Grief has me by the throat.

I stopped wearing my ring, yesterday. I just did it. Just as with all of the other milestones I have reached throughout these past three years, there was no warning, and all of the imagined plans leading up to the “big decision” were not present. I simply suddenly decided not to wear it, anymore. I have hidden it somewhere special, in a place that makes sense to me…and to Chris.

The absence of a ring on my hand conjures up feelings of anxiety, loss and nakedness – a feeling of the removal of training wheels. The ring is absent, and I’m walking by myself, upright, albeit wobbly.

I don’t want it on my hand, anymore. For all of the comfort it has brought me these past three years, it now invokes in me a feeling of loneliness and begs the question, “Why do I wear it?” I don’t have an answer to that question, anymore.

This past weekend was the first one in four months that I had nothing but free, unstructured time. My three classes ended last weekend and I am finally able to sit on my couch and relax without the weight of a homework assignment or final exam hanging over my head. I like it.

The thing about unstructured time and me, however, is that when I have it, I’m lost. I was very productive this weekend and bragged to my friends about all that I was able to accomplish. What I didn’t realize is that I accomplished as a means of suppressing an onslaught of grief, as per usual.

Once I stopped accomplishing, I was overcome with anger, anxiety, impatience and grief. I didn’t want to go to dinner with my two friends, last night, but it was our third annual Holiday dinner and we had planned it for weeks. I had a hard time laughing it up, last night, but I feel that I kept myself under a reasonable amount of control.

The moment I dropped them off, I exploded into meltdown that began in the car and ended an hour and a half later when I could no longer stay awake long enough to grieve.

Three years ago, today, my husband was writhing in pain, swallowing five Oxycodones at a time and, I’m sure, beginning to have an inkling that he was going to die. Three years ago tomorrow, I drove him to Brigham and Womens Hospital’s emergency room and watched, as the orderly took him away in a wheel chair, telling me not to worry and promising me that they would take good care of him. We spent the entire day in the emergency room that Christmas day.

Eight days later, Chris was dead.

Last night, those memories broke me and they’re threatening to break me again, today. They will, partially because they’re very sad memories and partially because I know no other to pay tribute to Chris than with my grief. For that, I apologized to him, last night.

What difference does it make? He wasn’t there to hear me, anyway.