#widowerthoughts

I'm also preemptively guilty at the idea of someone else. I'm sad at not being with Laura. I'm not keen to fill the void, because the void is still shaped like her.

I find myself torn when it comes to Laura's stuff. Still. Nearly two and a half years since she died. I cleared out a whole massive amount of her clothes a couple of weeks ago, and feel fine about it. I got on a little spree and pulled out half of our board games to donate or sell with effectively no guilt earlier tonight. I bumped her pillows off the bed a few minutes ago and immediately had to pick them up and get them back into place. I don't leave her pillows there because of magical thinking. I'm not trying to preserve the scene so that it's ready for her to come back. I'm preserving it because I'm uncomfortable with the visible emptiness I'd see without the pillows there. I kept a few of her shirts in the closet so that I don't have to see an empty wall there too. I know that the items themselves in many cases aren't what I'm trying to preserve. I'm holding onto things because they come with memories attached, and I feel better holding those memories close. But it seems like I can reduce the number of items sometimes as long as I keep a category there. I can get rid of some of her clothes, because I'm keeping some of her clothes. I can get rid of some of the games, because I'm keeping the games that were more important. The pictures of everything help, but they're not enough maybe. Maybe they're just not enough yet. Maybe they'll never be enough. I don't really know, it's hard to tell. I can say, though, that I missed Laura severely over and over again today. Nothing dramatic or bad happened, but the little instances of loneliness just kept appearing, and her absence just kept continuing.

I'm nearing another milestone. It's almost two and a half years now. I'd like to say I'm moving forward with my life. But I wouldn't actually like to say that. I prefer not just to be known as brooding, when I think about it, but prefer to actually be brooding. I've gotten to a point where my constant desire isn't specifically to brood, but I still prefer it to progress. I don't understand progress. The world stopped when Laura died. I've come to terms with the idea that the rest of the people in the world don't know that, but it doesn't mean that it ever really restarted for me. I'm still here, noting how long it's been since the last time I remember it spinning. It's been almost two and a half years.

My mom is worried about acting like a burden to me. I have to reassure her more often than I'd like to. But she also is a burden. Not because I don't care, and not because she asks too much of me, exactly. She's a burden because she needs emotional support, and I've got so little support to give. I'm tired, but really I'm emotionally tired. My tank has been empty for a long time, and it's not exactly filling back up. I also know, because I care, that telling her that would make her feel terrible. I don't want to do that. I also know, because I pay attention, that making her feel terrible would only make it worse for me as well on a practical level. It would lead to more of a need for support. This is a dumb thing maybe, but it was nice to be able to offload some of the emotional needs to Laura to take care of.

Finally getting back to form, and I was able to work in the garden for quite a while, stopping basically only when it started pouring or I got dizzy. I almost finished the pit for the raspberry bushes. Finally. I'm proud of what I'm doing, putting manual labor in by the bucket to create the garden that Laura would have loved. It's surprising how much something dumb like digging a hole and working roots with a hatchet can change my mood, just by being tied to Laura. When I get to make some sort of tribute to her, even dumb ones like this, it makes me feel remarkably better.

A good friend from grad school may be dying. I don't know what to do for her. I'm not the best friend around, clearly. I catch myself neglecting to post anything on Facebook after her post about hospice because, what? Plausible deniability? The problem is twofold: I literally don't know how to help in a meaningful way, and it seems hard for me to put myself in that situation. I don't think I'm scared. I don't think I'm worried about flashbacks or anything. I just don't seem to want to invest myself, perhaps emotionally. I want an easy way to make things better, even though I know that easy ways are rarely provided. I don't entirely understand this flaw in me. I can talk down the problems, point out that they don't worry me, and then sit here and continue to do nothing. Am I really broken enough that I'd indulge in reclusion to the detriment of someone else?

I managed to shame myself into action on my dying friend. I signed up to help bring her meals now and then. Because that's the support that I can provide, apparently. I'm not proud of myself being so weak willed here, but I don't seem to have much in the tank to work with. It's a quandary. The one piece of advice I give new widows and widowers is to be kind to themselves. To forgive themselves for weakness and bad decisions. I do that. But now I come up against a moment where my weakness could impact someone else, and I'm not sure how to respond. I actually want to be weak, I think. It's much easier, much less troubling, much less responsible. But I've been burned by working so hard to be strong in the past, so. There's that. I kind of hope to at least bring her a couple of meals. Remind myself that it's a good thing to do things for others. Remind myself of some of the ideals that I like to think that I care about.

Was I broken before? Was I broken in the beginning, but unaware of it until Laura made me whole, then showed me what was missing when I was reduced to myself alone again, having lived in wholeness and come to think it normal.