There comes a time

1060 days but who's counting. I miss the good old days, the ones around 200 before I knew what was to come, before I felt so separated and adrift from him, before the tears dried up to a trickle. I remember it was somewhere in the 350's when this feeling of now knowing what was coming started to kick in. I asked myself why was I waiting for the anniversary date, the magic 365 days?  Would something change, feel better? And it hit me, no..  you will just be 365 days missing him and many more to come. It's kinda been up and down on the old grief roller coaster since then. Most of the first year was spent in a haze of memory, closeness, dreams and enough tears to fill a bathtub. Even if it was gut wrenching horrific heart break, it was about him and for him with him the center of it. Now there is a hole where he was. A big pit where my life once was.

I read in Megan Devine's blog http://www.refugeingrief.com/ today about the loss of the one we love being so intense it's like a huge crater in our lives and we are left with no life to get back into. I really got that. On this grief journey I keep striving to get back into life, return to life, partake in life, be happy in life. But my life as I knew it is gone, I can't go back. When that fuck cancer took my husband, my soul mate of 34 years, it took most of my life with him. So I need to find a whole new one, a whole new me. Having been with my husband since I was eighteen I am struggling with this. I find I am turning to unhealthy coping in order to skirt this crater, in my attempt to ignore there is no old life. I pondered all this in the few moments it took me to vomit last nights copious amount of wine and supper into the toilet this morning, head ready to blow up, mouth stretched wide open to pour out my shameful inadequacy to face life and my heartache. But something was different this time, as I watched myself - a little bit above and behind from my wise seat of consciousness- this time I felt self compassion instead of self loathing. This time I was able to quietly respond, oh Susan.... it's okay now. Look at her, you are allowed to honor that broken self that is left trying to live through this, you don't have to hate her. This realization was a long way from the guilt ridden inner voice screaming from inside the crater. Maybe just maybe this was a tiny bit of growth on day 1060.