Tonight is one of those nights where I just want to write. Whether it be a steady stream of consciousness or some haphazardly cobbled together narrative doesn’t matter. It is something I need to do. I yearn for it.

I’ve reached a point where I worry that I use my husband’s death as a way to receive sympathy. Like the people who humble brag in a self deprecating manner. Although this is neither humble nor a brag. I worry that I have begun to use it as a way to justify terrible behavior. Which is something I don’t want to make a habit.

I bring it up more than I feel I should. It’s not like I pop into Starbucks and when they ask for my order I reply “my husband just died and I’d like a black cold brew please.” Sometimes in the lack of conversation I bring it up or when prompted with how I am doing. More often than not I withhold my true feelings because it makes for a less awkward casual exchange. For those that I am familiar with, and know, I feel treat me as if I could crack at any moment. In their defense I might. I surprise even myself. But I haven’t yet. Whatever feelings I have I have buried them deep down to where they only bubble up, like crude oil, when things get tense.

Tonight… I have the image of my husband lying deceased in our bed prominent in my mind. The mental image is as fresh and real as if I was standing in the entry, staring at him resting peacefully. Unlike the times before this has caused me to feel a cut across my chest. In the actual moment this memory occurred I was calm, collected even. I was sad he was gone but… I wasn’t aching. It wasn’t painful. He passed with us around him, in his own bed, on his own terms. If given the optimal choice in passing, I think most would choose this exact scenario. Why now does it hurt?

The further I get from the last time I kissed his forehead causes me more heartache than I think I am prepared for. I miss him more and more as each day passes. Thinking of happier times waxes and wanes from joyful reminiscing to a painful desire for that which will never be again.

A friend of mine, who lost his husband to Covid, told me that almost a year, to the day, it was like a switch went off in his brain and he was no longer sad. The shared experience has been repeated a few times since and I can’t help but feel odd about it happening with me. I understand that I will always miss him, that’s a given. But I don’t want it to be a passing thought, like “oh, I need to buy milk” or “I really liked that jacket I had in junior high.”

I know my husband wouldn’t want me to be sad. He explicitly said he wanted me to live and have fun. It’s just weird without him. I don’t want to do it without him. At the very least, sharing with him what I did. How I feel.

And each day that passes I talk to new people who feel as though, in his absence, that there is place that could be filled by them. And all that does is make me angry. At both them and myself, for allowing it.

As I mentioned in a previous post I have finally taken steps to combat my ADHD by starting a new medication. So far everything has been fine but the last two mornings I have woken up with immense anxiety. Both starting from very, very vivid dreams. Yesterday it was one about my mother at the peak of her Alzheimer’s. I woke up having (what I imagine was) an intense panic attack from this feeling of “impending doom.” The only way I could calm myself down was to reassure myself, in my husband’s voice, that everything was going to be okay. Luckily it worked.

This morning I woke up again with anxiety. This time as a swirling ball of acid in my gut. Again after a very, very vivid dream. This one was about my cousin whom I no longer speak to. We had once been close, I thought, but when I understood that was all fake I just cut her off.

I am sure I do this too frequently, (maybe it’s the Scorpio in me) but it’s something I just have to do. Ultimately I have boiled it down to: I have too high of expectations on what I think family means. So, for mine and their own sanities I’d rather just remove myself from the situation entirely.

It’s drastic but… I’d rather be alone, than hold expectations that will inevitably leave me disappointed.

My husband and I were once very close to this cousin. I do very much love her and wish her the best but… she’s a liar. She may not think so (and possibly she isn’t), but for me she kept secrets and made excuses to cover up things. When I realized what was going on, I cut her off.

It started off with her being a secret Republican. (A trump voting Republican I should add. Vom.) She would complain about living California. It’s “too expensive” she said. Yeah! You live in the Bay Area. The fuck did you think it would cost in the most desirable area imaginable? So she said they wanted to move to Oregon or Arizona. At the time I took it for face value, but have since realized that these are code for “we want a red state.”

The second clue was whenever my husband and I would visit them, her husband would just disappear. I never understood that. I often wondered if he didn’t like us, it wasn’t that. It was to avoid talking politics because he, clearly, is a Republican. And so is she. I even remember making a remark about Trump in the early-early days of him running and she grabbed his hand and made eye contact as if to say “don’t say anything.”

Now there was nothing wrong with that at one time. Other than they’re voting against their best interest (and most Republican policy directly targets and hurts my community) but whatever.

Inevitably I ended our relationship because of the obvious lying. Once I finally put the pieces together that is.

It has since given me the weirdest PTSD where now I am sincerely and deeply paranoid that every close family member or friend is a secret Republican. If she could lie to my face and excuse things away for her husband and friends with lies, then why wouldn’t others? So, I genuinely start to panic that the people I love are and I cannot deal with that. She and most reds won’t understand that concept.

What ultimately pulled the trigger for ending the relationship was when she didn’t go to my mom’s funeral. She told me that they “weren’t going to be able to make it” (day of I might add) and then her mom swooped in with some bs about her being sick. And maybe that was the case but why not tell me that? Why get your mom in on this?

I’m probably making the wrong move but… The PTSD it gave me is sincerely real. I know how ridiculous that sounds but… it genuinely causes me distress. All because of her lying to me and the lengths she would take to do it! I will continue to stand my ground. (Oh the irony.) Ultimately, we have nothing in common other than that we share DNA.

Yesterday I went to a Cracker Barrel (one of my favorite establishments) to work on my Chapter 13. For whatever reason, out of the corner of my eye, I caught the date on my watch. It hit me that the next day (today) would be exactly two months since my husband passed away. It was quite coincidence as I was literally there to work on a part of the chapter that would be introducing a new character into the narrative, who I decided to model after my husband.

I chose to put him in as a someone who has never once set foot into the story until yesterday.

I had realized on our writing road-trip (where I forced the inhabitants of the car to listen to my novel) that after a particularly scarring piece of the story it would be logical of my character to seek professional help. I knew from then that I needed to add that but have drug my feet since on getting anything written.

That all changed yesterday.

I was proud of myself. Even with the medication apathy I had been feeling an hour earlier, it all seemed to dissipate as I drowned out the sounds of diners and the 90’s country playing on the overhead speakers. I was determined and found myself curious where the story was going to take me; where my husband was going to take me.

When I had finished, I returned to my office to transpose it into my word document and it was then that I began to really, really miss my husband. In this piece I felt as though I had truly captured his essence. He would have made a wonderful therapist. He had this uncanny ability to sift through someone’s bullshit story to find the truth. The ember that started their “fire.” He did it to me all the time. I hated it. But it was because of this that he helped bring out the best of me.

Two months later the pain is less so. Sometimes I feel like a monster, that I am mostly fine with him being gone.

“Did he mean nothing to you?” I ask myself.

When I voice this fear I have had people tell me I had 4 years to grieve. It wasn’t like it was a surprise. We literally picked the day, for Swiftsake.

He would joke that I would move on the next day and find another partner. I don’t know if he did that to manipulate me into not even dating again or what… I know he was joking. However there is always a kernel of truth in a joke. He was so insecure. He thought he was so easily replaceable and he isn’t. No one will ever replace him in my life/heart. Ever.

Sometimes I genuinely feel sorry for Josh or any others that ever do come into my life, because they will forever live in his shadow.

A shadow which I still talk to, and say I miss everyday. Genuinely, everyday.

I like to pretend that he took over for my unborn brother as “my guardian angel.” At times I feel his presence around me. Especially when we’re in the car. I will not hesitate to turn “to him” and talk as though he is there.

People do the strangest things in grief.