grief

December 23, 2025

Christmas “cheer”

Christmas is just a day away and I have less than zero spirit in me. I couldn’t even be bothered to decorate. I did do some but it all looks like shit, when you really examine the placement or motif. In the end it was Tony who did most, if not all, of the work. He was pulling double duty trying to bring “wonder for the season” while we both have none.

The more distance I leave between the death of my husband and the present, the more my heart aches for him and the life we once had. Every day I grow increasingly sad by his absence. I never realized how much of him was me. Or how our life together wasn’t perfect but it was ours. Now I just feel like a foreigner in a strange land.

Navigating all of the Christmas events without him or the new ones with a slight twist, just make my heart ache more than the moment before.

The other day I went to the boyfriends company holiday party and during it they played a song that once I left to drive home, I downloaded and had it on repeat the whole way. Every mile driven was soaked in tears. I could not stop myself from crying. It was ugly and visceral. The kind that if I were to ever see someone doing in real life or film I would immediately think they were faking it. It was that dramatic.

As the embarrassment of my actions shrouded over me, I looked around the car and asked myself “if you’re faking, who is this for?” No one was watching. No one even knew I was crying. It was just me. Well, me and the mental manifestation I have of my husband sitting in the passenger seat.

I would look insane if someone were to look at me through car windows. I turn and speak to him as if he’s there. Sometimes I hear a response in my head and other times I can see him making a face at me. All of it not real. In my head.

Grief is wild.

So much of my life exists only in my head. I sit and ponder everything, backward and forward in time. Then I hit the junctions where my thoughts skew into random topics of which I will dedicate entirely too much time ruminating. It’s a habit that has become too prevalent, that hours will pass by and I will find myself back in my family room as if no time has passed. It’s the nearest experience I will ever get to going to Narnia.

These mental adventures are, if not more, perilous than the imagined ones. Some times I wonder if this is how people go “insane.” They start traveling the narrow passages of their thoughts and wind up trapped in their own head.

Anyway… Merry Christmas. It is a trite sentiment but it never feels more tangible than when you’ve lost the ones you love: treasure the moments you have with them. They will one day be gone.

February 11, 2025

Ramblings of a Mad Man

Today is one of those days where I really, really, REALLY miss my husband. More than anything. If I could, I would give everything up just to be able to talk to him for one second; to hear his deep voice tell me: “…everything is going to be alright, dear.”

Last night I apparently watched enough TikTok that I went into a downward mental spiral. The thoughts racing through my head were very much “conspiracy theories,” and I was saying all the typical “phrases” one says when having a mental breakdown. “It’s like I’m awake for the first time…” Or “I know this sounds crazy…”

If Charlie was here he would fix me. I know it. He would ask his probing questions until I would work myself away from whatever metaphorical ledge I happened to be standing.

All I want is my husband’s voice telling me I’ll be okay. I crave it in my soul. I am so unbelievably lost without him. He was everything to/for me for, nearly, 21 years of my life. To just “not have him anymore” truly feels alien. He was always there. Always. Whether I wanted him or not.

Grief is such a wild experience. Compound that with self-preservation and a fear of the unknown has brought me to this “psychotic” reality. And I would very much like to leave it. My biggest fear is that something in my brain broke last night, and I can never go back to that “normal.”

January 16, 2025

Missing Peace

My husband was entirely too considerate. He would see/sense the frustration on my face while I was helping him and would always apologize. Nothing specific, just for being a “burden.” Hearing it would break my heart, because it wasn’t the helping him with (literally) everything, it was the impending loss of him that frustrated me. I equated watching/caring for him like dragging a sharp blade slowly across my skin. The image doesn’t encapsulate everything I wanted. It just brings to mind the torture of it all, and the unknown survival.

What I knew then, that I am very, very well aware of now, is that I dreaded his absence. Just thinking of him not being around caused me so much panic that I would begin to hyperventilate.

The last two days I have missed him terribly. We are entering a very scary time. My rock and the one who knew what to say to make me feel better, is gone. I’m left to handle my emotions alone, however chaotic and confusing they will inevitably be. There are those around me who will and do help. They are just not to the level my husband achieved. Maybe it is because he had 21 years to perfect his process.

In the beginning, he didn’t know how to handle me. I am a live wire. It takes a certain level of finesse to comprehend why I do the things I do or why I feel a particular way. In those early days he sure as shit knew how to push my buttons. Ones he would deliberately press to listen to the cacophony of noises that would erupt from me. He watched my explosion with glee until it would inevitably take a dark turn and he’d have to deal with the repercussions of having done it. Only through his “practice” did he learn.

More than anything I want him here with me. I miss him terribly. I finally comprehend why people leave this mortal coil after losing the ones they love. They’re chasing the belief that they will see them again. That it will be instantaneous. That the person you crave more than air will be waiting on the other side, hand open to welcome you there. Unfortunately, it’s all fantasy. A human mind trying to rationalize a very spiritual event.

December 11, 2024

Family Weekend

It’s been a busy month. So much and so little has happened that I’m a little overwhelmed on how to write it all out. Which is another reason why I’ve avoided writing. That and the fact that I have lost any and all interest in the things I once enjoyed.

The other night as I lay in bed, forcing my brain to shut the fuck up so I can sleep, it occurred to me that the things I once enjoyed doing (writing and performing) have gone away. Now I look at things like narrative arcs or turning myself into a character for the stage/screen with confusion and fear. I imagine that it’s just grief. Or, most likely, depression. In the past I used these things as outlets and now I could not even be bothered. I’d rather just sit. Looking at the TV or my phone has become my favorite past time. And I genuinely hate it.

The only way to get back to doing the things I love is to do them. It’s really quite simple. And if it turns out that I genuinely don’t enjoy these activities anymore, then so be it. Life is always changing. For the good and the bad.

This past weekend my whole family (my in-laws, brother hubs, and bf) all went to Vegas to celebrate my husband’s birthday. It’s the first one without him, since he came into my life. I wanted to mark it with something notable. When the BF was offered a comped suite at the Rio, we booked it for this weekend. All 8 of us filled the room for three days, and it was wonderful. On my husband’s actual birthday, we went to a drag brunch, my family got to experience Omega Mart at Meow Wolf, and then in the evening we ate an amazing dinner at a high dollar restaurant. If my husband had been there, I think he would have enjoyed it too. And maybe he did…

The first morning in Vegas my brother hubs and I got some very bizarre news. We are distantly related by blood. We both had suspicions when his aunt told us, during our first and only visit to her place in Texas, that there were some “Hensley’s” in their family tree. I was taken aback because my surname is very unique and if you encounter one in the wild, there is a 80% chance I am related to them. Every generation preceding me had 6-12 kids a each. Legitimately. I am one of the few branches to only have a single child.

When Ancestry had a special on the DNA kit I bought one for the brother-hubs because I HAD to know. Plus it would make for a serendipitous coincidence.

The only part I don’t quite understand is that when I search for him, nothing comes up. HOWEVER, when I search for his aunt our DNA matches are either: half third cousin 1x removed OR third cousins 2x removed. So, it stands to reason that since she shows up for him, in his matches, then he should for me. The only caveat is that his aunt’s father is different than his mother’s, however the Hensley name is from his maternal grandmother… Maybe it just hasn’t updated yet?

The one person I want to tell all of this to is my husband. I know he’d be excited about it, and probably make the same joke our friend Kyrus made “evidently I have a type. Hensleys.”