With Creej's Help

I just came from the Ellis Paul concert. Ellis was a tradition for me and Chris, one that my friends have helped me to keep up even after Chris' death.

Something very special happened.

I was sitting listening to Ellis and feeling a surge of sadness and tears coming on. Then my thoughts suddenly weren't my own. It was like I was having a conversation with Chris, like, he visited my head and talked to me.

I thought to myself, "Don't cry, little Shneed." and then I thought "I'm trying not to Creej. Help me to not cry." At that very second, one of Ellis' strings snapped, mid-song, and I laughed out loud.

That's it. I felt like Chris and I had that conversation and like he helped me to not cry.

I would give everything I own just to hug him again, to feel him hugging me, and to feel special to somebody again. The weight of the world is a feather's when somebody thinks you're special.

One more anniversary for me after this one. The wedding one. Then I'm free for another year.

Christmas Day. Three years later.

I have heard others in my position say that the anticipation is always worse than the arrival of an anniversary day. I agree with that philosophy.

I just woke up and I’m already tired. I also just got off the phone with my friend, Meira, who lost her mother a couple years ago and she said, “I’ll just be happy when today is over.” I am also in agreement with that sentiment. The day is never as bad as I anticipate, yet, nevertheless, I’ll be happy when it’s over.

I know I won’t be a curmudgeon once I get out into the world, today (not that my friend is one -- I always judge myself harder than others). I just mapped out a 3-mile run that I plan to begin sometime in the next hour, after which I will get ready to head over to my father’s house for the holiday. My brother is coming from out of town and I have invited Meira to join us in the spirit of suppression. Ah, what would I do without sweet suppression?

Last night I was plagued by parralell-thinking. I got caught in a destructive (or maybe it was constructive -- opinions vary.) cycle of play-by-play ‘what-was-happening-in-my-life-three-years-ago-this-very-moment?’ Pain was happening. Sadness was happening. Chaos was happening. This kind of thinking confirms for me that I need to launch a nationwide search (or citywide, at least) for a good cognitive behavioral therapist. I told Clay I would probably be leaving him, shortly. I told him the only reason I come to him, nowadays, is because I like him and I’d miss him if I didn’t come. I suppose that’s as good a reason as any to see a therapist, but it’s a better reason to see a friend, which Clay is not. I need somebody to hold me accountable for the sometimes counterproductive thought patterns I exhibit. Monitoring my own thoughts and invoking change are easier said, than done.

Today will be fun. Hanging out with my family usually is fun. Food is always fun. And I’m so looking forward to my run, now that the temperature seems to be hovering around 40 degrees. I am not going to let this small window of outdoorsie-opportunity escape me.

Merry Christmas.

Shneed

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.

Bang a Nail in the Wall, Hang it Up and Move On

Last night, I dreamed about cancer.

Chris and I were very distant with each other. We both had cancer and I was trying to connect with him in some way. I came across his Woody Woodpecker pajamas (In life, he had Underdog pajamas.) and I wanted to give them to him, but couldn’t figure out if doing so would trigger anger and fear in him or bring him comfort.

As is usually the case in my dreams, he was mad at me.

As my morning progressed, I must have suppressed whatever emotions would have surfaced as a result of my cinematic slumber, so when I was hanging pictures up and came across our wedding picture, I completely fell apart.

I was married, once, to a man with whom I fit completely and wholly. I don’t get to be with him anymore.

I retreated to my bedroom, hammer still in hand, and dropped onto my bed, embracing the picture and crying.

As I lay there sobbing, I had a poetic (albeit macabre) vision as though from above my own body, of me lying on the bed with my arm around the picture, bleeding from my head of a self-induced beating with the hammer.

There’s so much rage buried within my psyche.

Sometimes I just want to go to sleep and find him, and never come back.

I don’t know where to hang our wedding picture. Somehow I feel as though it shouldn’t be the first thing I see every time I come home. I feel like it shouldn’t be in my bedroom. I also feel like it doesn’t belong in the bathroom or the office or the kitchen, or the hallway.

I’m stuck. At the moment, it’s on my lap getting rained on by my tears. But I can’t sit here forever, so I have to bang a nail in the wall, hang it up and move on.

I Guess

I didn’t have much fun at my father’s house this Thanksgiving. The holiday was Chris’ favorite and it weighs heavy on me. His birthday is tomorrow.

