I wake up every day, I touch his shirt and I say, "I miss you." I'm so tired of saying I Miss You because it just doesn't cover what that even is. I Miss You goes without saying, I guess these days, so I may start just touching his shirt, he knows how I feel.
It's been well over a year hasn't it? How can that be? What happened to the time in between? 1 year, 1 month and 18 days. How am I even still breathing? How in hell did I even survive that?
You know I was on the loo the other night, in the middle of the night and I looked toward the dark shower stall and I thought, "He's dead." and I was struck by a sudden and overwhelming sense of disbelief. I came out to the room swearing up and down that what I'd experienced was just a terrible nightmare. I got back in bed and I could hear him snoring and I thought, "Yes, it was all just one of those really believable dreams." It took a few seconds to register that the snoring actually belonged to the dog. I then reached over and felt his shirt wrapped around his blanket and my heart sank again. The believable dream is really that he is still alive.
I see so many suicide widows coming out of the darkness and reaching out for help these days. So many. I'm talking thousands of women, hundreds of men. Unbelievable that this many people take their lives every single day and still people whisper and shush it. I mean, we all need help. Some of us are just trying not to die in the undertow of the suicide itself. How many peripheral people to the actual suicide are also struggling not to die themselves?
I see life differently now. He had a mug, a "special" mug, it was "the perfect mug" and he only used it on those rare occasions because he was so afraid that he'd drop it or break it somehow. In the time I'd known him, he used that mug maybe 30 times and I'm being generous in that estimate. But WHY!? I look at that mug now and I think, if I want to use that mug, I'm going to use it dammit because what is the point to even owning "the perfect mug" if it's just going to sit on a shelf and not be used!?
I have a small amount of money sitting in a bank account that is supposed to last me the rest of my life - I'm looking at maybe another 40 years, again, being generous to myself but what if I die tomorrow? What if I get hit by a falling piece of airplane junk? What if some random mechanic leaves a wrench wedged on a plane somewhere and it comes loose over head and it's trajectory sends it smack down into my skull? Will I have been able to enjoy a new pair of shoes or a new sweater or a fancy coffee or a trip to the wilderness BEFORE that happens to me? What is the point to being alive? So I can deny myself things that I want in order to conform to some societal expectation of how I'm supposed to be living my life?
It was St. Patrick's Day yesterday. Hubby and I used to have a pint if he wasn't working. We used to salute his great grampa who was Irish but always said, he was no Irish, his roots were in Scotland. I thought, you know, hubby and I used to take it easy on St. Patties day because he was Scots; because of the stereotype of him being an alcoholic, and me, being native, again had a stereotype to fight against, so we'd deny ourselves any fun with St Patrick's Day because of how we wanted to appear. Yesterday I said, F the Irish, Scottish and Native stereotypes and I cranked my celtic tunes and colored my beer green (things I'd never allowed myself to do in my entire lifetime!) and proceeded to get drunk. It didn't work. My body fought it all the way. I had five beer, and considering I'm not a drinker, was not drunk. It's the PTSD, I swear, the body goes into panic mode when it starts to lose control and the adrenalin fights off the alcohol effects. I tried.
Hubby wasn't a drinker...until that last year or two when I'd have to remind him that he was having too much or should be careful. I discovered the first time he got drunk that he was not a "fun drunk", he was irritable and biting in his comments. Most times he'd drink, suddenly find himself drunk and he'd go straight to bed - all in pure silence. Now, hubby was Scots, so with that came this obsession on occasion to possess the perfect Scotch. We have at least 5 or 6 bottles of Scotch in the basement, never opened, but each was either a Special Run or the most expensive or something he'd researched. To me, it's a permanent marker made liquid form, gasoline with a fancy label...I'm not a fan of it. That being said, he had one "drinking bottle" that he'd take from at least once a year, Christmas, his birthday, New Year or some other day he'd designated as a Scotch shot day. He'd have one shot, dedicate it to his Great Grampa or other ancestor and that would be that - he wasn't actually fond of Scotch. My whole point is, I now have bottles of Scotch in the basement that have never been opened, are just sitting there existing and I'm not even sure if this stuff gains in value over the years.
