What Twelve Weeks Brings

It's been twelve weeks tomorrow since that fateful night, sitting in a movie theater, watching an amazing movie, when my world shattered.  My entire life changed in the matter of one hour.  One hour of watching men and machines try to keep my husband alive.  One hour until that fateful moment that a man I'd never met before came to tell me that there was nothing left to do and turned my world upside down.

I stayed up for 36 hours, not being able to sleep, and finally sleeping for a mere four hours the next night.  I spent that first day crying, continuously, because the face I had loved for 15 years would never be seen again.  That first day was a myriad of plans, decisions and getting things done.  Phone calls, texts, messages were coming non-stop.  And the love of people around me, people I knew and people I didn't, was very apparent.

Then came the time that I could not sit still and I could not be alone.  That's when the anxiety started.  So - I battled it with keeping busy.  Trying to clean up things and do things, over and over again.  I made the decision not to think about decisions that needed to be made until after the first of the year, getting through the holidays was going to be hard enough.  Decisions and real life was going to have to wait.

About a week after Ted's funeral, the anxiety became overwhelming.  I had an appointment at my doctor's office for my yearly physical, so I brought it up there.  She decided that a low dose anti-depressant with an anti-anxiety was what I needed.  It took the anxiety away, but it also took away any emotions.  I literally, no longer, had any ability to cry.  I truly was not able to shed tears, happy or sad.  After taking them for about six weeks, I made a decision that I could not live like this and I decided that I needed to stop taking the medication.  I weaned myself off last week.  This week, I cried tears for the first time in several weeks.  They were happy tears, because I am a crier.  Commercials make me cry.  A video that my step-daughter Melody tagged me in, had me sobbing.  So - the tears returned.  And for that I was grateful.  Feeling dead inside is not a good feeling.

I've started making myself get through a room a week.  I started with my master bathroom.  I finished the painting.  I got new rugs and new towels.  I went through stuff.  I cleaned every corner.  There is no longer lots of stuff on the counter that would be stashed there by my honey.   Not that I wanted to erase him, that will never be the case, I just needed to start getting through all the stuff.

I've done my closet and my bedroom.  I made a small shrine to Ted that signifies a lot of who and what he was.

My kids have been coming around on the weekends when they can and helping me get through stuff in the basement.  There is soooo much stuff.  I can't call him a hoarder, but I can say he had more stuff that I have no idea what to do with than any person can imagine.  He had a food storage there and 99% of the food was outdated.  And not by just a  little, but a lot.   He was saving up for the Zombie Apocalypse.  Nobody should have that much Spam.  BLECH.  I threw approximately 100 cans of outdated food in my trash can.  I was waiting to hear the trash truck tip over when it tried to pick up my trash can.  I have about ten re-usable grocery bags filled with food that neither KayeLynn or I will eat and I'll be taking it to the food bank this week.  Hopefully someone can find a use for it.

This week, I was cleaning each and every one of my kitchen cabinets and drawers.  Purging stuff there that I really didn't need or didn't use.  It was an ugly job and hopefully tomorrow I can finish up by cleaning the  rest of the kitchen.

I felt really accomplished when I finally got thank you notes written. 

I don't know what the future holds.  I have to begin making financial decisions as to if I can find a way to stay in my home or if I need to downsize to something a little more  economical.   At this point, I'm hoping I can stay in my home.  We have a lot of happy memories here.  I feel that Ted is here and I'm afraid if I left, he wouldn't find me.  I feel his presence a lot.  I talk to him a lot.  But, even more, I miss him completely.

I'm strong.  We'll make it through.  But, my life will never be the same.

#loveyoumissyou
#wifeofted