Both of my step-sisters got married this year and they and their husbands were each at dinner, today. One of them married a man who reminds me of my Chris. The two of them remind me of how Chris and I were and I know that he and Chris would have liked each other. I get really sad that I’ll never get to see the relationship between them. Being in the same room with them caused my heart to sink a little bit. I want that interaction, again. Actually, I want Chris back.

I don’t believe that I’m going to be over my loss anytime soon, and if I share that with anybody, I could find myself emotionally out in the cold, because nobody is really going to understand that I still feel sad and that I still yearn and that there is still a part of me that is kicking myself for letting Chris slip through my fingers even though that isn’t what happened.

I want what I had with Chris with a new man. I want the intimacy. I want the partnership. I want to be a second half, again.

But now is not the time.

I guess.

The Present Moment

I moved into my new apartment fifteen days ago and I haven’t stopped running, running, running since. Running is my way of suppressing and for the first thirteen days, I didn’t shed a tear. In fact, I felt euphoric and as though I was completely done grieving. However, I have enough experience with grief at this point to know that when I feel like that, I can pretty much thank the universe and know that the end of grief will never arrive. My crashes become fewer and farther between, but I am learning that sadness is just a part of my story – our story – and I need to learn to welcome my retreats into despair with and open mind and open arms.

The third anniversary of the death of my husband is almost upon me. November 19 is when we received his diagnosis, and try as I might to be unaffected by the past, I find myself regressing into fetal position on my living room chair wondering why this tragedy befell Chris and why his death befell his loved ones. I’m okay, though. I want to cry when I’m crying. There is no relief – only the cloak of sleep that claims me each night when I’m all cried out and void of any ability what-so-ever to bring myself back up.

By day, I’m quite cheerful, working alongside a group of people whose company I cherish. We’re a fun cluster of folk, working and passing the day with good humor and camaraderie. The gym continues to keep me uplifted, albeit in considerable pain.

I had a proud evening Monday. I left work knowing that I wasn’t going to go one step in the direction of the gym. I felt horrible. I had almost allowed myself to revel in my sad, angry, self-pitying state of mind. My anger had reached such levels that I felt like kicking in doors and smashing my possessions. The impulses became too much for me to bear, so I thought I would stop by City Sports on my way home and buy some new workout clothes, which is a very effective way for me to get myself through the gym doors. I found two lovely pieces for less than forty dollars and headed toward home to see if I could coax myself out my door and into the gym. Caught between not wanting to go to the gym and not wanting to stay home, I finally erupted into a pool of tears, which is really what I needed to do in order to let go of the pain and anxiety that had amassed. Once the wave passed, I picked myself up, got dressed and headed to the gym where I had a very tough, very challenging workout. My anger did not begin to dissipate until two hours in.

For a while, I have been telling myself either that I want a boyfriend or that I don’t want a boyfriend. There is a discrepancy with the black and white nature of that thought pattern. The truth is that I do want a man in my life. The truth is also that I am not ready for a relationship with another man. I’m beginning to believe the popular 5-year guideline perspective. For now, I am going to stop thinking and have some faith that I will someday be able to love another man. I have to believe that. The alternative suggests that my golden years will be spent sitting in front of my living room window, gazing out over the landscape, hurting, reflecting, and yearning for my lost love.

I don’t want to be that person and I have a feeling that I have more control over my life than I am willing to entertain at the present moment.

Way to Pull Me out of My Own Head

Yesterday was a tough day for me.

I knew that, with my move, I would eventually need to venture into the storage closet and take out all of my Chris-mementos. I had managed to avoid the task for the past three weeks, but with time running out, I needed to face my demons.

Controlling my tears was not an option, for they flowed like flood waters out of my eyes and onto my carpet, as I laid eyes on possessions I hadn’t looked at since the anniversary of our 1st wedding anniversary.

I moved my hand toward one of the boxes, accidentally knocking its cover off and there, exposed, was the picture of Chris I hate most of all. He sits at the table with no shirt on, head down, writing in his calendar book, completely bald. I hate that depiction of him. That photo gets behind me and shoves me out of my denial with the force of the impact of an eighteen-wheeler striking me from behind. I lost my breath and then I lost my ability to maintain my composure.

I then came across tapes and tapes of documentaries that Chris made while he was in school. I entered a meltdown, crying and screaming, “I don’t want these anymore! I don’t want these!” I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want them and I didn’t want to discard them as though they held no meaning for me, when they always will. I felt trapped.