Maybe it was the Scots in him but he was always investing in something that he felt would gain value over time. It was a crap shoot really. I don't know if any of his stuff has gained any value since he bought them - he's got old books (his old book phase), vinyl records, knives, pins, Scotch - all of it in the hope that one day he'd be able to make some cash from them. It wasn't things like specifically rare books or currency or rare comic books, nope, he collected what I think may all wind up bulk by-the-pound stuff. I've almost fully inventoried his book collection and I've pulled out some early gems for the SciFi fans but again, maybe only two or three times face value (like maybe now worth $40). There aren't any first editions or rare hardcovers but again, I have to do further research. I haven't seen any desirable authors.
Knives. Where do you even go for that stuff? I have no clue. His stuff was bought locally, new, not rare or collector. I saw some on a resale site that only pay just above what he paid or even less.
Do I continue to hold onto this stuff in the hopes that they will someday be of value or do I liquidate it now? Again, when I die, will anyone even know to look through this stuff or will it all just be tossed into the trash? He had so many things that were of specific value to him, well, he's gone now and this stuff, I struggle to see the meaning in it.
What is the point to all of the THINGS we acquire over our lifetime? Hell, even some of the things we did, the memories are just gone. I look at some of our vacation photos and I hardly remember being there. I pulled a photo of my hubby sitting on a log and I thought to myself, "Where in hell was this taken?" When I finally figured it out, it was actually from a memory he'd shared with me about us climbing up a steep hill on one of our camping trips, it was straight up and when we got to the top, there were further hills on top of it that we just didn't have the energy to summit. I remember him telling me the story. I took the picture, so I was there and I scaled that hill with him and my jacket is even in the photo but I DO NOT remember doing this at all or even what age we were or what year it was.
After a while, some things just become meaningless.
He took his own life. He couldn't find any reason to continue. He could only see an inevitable end and it scared him so badly he cut to the chase. He cheated. He cheated life by meeting death head on. He let go of the value of everything and he just let things lie where they were. He let go of everything. Including me.
And I can't let go of him. He gave my life meaning. Now all I have are empty breaths and pointless days wondering what the purpose of it all is. Scared to die but wishing I had the strength to go through with it. To plan something instead of just dreaming of romanticized versions of what it would be like - the kind of things they show you in the movies.
I feel like a waste of space. I do. Right now I don't work. I can't work and that alone makes me feel less than human. Am I always going to never be able to work or am I going to somehow be able to be okay being on a disability pension for the rest of my life? I feel ashamed when my sister goes on about people who "are fully capable of working, there's nothing physically wrong with them. If you can still walk or use your hands, you can work!" And here I sit, capable of hiking for two entire hours straight, collecting a disability pension because I fold like a deck of cards when I have to deal with people or face any slight type of stress. I took my vehicle to the shop yesterday, sat there the entire time reading a book - I don't remember a word, what I do remember is the smell of the room, the cars going by outside, the details of the man's face sitting next to me, the surprise when the secretary opened a section of the wall that hid another office, the sound of the television, the stories of shootings and stabbings, black boots walking by and the fact that I eventually became aware that my entire body was tensed up and I was clenching my jaw so tight my teeth were sore. Apparently I read over 100 pages in the time I waited. I don't remember a word.
The slightest stress. Anything remotely unfamiliar and I'm not functioning at peak performance - well, actually I am, just not in the desired way for the goal I'm trying to achieve....but I'm physically able to work. :(
Hubby was in trouble psychologically.. I've been in trouble already for years, its pretty damned normal for me now. He didn't know how to think his way out, he was never taught any skills, he didn't know how to hang on and he didn't even know he had to fight. All I've been doing is fighting. It's tiring. I wish I could have helped him. I really do. I wish I could have seen he needed help. I was always just wrapped up in keeping me alive.
What is dead? What is it? Because I haven't "heard" from him in a long, long time. There have been no "signs" here in the house, just the things I want to interpret, like, "Ooooh, the room is cold, maybe he's here with me." or "what is the dog staring at? Are you here?" But the things dropping for no reason, lights buzzing, that stuff doesn't happen anymore. Has he moved on? Has he forgotten me?
I write backwards on the shower door every morning. I write notes to him. I write backwards because if he's on the outside looking in on our world, then I want the writing to be right way around for him. Sad huh?
I miss him just doesn't even cut it anymore.