was harboring mostly melted away.  In my head, I rationalize it as he took a 7 month vacation and now he's just returning to his old life in Texas.

But then the idea of being alone hits me and the anxiety comes raging back.  I would love to be one of those people who actually enjoys being alone.  I have 5 single girlfriends all around my age who live alone and they talk about how awesome it is, how much they enjoy coming home to a quiet house and have no body to worry about other than themselves.  That sounds like a nightmare to me.

I love cooking for someone. 

I enjoy having someone to talk to about my day when I get home and I enjoy hearing about their day.

I am comforted knowing someone is home with my dog while I'm out and I don't have to rush home.

I am a social person.  I have never lived alone before.  I moved from my parents house, into an apartment with my cousin and his one year old son, and then in with Jeff.  When Jeff died, his parents lived with me until his brother moved in. 

I was talking to my therapist two days ago and we both agreed that Jeff's brother moving out is the best decision for my overall health and the sooner the better.  How could I live with this much tension for another five months?  I brought up my anxiety of living alone.  My therapist was very reassuring that I could do it.  He reminded me that anxiety is essentially fear of being afraid.  With careful practice and not avoiding, I can retrain my brain into recognizing there really isn't anything to be afraid of.  I practiced the other day.  A panic attack began and I just sat with it.  Eventually, after 10 minutes or so my heartbeat slowed, the nausea decreased, the tension eased.  But then I started thinking about how painful it was to experience that anxiety and it came roaring back. 

I know that it's really about the fear of experiencing that pain again.  So I need to continue to practice.  I wrote down what I think I'm afraid of and some practical things I can do to relieve it.  I will try to go back to that list and try and remind myself that my fear is irrational.  That there really isn't anything to be afraid of.

Now that I know how soon he will be leaving, the guilt went away but the anxiety remained.  But I am gaining the tools to deal with the anxiety.

I need to remind myself that I have always been a strong and independent woman.  These drastic changes in my life have made me dependent on others.  I know that this is all normal in my situation and I need to give myself some leeway but I am also angry at myself and the situation in general. 

I don't deserve to have lost my husband and to experience this much pain. 

I don't deserve to have had a very well planned life and then have that ripped away and now fear the unknown path ahead. 

But that is all irrelevant.  It happened, and it's happening and I just need to put my big girl panties on and deal with it.

In less than 3 weeks I will be alone.  I will be ok.

The Roommate Situation

My roommate is moving out.  I am filled with anxiety and pain about being alone and hurting him but I know that this is the best thing for me to continue my grieving process.  My roommate is Jeff's brother. 

I knew when Jeff's brother moved in that it probably wasn't the best idea.  I never mentioned that "this much needed roommate" from a previous blog was Jeff's brother, most likely because I knew him moving in wasn't going to be the best idea.

I feel like I've been doing something that I call transferring.  I transferred my emotions from Jeff to his parents when they lived with me the first two months after Jeff died and then to his brother when he moved in with me before his parents moved out.  I have never been alone since Jeff died.  I have always had one of his immediate family members living with me. 

I have been holding on to Jeff by taking pieces from his family and using them as substitutes for Jeff.  I know it's not healthy but it's what I felt I needed at the time. 

Now I know that all it is doing is prolonging the inevitable painful loneliness and grief of truly mourning Jeff and getting used to being alone.  What we should have done was set boundaries but we didn't.  So he moved in and I started treating him just like I treated Jeff.  I cooked for him and helped him with whatever he needed.  He drives Jeff's truck and is wearing a bunch of Jeff's clothes.  I put his needs and priorities over my own and did whatever I could to make him happy.  I transferred my caretaking abilities from Jeff to his brother.  I was desperately trying to create that emotional connection that I had with Jeff. 

But of course none of that was reciprocated as it shouldn't have been.  But my feelings were hurt because I expected it to be reciprocated and I know now that was irrational.  Because of my hurt feelings and my realization that this is not healthy, I've finally had enough.  I have to set boundaries. 

We never set a date for how long he would live with me.  We said it was because he was moving from Texas and he didn't have a job so how could he know when he would be able to move out without knowing when he would be able to afford to move out.  Now I realize that wasn't a good reason.  So I set a date.  I told him he had five more months living with me.

He is very angry and feels like he quit is life and his job in Texas to move here and help me and since it took him 6 months to find a part time job, he doesn't think that he will be able to move out on his own in five months.  He feels betrayed and I completely understand why.  I made promises before he moved here that he could live with me for at least a year and most likely two years but we always left it open in case he wouldn't be financially ready to move out in two years. 

Five months from now will be a year.  He feels he needs more time and that family shouldn't do this to each other.  He's so angry that he is planning to move out immediately, most likely back to Texas.  I feel terrible and it is so tense in the house.  But I am "sticking to my guns."  I am not giving in.  I need to set boundaries.

I feel absolutely horrible, but when I made those promises to him, I didn't realize how I would feel once he was here.  There is a reason why everybody says to not make any big decisions the first year or two of becoming a widow.  I shouldn't have made those promises to him but I just couldn't stand to be alone and I really wanted him here.  I needed him here.  He is so much like Jeff and I just want to hold on to Jeff so badly.  But now I know how unhealthy that is for me.  Unfortunately, I am hurting him in the process.  I am devastated by how much I have hurt him.

I am having such severe anxiety throughout these last few days.  I can't eat, I can't sleep, I feel anxious and tense and nauseous.  I cry all the time.  It feels just like when we found out Jeff had terminal lung cancer.  This idea of being alone without any piece of Jeff around is killing me.  The idea of how terribly I am hurting his brother, who I care so much about and who now hates me and vows to never speak to me again, is horrible.  But I know it's what I need to be able to become strong and independent.  I cannot rely on him any more for emotional support.  I need to be able to rely on myself.

This is the hardest decision I've ever had to make.  I've been told that some of the best decisions are the most heart wrenching to make.  I know that this is the best decision for me, but I feel it is just as hard as losing Jeff because his brother helped me cope with his loss in the beginning and now I've lost Jeff and I am losing his brother too.