The two events winded me so that I could no longer see how I was going to take the drive to the Salvation Army with my donations. I only had forty-five minutes to get there and I couldn’t reign the grief back in. I decided to push.

I ran up and down my five flights of stairs five times, carrying arms full of worthy provisions for those who can benefit. I backed my car into the driveway and began loading, using strength derived from all of the anger I continue to suppress. Anger does come in handy. I managed to squeeze boxes, bags and an entire vanity, complete with mirror and bench into my tiny, yet magnificent Pontiac Sunfire. Go Arthur (That’s his name.)!

I continued to choke back tears all the way and when I got there, I pulled up to the front door, turned on my hazard lights and began to unload when a woman began yelling at me for parking there, saying that I was endangering lives. Sigh. I looked at her and very calmly said, “I’ll be out of here in a minute.” My resign softened the blow I would have delivered in her direction.

I began loading my stuff into the building, when a man in his 60s came over and said, “I was looking at your pictures. I hope you don’t mind," to which I replied, “Of course not! Would you like them?” His face beamed and after making certain I was okay with him taking them, he thanked me and went on his way.”

So I donated clothing, furniture and other household items and managed to save this man the price of having to buy my pictures, which sent him off with a smile on his face.

How could I not smile, myself?

When I returned home, I called Bonnie to chat for a while. I mentioned to her that I had been considering leaving Chris’ tapes “on the curb” and asked her if she wanted me to hold onto them, instead. She did. So I did. Sometimes, taking the feelings of others into consideration is the way out of my own feelings.

Now I can’t even remember why I didn’t want to take them with me.

Shneed

Playing Hostage

I’m feeling sad tonight. Not sad enough to drive in front of the 101 bus as it made it’s way down Mystic Ave in Medford when I was turning off of Route 38, but sad, nonetheless.

I feel frustrated when people don’t understand, or don’t try to understand that I have been forever affected by Chris’ death, forever affected by losing my best friend, my love, my husband. Beyond my own loss, I witnessed some very disturbing events, such as the deterioration of my sweet husband’s body, his faith and his life. I looked into his eyes and knew he would never look at me with the same recognition and love with which he looked at me from our first date, on. I don’t hesitate to say that I have been disturbed ever since and I do believe I will be for the remainder of my life.

I miss him. I always will. I love him. I always will.

The good news is that I haven’t written in quite a while, and my writings are fewer and farther between than they once were. I tend to write when I’m sad, and my life has been feeling nice, lately. I feel happy. I still feel sad, but at the same time, I now feel happy.

I still have anger, though. It’s there. I can feel it, I just can’t get to it. Even at the gym, I can’t seem to get to my anger. What I can do, though, is exhaust myself with my workouts to the point that my anger retreats into remission for a while.

The small part of me that houses the anger, fear, anxiety and sadness is insulated from the rest of my world. I wish I could go there and wrap my arms around that part of me, fill the black hole with love and then wind up and bowl it right down the alley into my past.

I’m too scared, though, and playing hostage is easier for the time being.

Shneed

It was a nickname my late husband gave me.

Yeah, I said it. “My late husband.” That’s the first time I’ve said that to anyone. Today I said it to my new landlord during a phone call. He mentioned that my e-mail was strange and asked me what it meant. Then I said it. And I feel strange and a bit woozy inside.

Taking this new apartment has caused my grief to resurface pretty intensely. I’m not sure why. It’s not like Chris and I ever lived in my current apartment together. He was eight-months-gone by the time I moved. I fear that every move I make, throughout the remainder of my life, is going to feel like I’m stepping on his memory, pushing off of it with my foot, and continuing on into my future. That’s not a very nice feeling.

Sunday night, I completely fell apart. I couldn’t stop crying for two hours. I finally popped an Ativan and sat myself on the sofa in front of my television until it coated my psyche. And I remembered why I like Ativan so much. Uh-oh.

Last night, I began pacing around my butcher block. I couldn’t relax and my stomach was swimming around and around. This time, I took only a half of an Ativan and began the long process of streamlining any possessions of mine I longer want to keep.

In addition to the move, this time of year wreaks havoc in my mind and memories. It’s the time of year we began to suspect that something was wrong. October through January is still quite a melancholy time for me.

I’m moving to the beautiful city of Cambridge, the city I have wanted to live in for most of my adulthood. This move is going to be great. I’m excited.

Shed Skin

I don’t know why I have taken so long to realize that I think I am just no longer interested in acting in musicals. The admission makes me feel sad, but the fact is that that’s who I was before Chris died, before ugliness, horror and sadness entered my life. I’m just not interested, anymore.

