GRIEF: Will it always be this way?

I’m approaching the 2nd anniversary of my husband’s death, and I thought I would feel different than I currently do. I thought I would feel slightly more healed. I thought I would have my shit together (which is ridiculous because I’ve never really had my shit together). 

The kids and I moved into a new house. A house I spent months renovating. A house that for all intents and purposes has traumatized me. Well, I mean the renovation process traumatized me. It’s 103-years-old. It has “good bones”. I thought it had good muscles, too, but that wasn’t the case. 

I blame the house for my lack of healing progress. I feel the need to blame something, and it seems to be the most logical choice. I bought the house towards the end June of 2022. We didn’t move in until the beginning of February 2023. I had 7 months of distractions. I spent 8 months before buying the house looking for a house. That’s 15 months of distractions. I spent 2 months unpacking and setting things up. So, essentially 17 months of distractions to keep me from focusing on my grief.

I am surprised I still feel as heavy with grief now as I did a year ago, or even a year and a half ago. Is grief from the loss of a spouse like pregnancy weight? They say (whoever they is) it takes 9 months to put on the baby weight so it takes 9 months to lose the weight. Will it take nearly 20 years to feel normal again? That doesn’t even make sense. 

I’ve attempted dating, not because I am looking to replace my husband or feel whole, but I essentially spent my entire adult life with a companion; it’s what I am used to. We did so much together. We did things on our own, too. However, I don’t do things on my own as often without him here, which seems weird. Some of the local and state parks near where we lived I discovered on my own and brought him along later. Now, I rarely go to those places; I’m not exactly sure why. 

I miss the conversations we would have. I miss being able to emotionally unload onto him. If I was incredibly frustrated about something he was the one person I never had a problem “bothering”. He wouldn’t always say the right thing and it would sometimes end up with us arguing, but I knew we’d get over it. He was contractually obligated to be bothered by me. 

As tumultuous as our marriage could be at times, I never truly thought he’d leave me. As frustrated as I got and doubted we were really right for each other, deep down I knew I’d never leave. Even when we separated for 8 months, I never really thought we’d go through with a divorce. Essentially, we were on a break. The foundation of our relationship didn’t come from romance or sex; it came from friendship. 

During our separation, we did things as a family unit, and he and I did things as a twosome. We rode our bikes 40 miles. We spent holidays together. He was there when I ran my first (okay, only) 8k. We went on those walks in the parks. We still had conversations. Not a whole lot changed other than he lived in an apartment for a while and sometimes the kids slept there. From the outside not a lot of people understood our relationship. That’s okay, we didn’t need anyone to; we understood it (kind of). 

When I have attempted dating, I would still talk about him a lot. He was a significant part of my life. I refer to him as ‘my husband’ because I don’t know what else to call him. The men I have gone out with say they are fine with it, but I can’t help but wonder if maybe they feel some kind of trepidation going out with a widow. My marriage didn’t end with a divorce. My sons don’t have another parent they stay with half the time. Sometimes, I wonder if I was even ready to date last year. It had been a year and I think on some level I felt like it is what I was supposed to do. I don’t know why. 

I am lonely. I’ve always been a bit of a loner so being alone isn’t a large problem for me, but being alone by choice and being alone because someone was taken from you just hits different. I’m at this weird contradictory phase where I’ve grown accustomed to being without a companion but also feeling a huge void where a companion once was. It’s hard to describe. 

Every new experience I have with our kids is tinged with sadness. I took them to see their first concert recently. We had a great time, but I was keenly aware that their father wasn’t there. He and I attempted to take them to their first concert in March of 2020, but the world shutdown. Then, he and I bought tickets for a concert in September 2021, but he died two weeks before the concert was to take place so the kids and I didn’t go. We don’t do a lot of the same activities now as we did before. It just feels weird. We don’t go to the beach because I am a poor swimmer and it doesn’t feel safe to go. Also, I don’t like sand. I just bought memberships to a theme park in the area, one we used to go to as a family of 4, but neither I nor our younger son are big into rollercoasters. My husband and our older son loved rollercoasters. I am trying to recruit friends with kids to come with us so he has someone to ride with. 

I know grief doesn’t have a timeline. I know everybody’s experience with spousal loss is different. It’s just that I really thought I would feel a little more healed by now. I think I am shell-shocked at just how unhealed I feel. It’s thrown me into a depressive episode. I feel like I am drowning. I am being pushed down by the weight of it all. I have kids; I have to keep fighting to make it through each and everyday. It’s hard. It’s suffocating. It’s lonely. It’s depressing. It’s crushing. I’m mentally and emotionally exhausted.