very tough night for me tonight. so many thoughts vying for front and center. thinking about my life with my mother. thinking about my life with my first husband. with my Carl, and now that he's gone, with my two children. so hard to sit and type it when words just want to spill from my mouth. but this is all i am allowed. i read of so many who get grief counseling and i wish the person i am writing to who has offered to hear me but who lives 10's of thousands of miles away; i wish we could do this face-to-face.
i emailed the grief counselor who i do not think was vested in my well-being. i am still working on her quilt. it was part of the deal even though i no longer see her. she was just not really there for me. she kept changing appointments or i'd show up and she would have forgotten me. i apologized for the slowness of the quilt, but with work and not feeling well with this high blood pressure thing and diabetes, ...... anyway, she did not answer me. i think she is angry. i can't be a part of that. so many people lined up to be pissed at me for something. get in line. and i say that without really having any kind of a list other than first husband, his entire family, my brother who has disowned me......i am hurting so badly tonight. those "old sorrows that rise up to beset me. old doubts make my spirit their own."
i am lonely for him and yet i am in such darkness tonight that i wonder if his dying wasn't just a way to get away from me. my children are so busy with their lives. i get small parcels of their time, and you know, they ARE grown up and they ARE busy, but i gave up my whole life to move into the hospital when my mother was dying. i sat there for 6 months and took care of her until she died and she despised me. so i'm not dying. not that i know of yet. i just want my son to come visit. i want my daughter to make a little time for me in the physical sense of coming over rather than relying on the phone calls now. but she IS so busy and has moved 30 minutes in the complete other direction. i feel alone up here. i am anxious a lot of the time. i feel like i am in an airport terminal waiting on them to call my flight. "Bunny, board at Gate 2. Dragon is waiting." but Murphy's Law will dictate that that voice will say, "Bunny, why are you waiting. get to work. no one wants to spend time with you. you are only a commodity. not a real person."
but i am supposed to be doing better, right? at least better than i am. i am supposed to be working on my self-esteem and empowering myself. but it's hard to do that when someone tosses those platitudes off over their shoulder as they walk away, or hang up on you. i wish i could move to an island and never have to see anyone again. if i am on an island, no one CAN come to see me. it would be a great inconvenience. i am "patted" on the back via emails and phone calls from people i do all this stuff for and yet, no one really knows how much i hurt. no one. i cannot really tell anyone everything. there is so much. there would be that yawn and that lack of interest. or they would be appalled and not want to hear anymore, or not believe me. so many times doctors did not believe me. or lawyers. "go fix your marriage." "he makes this amount of money and you want to divorce him? can't you just take it?" it was my turn to be appalled.
i did try to talk to someone back in August in San Diego. she was horrified. she did not want to hear me at all. she wanted it all to be free and fun, to cut loose and get away from sorrow and trouble. i cannot risk being shut down like that again. i cannot risk opening my mouth and seeing that look on a person's face. widow or not, no one truly gets all of it, off of the individual. everyone has their secret darkness that haunts them. being with other widow's like that, it was the wrong time and place and people for trying to find someone to talk to like i need. 2 years, 3 months and i am still searching for someone to talk face-to-face to. there is something wrong about that. where is the empathy? where is the compassion?
i want to move away and become a hermit. if i become a hermit, there can be no expectation of company therefore no feelings of abandonment. me and Bunny on a small rock off the coast of somewhere. i am supposed to be thinking how wonderful i am and proud of the things i do for others but i don't. i have no good feelings for myself at all. i do for others what i'd like to have done for me. i do for others because it is the right thing to do. it doesn't make me special. i don't do anything for anyone that anyone else couldn't do. i write to other widows who rely on my honesty about grief via my hubpages that i write for. i have several people who write to me, lean on me. i have to give to them because it is what i have wanted, someone who answers their cries. someone who is not too busy. someone they can trust to be there for them. i cannot let them think that womanNshadows would be cavalier with their feelings and their pain. i have empathy for them all. i give them my words, my honest and soulful words but how can i see that as something of value when it is so obviously and simply the right thing to do? it is not about my self-worth. it is about being there in the dark with someone without thinking of yourself. no fanfare. no fireworks or speeches. it is not empowering to me. it is draining. see, i just need him back. i need Carl. i want to know if he left me because he was sick of me. like my kids who have so little time for me. i want to know if he still loves me. i want to know if i am still interesting to him. to someone. no, valuable. do i have value simply because i breathe. not for what i can write or make or do for someone. i need to know if he still loves me. would stay with me if he could.
i am so tired and hungry and not sure what i can and cannot eat. the diet needs of high blood pressure and diabetes is like a venn diagram. yes for this but oh, no for that. i need that small arc of space where there is overlap to become clear. what is in there that i can eat without fear of coma or stroke?
i want to leave this cold, uncaring concrete place and go back to the ocean. maybe like Henry Beston did in when he moved to the Cape and wrote the Outermost House. but i need money for that and i will never have that. i will never have all my things back from storage. i will never have a life, only an existence.
posting all this, this is a shot in the dark to see if anyone is really listening; see if anyone has this depth of pain, too. {{hugs}} or "thinking of you" is sweet but it comes from a place of not knowing what else to say. but in their defense, how can they know what to say to someone who is sobbing so hard they are silent. raw, overwhelming, powerful grief racks the body and cannot all come out. no sound can issue forth because it is too loud to be heard. how can anyone know what to say to someone whose darkness is so vile that they can never tell anyone everything.
i want him back. or at least to call me. tell me why you left me alone down here. tell me that it was the worst thing that could ever have happened to us. tell me that you miss me. tell me that you ...................... are still capable of loving me?
i want to eat with you. i want you to cook something for me that i can eat that won't kill me. please just come back and have dinner with me. and then just tuck me into bed and stay with me until i fall asleep. just one more night together. please. i promise i won't ask for another thing.
i wish for peace to all who read this whether the overwhelming sadness of it renders you speechless or not. i am glad i have sent the Traveling Ambassador out into the world. i want her to help others as my own dear Bunny helps me get through the days and nights. i love all the photos of Bunny, all the places she has gone. the snow in Canada, the crazy fun times in London, the peace of Wales. i love her Aussie thongs, as Boo called them. her Australia pin. i am going to cherish this journey of hers for all my days.
and the ocean. my Bunny got to go to the ocean. when she comes back to me i am going to smell her, to see if there are any leftover smells of the ocean. and i will close my eyes and fantasize. that's all i have left. fantasy and nightmares. i try to make the fantasies push the nightmares away.