I remember who I was back then. Singing was my absolute priority. I dreamed of becoming skilled enough to sing professionally and vowed to myself that I would take myself to a real Broadway cattle call at least once before I died. My passions were completely wrapped up in performance. That was before everything changed.

Now psychology makes me happy, intrigues me and keeps me very, very busy. The boxing gym makes up the difference.

I wish I still wanted to act. Sometimes I still go to auditions to try to get cast in a musical, but my heart isn’t in it the way it used to be, which is kind of a mixed blessing. I used to obsess about performing, about what to wear to an audition, how to sing and how to move. I ate, drank and slept musical theater. Most of my passion for the stage got lost in the tragedy.

I took this past Friday and Monday as vacation days. I feel sort of spacey, as per usual. Unstructured time still puts me in a strange place, another phenomenon that came with Chris’ death. Yesterday, I felt as though I was wearing a heavy cloak. Even though I went out and socialized and had fun doing so, the cloak remained throughout the day. Finally, last night, I began crying and couldn’t stop until I fell asleep.

Many people don’t understand the impact of losing a spouse, especially at a young age. I don’t know what to say to those people. I don’t write the rules, I just try to navigate through the caves and haunted forests. There’s a part of me that believes I will always be searching for my lost love. That part of me comes out when I’m spacey from too much time off.

I still don’t really feel like myself. At times, I don’t know who this psychology student and exercise enthusiast is. She didn’t exist before Chris died.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m afraid to act in musicals because they remind me of a time I shared with my husband. And sometimes I know that people sometimes shed their skin and grow a new one.

Old Faithful

I erupted this morning, into a hysterical, grieving mess. Grief is like an old friend whom you wish would just leave you the fuck alone. It’s like the school bully, lurking in the shadows, an ever-present threat reminding you that you can’t ever be certain of your own safety.

If I had just paid attention the past few days I would have noticed the return of my pattern-behavior. I had begun going out, keeping way too busy, overlapping plans and staying up way too late, all behaviors that point to an impending meltdown. I fill up every moment of every day in an effort to crowd my brain with minutia so larger, more profound disturbances can’t fit in. I should know by now that they always find their way in. That’s just the way it is.

Curiously enough, once I melted back up, I felt very positive about love and the possibility that I might be able to enjoy it again. Grief is not entirely unlike the boxing match I witnessed as I jumped rope at the gym the other night.

”In the left corner, wearing the black shorts, black tank top, black sneakers and black gloves....Grief!”

And in the right corner, skittishly peaking around the corner in her suit of armor, wearing blue gloves with two rolls of quarters in each fist...”

That’s about how it goes. Maybe it’s time that I start doing the attacking and Grief begins retreating.

I’m happy tonight. I feel better. More positive.

And hungry.

Shneed

Here we go, again.

I have begun to panic about this newest dating experience. I knew it would happen eventually, because how can I enter a new relationship without experiencing guilt, anger and sadness over Chris? I dropped half of an Ativan in the spirit of calming the fuck down. I’m going to stay with it...stay with him.

The problem is that I can’t decipher my own secret code. I can’t tell whether I’m panicked because I like him or panicked because I don’t want anybody but Chris in my life. If the latter is true, I could wind up living and dying alone.

Clay’s coming back this week, thank GAWD. I need his support.

I’m going through the motions, but I don’t feel anything more than the beginning of a new friendship. It feels forced. Hell, it is forced. That’s what happens with online dating. Maybe I’m pressuring myself unnecessarily. I don’t have to love him, yet. It’s way too early for love to have formed. If love doesn’t form for me, that’s okay, too. I need to relax, hence the Ativan.

This is difficult, but then, I always knew it would be. He puts his arm around me and all I think about is how Chris hated to walk with his arm around me. I used to take his arm and put it around me just to hear him say, “Hey, you can’t just put me.” When I’m out with him, I wish I was out with Chris. It’s possible that after almost three years, I’m still not ready to date. I don’t know how to get better. Maybe this is as good as I get. Maybe there is no “better”. Maybe there’s no romance and/or love intended in my future.

I hesitate to say that I’m a mess. I am, however, a bit panicked. What if he won’t put up with what losing my husband feels like for me?

Maybe I just need to sleep. Sometimes sleep is all it takes with me.

