Thank you
@Heather, you're right, there is no other choice, to lay down and join him wasn't a viable option. It sounds really bad but sometimes I just wish he'd taken me with him instead of leaving me here alone. I don't care about the money he left. I don't care about the house or the things, all I ever cared about was being with him. Hardest thing in the world to exist alone.
It's been really rough going the past few days so I invited my sister down again, at least now I have someone to share time with for the rest of the week. I'd been cleaning up in the basement again this afternoon before she got here and completely forgot that I had placed food in the oven for lunch, an hour later I smelled it burning and had to run upstairs to rescue a charred piece of pizza before it burst into flame. I had initially gone down to retrieve something but got into moving things around and then found more of his camping clothes. I think I cried for at least 10 minutes hugging them and inhaling his scent (obviously he didn't wash them before he tossed them in that storage bin). I folded each piece neatly and cradled it as I placed it carefully into a box to bring up with his other clothes. That was hard. I can't even describe how horribly heart wrenching it was to discover those clothes that smelled so much like him. It was like he was standing right there and I wished against everything that I would feel him beneath that fabric. So utterly difficult.
My sister and I went out for dinner to a local restaurant that hubby and I used to go too. The waitress loved him there, she smiled at me and hurried over but her smile sort of fell when she saw it wasn't him I was sitting with. You know, I'm so glad that these people aren't asking because I'm sure I would burst into tears if I had to tell these strangers that he was dead. It was hard for me to eat. I kept thinking of all the times I'd gone with him, we'd sat there talking, laughing and him, joking with the waitress. We ate out a lot when he was alive, mostly because on his days off he needed to decompress in some way and talking over a meal was our treat. I haven't gone back to the one restaurant that we frequented the most yet. I'm still not ready for that one. Maybe if I wait long enough the staff will change and they won't recognize me.
I found his airsoft gun today, hidden in among his gear, camouflaged jackets, helmet, face masks, knee pads. He had all the gear for it right down to the army surplus clothing - US, Canadian, German, you name it he had it. Gear collector. His gear was never quite the way he wanted it or the attachments not right or something so there was always something new coming along to replace other pieces. There are bins filled with gear, camping gear, airsoft/paintball gear, gaming gear...tech gear some of it I can't even make sense of. Half of it completely useless to me.
My sister was so excited at the fact that I found some old game consoles that he'd kept, she kept saying, "Wow, you could probably get some money for those from a collector." and even though I agree with her, right now, it's still "his stuff". It's still the things I was not allowed to mess with; his "boy stuff". To just up and start selling it seems a little cruel to me right now. In time I will likely be ready to selectively part with some of his things but right now, well, right now I'm cataloging his life, his possessions and that is as far as it's going to go.
He had a knife collection, not huge but substantial and at face value thousands of dollars were sunk into that collection, what their return value is, maybe the occasional one might be worth something to a collector but the rest, likely less than what he paid for them. Anyway, the reason I mention it is because he guarded that collection with his life, they're locked up and secure and I was always reminded that they weren't "using" knives, they were "collector items" so under no circumstances was I to ever go in there if I needed something cut with. Knife collectors are few and far between, it's a really small niche, so these things meant A LOT to him. I've gone through and cataloged his collection with serial numbers, name brands, models, steel type and descriptors. I may even go so far as to take pictures of each knife so I know what is there. My sister works with a knife collector, she mentioned this collection to this man and he is now chomping at the bit to come and see these knives. I'm so not ready for that. I am also a little pee'd off that she would have even mentioned this to someone - he let NO ONE know he had this collection and now that he's dead it's suddenly okay to just up and mention it in casual conversation to strangers??? He was my husband. I don't know, it feels like a bit of a violation to me. I've not given the go ahead for her to bring her coworker to my house but he is apparently asking her each time she goes to work. I'm not ready. This collection was his "baby". I can't just mistreat it and let some stranger put his dirty paws all over it and quite possibly misdirect me on values. Nope. So not ready for that yet. I'll do my own research for now.
He was on my mind a lot today. The suicide. The life he lived. How he felt. How he smelled. How conflicted I am about his death. How confused I am about living "past" him.
His last week alive he'd been sleeping with a camping thermarest air mattress on the bed trying to take the pressure off of his sore ribs/back. That mattress was leaning up against the wall where he left it that morning he got up, along with a pile of his dirty socks, a towel and one of his shirts. I cleaned that up yesterday. It was a HUGE step for me to put his things away, throw out his old socks and reclaim that side of the bed as my own. That shirt still smelled like him too, so instead of packing it up in a bag to keep, I wrapped it around the teddy bears on the bed, now they're sleeping not only in "daddy's" blanket, but his shirt that still smells like him too.
I'm going to hug those bears so close to me tonight.
