The actions that I took yesterday gave me a sense of pride. I knew what I had to do, which was to reach out to my therapist, and instead of my usual, “I know, I should,” I did. Evidently how I worded my email to him concerned him in such a way that within five minutes he called me.

“What’s going on, Josh?” He asked.

I began to explain the entire weekend and how I had felt. For someone who I feel, at times, just keeps me as a patient because I’m relatively low maintenance he was on-it when it came to my crisis. We talked on the phone for about five minutes. He listened to me and then responded by reminding me of all that I have gone through in the past few years. As a result, I am still in the process of grieving my husbands death. He explained that grief can manifest as anxiety or panic attacks because it’s our bodies response to the lack of the person’s presence.

“This person should be here.”

“It’s like they were completely erased from your life.”

The reminder really struck a chord in me and once I understood, and accepted this answer, it all made sense. I look back on the past few times I’ve had these episodes and each one was either directly or in a roundabout way, connected to his memory.

The first time was when we were driving to visit our Papa Bill in Palm Springs and I lamented, to myself, on the drive that I really missed Charlie. He was the chatty Cathy who could strike up and maintain a conversation about headlamps. He could make it so engaging that it would spark another topic and then another, like a firecracker. Without him there that day, the car ride was near silent. We had music playing but there was no discourse. To add to the vacuum of sound, it was also the first road trip with the three of us where charlie wasn’t included. The weight of his absence so very, very obvious. It made my heart hurt.

In that event I think the grief was too much for me to comprehend and it manifested as a “heart attack,” because a large part of my heart was no longer there.

The last two were not so much his absence but the meaning in it. He wouldn’t have approved of my BFs and my trip to SLO (it was a “sexy” trip) and then this past weekend the three of us were hanging out in the living room, without him, talking about how the brother-husband had a date with a new man.

Conceptually I understand that life goes on but… The heart doesn’t know or even really care. It wants what it wants. Mine wants my Charlie back. I am utterly lost without him. He successfully held this crazy together and now I am left to do it by myself.

To top everything else off, the past couple months I have been plotting and planning my proposal to the BF.

Charlie always joked, before he was ever diagnosed with ALS by the way, that when he died I would: 1) bring my boyfriend to his funeral, which I did do, but he brought his; and 2) that I would be remarried soon after he was gone.

I hated those jests. It felt like he was discounting my feelings for him or not believing that I absolutely I loved him. “Accusing me” of “moving on” felt like I was trying to erase him or, at the very worst, that I never cared for him. If there ever was a doubt in my heart that I “didn’t really love him,” caring for as he lost the ability to do literally anything and my subsequent immense longing has wiped awat any doubt. That man was my everything. Some may scoff, “how can that be, you had an open relationship? You had a boyfriend!”

To that I say, love is not precise. There is no single picture of what it should, could or does look. I believe that two heterosexual men can love another more than a spouse and not have it sexual in any sense of the word. Sex does not equal love, and vice versa. Combining them as one thing is minimizing the immense potential of the two. If they both work out, then you’ve got lightning in a bottle. Cherish it. However sometimes our hearts and minds are compatible, like the person was made specifically for you, but in the bedroom you both want entirely different things. Trying to meet in the middle is one way to build a strong bond, but sometimes there are things that are just impossible to bridge because of expectations. There are moments where even when your partner tries, there is a mental block reminding you “they’re not into this” and that kills potential in the attempt. I have found from my own experience at least, and even with my husband.

We want our partners to be happy and if that’s not doing that well… what do you do? In my opinion, suffering in silence is not an option. It’s what led me to cheating over and over again.

Instead of us breaking up, because at the core of our relationship was love and trust (I don’t know how it survived with my infidelity), we decided to open our marriage. After which, I believe, with every fiber of my being, it brought us closer together. It was all based on honesty and communication. We had a set of rules that guided our relationship and dictated what was and wasn’t okay. It wasn’t some lawless wild west where we could just do whatever the fuck we wanted.

I could wax poetic about non-monogamy for hours, but that isn’t the point of this post.

Today I am doing so much better. I reached out to a professional and I listened to his expert advice. My word choice is deliberate. Most people hear what they’re told, but do they listen? Do they comprehend how it applies to them, in that moment? I got lucky because I am someone who spends hours ruminating in my mind. The bitch WILL NOT shut up.

Even with all of that progress, however, I still think I’m dying, but aren’t we all?