Roaming in Wyoming

Wyoming is the most wonderful place, ever. The air is so clean and the mountains are so unbelievably beautiful that I didn’t want to come home. I could have sat in one place, feeling the mountain breeze and gazing at the horizon all day long. Of course, I didn’t. I went horseback riding, river rafting and hiking. This trip was a wonderful segue back into the world of travel, introduced to me by Chris.

The trip wasn’t without sticky grief-points. The moment I entered the airport, I felt a surge of panic and sadness because the last time I entered the airport was with Chris. Robby is so much like him that I kept “flickering” back and forth from knowing I was with him to feeling like I was with Chris. I didn’t tell him.

I only cried one night because I just wanted him to be there so badly. I wanted him to see the mountains and have the fun I was having. I wanted the quiet conversation we shared and I wanted to wrap my arms around him and hold him.

I thought about the guy I'm dating quite a bit while he and I were both gone on trips. He went to Yosemite and I was in Wyoming. I haven’t thought about a man that much, in his absence, since Chris. It’s still too early to know whether this will work out, or not, and I’m nervous again, but I remember that I thought about him a lot while I was gone, and that hasn’t happened for a while. I’m seeing him tomorrow night.

I have a feeling this is going to be a romantic autumn.

Shneed

Wyoming

Tomorrow, I’m leaving for my first real trip since Chris was alive. I’m going to Wyoming with a friend to hike, ride a horse, climb, run, and take in the beautiful mountainous landscape.

I never really traveled before I met Chris and so far, I haven’t really traveled since he died. I feel good. I’m very excited about this trip. There is also a part of me that feels guilty for going without him. Wherever I go, over the remainder of my life, I can take comfort in knowing (or believing) that where Chris went is so much better than anywhere on Earth.

Oddly enough, I’m very excited to have found out that there’s a gym at the inn in which I’m staying. It’s got a weight room, treadmills, sauna, steam room and whirl pool. I’m going to work out in one way or another every day. That excites me. I’m bringing my medicine ball with me, too. I think that officially makes me a fitness geek.

I’m reasonably happy these days, at times euphoric…at other times, downright sad, a moody bitch, perhaps, but a kind-hearted, loving one, no less.

Well, I’m off to Wyoming to visit another far-off land, an activity for which I had absolutely no passion before Chris entered my life.

Testing the Acceptance Waters

I dreamed I was back wth Chris, last night. He looked really good, although he was thinner than I remember him in life. I miss his dark, thick hair. I don’t remember too much about my dream, other than we hugged. I loved hugging him.

I have been a bit sad for the past couple of days. The guy I'm dating went away for 12 days, which, oddly enough, has sparked a small grief reaction in me. Clay went away for 3 weeks, too, which I suppose sparks off another small grief reaction.

Since he left, I made a deal with myself to allow myself to really think about Chris the entire time he’s gone. I need to. I want to. I keep remembering things that happened, things we said, times we shared, his smile, his hair, our interactions, our love...the list is endless.

I was talking with a friend last night about how strange grief is, in that there is always a belief buried way down deep in my psyche that loops the same tape over and over again...

He might come back. He could come back. I need to wait for that day

That will never happen, but the tape keeps on rolling. My guilt exists around that tape.

I’m a little heart-heavy, today. I’m giving myself a headache.

It’s coffee-time.

Shneed

My Date

I had a wonderful time last night. I really like this man. He really likes me, too.

More after I talk with Clay, tomorrow.

Shneed

The Lesser of Two Evils

My nervousness is dissipating a bit, but not as a result of much that I’m doing, myself. The man I'm dating has a schedule such that our dates have been spaced out at a comfortable pace for me. Basically, we have been taking 4 days in between dates, which gives me time to freak out, freak back in, and be ready in time for the next encounter. I like that. I find our timing to be quite comfortable, because I have ample time to breathe and regain my composure for the next meeting.

My dates and my workouts are similar. When I exercise, the fibers in my muscles are torn and then need time to rebuild. If I work out too many days in a row (which I did this week – ouch), the overall process isn’t very enjoyable, because I haven’t given my muscles enough time to recuperate. However, when I leave enough time in between workouts for the muscles to adapt before working out again, I end up being stronger than I was before. I am so spastic about dating and getting close to someone other than my Chris, that I need those four days to calm down, breathe and remember that there are things about this man that I like. If I don’t have that time, my fight or flight response get activated and, where dating is concerned, my tendency will almost always be to take flight.

