Grief's Hostage No More

I’m tired. I have been going to sleep on the couch for the past week, waking up after midnight and transferring my half-sleeping body to my bed.

Tomorrow, Chris and I would have been married 5 years. I can’t believe our wedding, on the Boston Common, was 5 years ago. I can't believe we would have been celebrating 10 years of knowing one another.

I have had a measurable amount of anxiety over the last couple of weeks. Last night, I fell apart, again, just for a short while. Still, I managed to get out and run, donning my brand new cold-weather running apparrel. Unbelievably, 13 degrees didn’t affect me at all. I remained warm enough throughout my entire 4.5 mile run, and then I entered the gym and lifted weights for an hour. Who’s better than me?

I’m glad I have Jonathan. He doesn’t know I cried, last night, but knowing he’s in my life makes my life easier, more safe and less lonely. He’s like a giant queen-sized down comforter who keeps me warm on nights like last night.

I’m not grief’s hostage, the way I once was. I can easily come in and out of the state. I suppose “lucid grieving” would be an accurate label for the state of my grief, these days. Life has gotten easier. Dealing with my loss has become easier, just like other widows before me assured me it would. What I am left with is sort of a “ground zero” of anxiety akin to earthquake aftershocks or tremors. I remain ever-affected under the surface and I really don’t know what I would do without the knowledge that my bottle of Ativan is always full. I almost never take the drug. Each prescrption of 20 pills takes me an average of 8 months to swallow. Not bad for a person who has grown to really enjoy it’s effects. I often refer to Ativan as “the new marijuana” -- bottled peace.

So, another January 17 is before me and of course I’ll feel sad, but I have come a very long way since that first anniversary, when fantasies of suicide promised a possible permanent respite from my pain and anguish.

Initially, I thought I’d stay in for a while tomorrow, watch our wedding video and fall apart, but now I plan to run, hit the gym and hang out with one of my friends, a much more adaptive choice.

Peace out.

Shneed