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10 years, but not really

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Today could have been my 10th wedding anniversary if my husband hadn’t killed himself.  But, to be honest, we never would have made it that long. I had considered leaving for several months, I knew I had to leave when he disappeared for a second time. I needed to get away from his addiction and mental illness for my own wellbeing. This is not to say I didn’t love him or wish that we could have had a long life together. I just don’t want to pretend that I’m grieving for a happy marriage. It’s a complicated set of emotions. I mourned the loss of my husband many times before his actual death. When he checked himself into rehab in 2016 — who am I kidding, when his daughters and I checked him into rehab — I prepared divorce papers. But rehab brought out the best parts of him, the parts that I fell in love with, and so, I threw those papers away, gave it another shot, trusted that sobriety might take hold and our plans of growing old together would work out.  What didn’t get addressed at reh
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Widowing - Year One

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This is the face of a depressed, bipolar, suicidal, alcoholic who took his own life on March 22, You’d never have guessed it. I didn’t know he was bipolar until after his death when I obtained his medical records. I had my suspicions there at the end. I chalked up his depression to my grandpa’s death. I fight depression daily, have for a long time, and it didn’t seem out of place in our home. Things got chaotic in the final weeks but, for the most part, our time together was pretty good. My husband was a giant goof. When he was happy you knew it. I have hundreds of photos of him just like this on my phone. He is only melancholy in one of them — taken just a few weeks before his death — as he stared out at a frozen lake. He was deep in a six week manic spiral. We’d left town because I needed a break from being inside the house with his energy, but I also didn’t want to leave him alone. I’d been trying for weeks to get him help. Unsurprisingly, a fifteen minute appointment with a psychia
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The Universe said, “Here. Keep your head above water. Feel it all.” A 2022 retrospective.

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I’m about to share a bunch of details on the timeline of my year. Typically I just look at the highlights. Instead I went through an interesting exercise that included looking through the thousands of photos I’ve taken throughout the year, reading through my journal, and going through my calendar. If you’re not into the “and then” aspect of my year feel free to skim or skip.  January - I’m on sabbatical after experiencing a burnout inspired breakdown in December. The plan is to return to work or find a new job by April. Grandpa Bill dies. His body gives out before his mind. He was 98. He loved his children and grandchildren deeply and unconditionally. His death causes my husband to suffer a manic breakdown and a severe relapse. I go to therapy three times. February - Dad is diagnosed with prostate cancer. Plans are made for surgery. My husband vacillates between manic and depressed. I worry for his physical and mental health and plead with our local hospital for the earliest possible p
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Writing his obituary got rid of my writer’s block.

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It’s been just about seven months since my husband took his own life. In month four I stopped counting the weeks. By month six I wasn’t spending the 22nd of the month in silent anguish. Throughout, I was leaning into therapy and learning how to find words for the emotions I was feeling, trying to soothe myself with healthy behaviors but, I’m realizing now that my greatest coping device was finishing my book.  My husband was a distraction. He had some severe mental health issues and it was only after his death that I learned just how severe they were. His addiction was a distraction. It fluctuated between active addiction and tenuous sobriety more often than I realized. Once again, only after his death did I realize the extent of just how bad it had become. My husband was an enigma. Just months ago I learned so many things about him that were not in line with what I knew when we were married — possibly a whole book’s worth. When he killed himself I wrote a brutally honest obituary. That
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So, was this a sabbatical or just a chaotic break?

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On December 14th I announced I was leaving real estate to explore new opportunities. I sent a blast announcement via social media and email to my past clients and my sphere. What I didn’t say in that message is that I was taking a break for my own mental health. I was burned out, I was exhausted, I was fighting through a depressive episode, I was spending a lot of time looking at career paths I might enjoy and, while I was good at real estate, I no longer found any joy doing it.  My plan was to take January and February to just relax, focus on introspection, detox from my phone and email. Maybe read a book, take some more photos, go on long, relaxing walks. My kids showed up on December 18th. We had a wonderful holiday that included bringing Grandpa to our new house for the first (and only) time. The knots in my shoulders started to unwind and I could feel some level of stress abating. The kids flew back to their respective homes for New Years, Pete and I had friends over for the first
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Never inventory your stress.

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In the early days after Pete’s death I searched for “ways to navigate estates without going through probate”.  I also searched for “easy prep meals for one” and “where to donate glasses after someone dies”. Because of those searches I’m inundated on all social media platforms with “how to widow” content and occasionally I take the click-bait and end up down a rabbit hole.  One of those adventures lead me to the Holmes-Rahe Stress Inventory , a 43 question survey designed to determine your stressors from the last 12 months and, if your score is above 300, you have an 80% higher chance of a health breakdown in the next two years.  My score was 572.  Their recommendation to lower my stress? “Avoid future crisis situations.”  If I gave blind credence to this type of derivative test I would become stressed about getting out of stress. I would work to control that which cannot be controlled. I would speed towards that health breakdown. I was tempted to just toss the results aside. Except, I
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Unboxing it all.

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Grief doesn’t come with a checklist. I’m fully aware that if it did it would be never ending - written on a roll of paper that stretches to infinity.  This the first time that I’ve let myself feel grief deeply without working to shove it into a box that I then put in another, sturdier, box and then stick it on a shelf never to be revisited. And, damnit, the act of feeling grief this time has caused my shelf full of boxes to fall down and every single one of them has opened and the things that have spilled out are wild. Why am I sad about miscarriages I had in the 90s and remembering details I haven’t thought of in years? Why do I suddenly grieve the loss of my aunts and uncle more deeply than I did 10-20 years ago when they died tragically young? Why am I painfully aware of all of the losses that my friends have gone through that I didn’t show up for because I was avoiding feeling? Why am I terrified to mourn publicly because if I open these boxes I’m not sure how I’ll ever put everyth
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