I'm feeling contemplative tonight... Three months ago today, my husband Jim died. Tomorrow is his birthday. He would have been 54. Things had been rough with us for several years. Looking back, hindsight being 20/20, I can see how his diabetes (undiagnosed & unknown) affected him and us. Little by little, the compassionate, loving man I had loved disappeared; to be replaced with someone increasingly intolerant, impatient, and rigid. It was a slow, gradual process of erosion of love. I tried and tried to figure it out, to fix it. There would be hope and then everything would go to hell again. Until I was exhausted. We were in the early stages of divorcing & letting go.
Luckily I was finally able to hear him, how he just wanted peace and calm and for everything to be okay. What he really, really wanted was to avoid pain. In my quest for growth & development and confronting pain face on, all I had done was inflict more pain on him. I kept trying to get him to hear me, but I didn't listen & hear him. When I finally did, I was rocked to my core. I was able to see my part & set about to do my best to make amends and heal the harm I had caused.
To this day, I am so grateful I had come to that place about a month before he died. I realized that what he wanted & what I wanted were mutually incompatible, stellar opposites. There was no way to remain married and happy. Any way I looked at it, at least one of us would be discontent. Most of the time, both of us were miserable. And so we were letting go. There were still so many connections - we had been together 24/7 for 16 years, completely intertwined in both our business, creative & personal lives. There were so many filaments to untangle, and to see what bonds remained that were healthy.
So there we were, disengaging, while I did my best to heal the wounds I had wrought on him. And then he got sick. And I was able to be present & loving... most of the time. As he got sicker, he said more hurtful things. And in my head (and sometimes to others), I would say "Fuck him." and be ready to walk away. But there were still these connections and feelings. Shortly before he got sick, he told me "You're my best friend. You know me better than anyone ever has. Sometimes you know me better than I know myself. I don't want to lose you completely from my life." I replied "I know. I wanted you to be my best friend and you can't, or won't. I don't know what we'll have after the hurt has healed." I couldn't walk away. So for the last week of his life, I focused on doing whatever I could. It wasn't much, he was intubated and unconscious. But I stayed on top of what was going on in the hospital, Googling like crazy to understand his health. I was able to, actually encouraged, to bring our baby Athena, our tiny toy poodle, into the hospital. I read healing meditations & visualizations, I used every suggestion from energy healers. I tried to will him back to life. I threatened him with the thought that if he died, he'd be stuck having to listen to me talk about my feelings, non-stop, for the rest of my life. Whatever I could come up with to reach him, deep in wherever he was, I tried. I just wanted a divorce, I did not want him to die.
And then he started failing and I could feel him slipping away. I grasped, but I could feel him going. And then he was done. And he died. I know he's in a better place, whatever that may be. He wanted to avoid pain, and he did. I've been left with the Mt. Everest shit heap of pain to face head on.
It feels like I'm through the major upheaval & confusion. I've emerged from Zombiehood. A friend described death & grief like going over a waterfall. For awhile, I didn't know which way was up, I couldn't breathe, I couldn't think. The waters are still tumultuous, but I'm finding the currents. Sometimes I bash against a rock & the breath is knocked out of me. I'm swimming.
I was in process of letting go of a marriage, untangling and releasing the rotted connections. And then, boom, those connections are severed. It will take time for me to sort out this new reality.
I've learned so much. About myself, about others. So much has been stripped away, leaving me with clarity. My people pleasing was brutally ripped from me and I've never felt so loved in my life. I must be doing something right to have received the breadth and depth of love that was my lifeline. I've discovered who loves me as I am with no mask, no pretense. I've discovered what I'm really made of, how solid the foundation that I laid when I quit drinking 27 years ago is. I'm rediscovering parts of myself that were put aside during my marriage and building a new me. I've rediscovered joy and fun. I'm seeing someone romantically, which was quite unexpected. It began as friendship, and has become something more. And instead of trying to control it, I'm just going with the flow....
And sometimes, today, when I feel great joy, I also feel the sadness. About what was, what was lost. I lost him twice. I'm grieving both. I lost the man I loved slowly over time, without knowing how & why. And then he died and I lost him forever in any way shape or form, in this plane at least.
So here I am, 3 months later. The pain doesn't ravage me the way it did early on. I'm still searching for my new reality, my new me. I'm still grieving & releasing. And today, I'm just sad....