So, our next date is Saturday evening. This will be date #3 and I actually want to go, even though I’m a bit nervous. Still, I have an overwhelming feeling that now is the time and that if I don’t make an effort to push myself over the grief-induced fear-hump today, I may end up setting myself back.

I just need to keep reminding myself that even though I am experiencing quite a bit of anxiety, that anxiety feels better than my loneliness of last week. I’m choosing the lesser of two evils.

Gained in the Telling

Monday evening’s date went well. I’m nervous, still. I guess that’s normal. I can’t remember what normal nerves feel like, without the widow/grief element. I suppose the possibility exists that I’m experiencing normal nerves and attributing them to other areas.

I keep pressuring myself to feel love. I forget that love comes with time, but because I felt such intense love within my relationship with Chris, I’m having trouble remembering that I was this nervous when I first met him, too. In fact, I was nervous enough to cancel two dates on him.

I need to remember that I’m allowed to cancel a date if I want to. I’m allowed to feel grief. I’m allowed to express to this new man that I need to take things carefully and slowly and that I need the leeway to process the relationship-related grief that is yet to come. He seems like a compassionate man. I guess I’ll find out whether that statement rings true.

I can’t help wanting to know what my future holds. I don’t like wearing blinders. I am thankful that my life is about to become very busy, again, once school begins. This semester I will be taking three classes, working out three times a week and (well, I may as well say “hopefully”, since that’s the first word that popped into my mind, despite my reluctance to admit it) dating this man.

Fear has a tendency, with me, to cloud excitement and anticipation. I have to try to remember how excited and happy I felt after our first date, so I can keep things in perspective. I’m afraid to let go of Chris, and as a result, I am in danger of sabotaging my potential to enjoy myself in another man’s company.

Grief is hard. I’m afraid that I won’t be understood, or tolerated.

What I realized, yesterday, is that telling people about me and this man helps me to accept our possible partnership. People are happy for me and when I see their reactions, I feel as though I have been given an injection of approval, warmth and support. Something is gained in the telling.

Still. I’m scared...and excited...and hopeful.

Shneed

Deep Breaths...In...Out...In...Out...

Nervous, nervous, nervous. That’s what I am. I wish I could control how I feel. Date #2 is this evening. I’m trying to hold myself together, but it isn’t easy.

I think this might be it. That’s why I’m so nervous. I’m ready. I could really be with this man. Well, that’s how I feel right now. We hardly know each other. Still, he has all of the qualities I like in a man.

I’m going to try to breathe for the rest of the day until I go meet him, later on. I’m also going to try to enjoy the anticipation.

Shneed

No Matter What

After a 3-week hiatus from the gym, I began working out again, this past week. The owner mapped out a 3-day-a-week routine for me that will take me through the next few months and then I can do it all over again after that. Feeling the pain of a life of fitness again feels really nice.

I had been feeling lonely for a while, so l answered an online personal ad last week and met a lovely man with whom I had dinner the other night. He asked me out again the next day and we’re going tomorrow night to have dinner and ice cream. He’s nice, smart, funny, sweet, cute and very nerdy...exactly the type of man with whom I like to share my time. I don’t know what, if anything, will come of our dates, but I do know that I feel less lonely and more ready to be with a man than I did the last time I tried romance.

I lay in bed last week, crying, saying over and over again to Chris, “No matter what, I will always love you. No matter what. No mater what. No matter what.” I hope he heard me. I hope he knows I’m telling the truth. I know that my mantra symbolized a deep seated longing to be released from my guilt, as well as an indication that I’m gearing up toward moving on, even if the insight is still partially subconscious. Funny, isn't’ it, that I have the ability to become aware of what I still consider to be in my subconscious mind? I’ll have to take that up with Clay and get his professional opinion on whether becoming aware of something subconscious is even possible.

So date #2 is tomorrow evening and I’m actually looking forward to it. I think I have done everything I can do within myself and my own life to move forward and the possibility exists that I may need somebody else to pull me the rest of the way out of my guilt and grief. Somehow I have formulated a hypothesis that some supportive, compassionate, understanding, loving arms just may be my ticket into the next phase of my life.

I feel as though something large is going to come out of this union. I find myself planning my life to enable a substantial amount of flexible time, just in case we keep seeing each other. I want to make sure I’m as available as I can be. I’m still doing everything I do, but I’m taking my classes online next semester, instead of going to class in person on a weekly, designated schedule. I’m still working out three times a week, but now my evenings are interchangeable. I find my willingness to make room quite curious.

No matter what, Creej.
Love Shneed