I Don’t Know What To Tell You: Grief Week 19

I’m not sure how many weeks I am actually going to do this. I was hoping if I did enough, I could organize them somehow into some sort of cohesive, organized, step by step process or program or… something, on what grief is like or how to climb out of it. I would be a hypocrite to say that you can just step out of it in X amount of time. It’s been nearly five years since Sam passed, I’ve since remarried, and I’m finding the biggest obstacle to my current marriage is not so much my old marriage, but the fact I really don’t want to have to do it all over AGAIN.

Trying to be who you were is impossible, trying to find out who you are is painful, and realizing you can be a widow again is terrifying.

Doing it over again with someone who isn’t like Sam is really hard, because I liked the way Sam and I worked together. I liked the way he needed me. Having someone need you in a completely different way, that you haven’t figured out yet, is agonizing. Wanting to give up on living because you want to be with your dead husband is agonizing. Feeling like you’re betraying your present husband because you liked the way things were with your late husband is agonizing. Trying hard to work through a marriage AGAIN is agonizing.

When we moved to a new area, I left behind all the friends I made while married to Sam. I thought it would be a good thing for my new marriage, but it turns out friends are important. Friends who understand where you have been are valuable. Friends who can help you work your way through new relationships are a treasure beyond price. I had hoped to put the past behind me, but I guess it doesn’t work that way. Now I have to work on making new friends, with just as much value, but that just goes to paragraph #1… I don’t want to have to do it all over again.

You have to deal with the reality. The reality is I am in a new place without the comfort and connections I had before. The fact is my late husband is dead. My current husband is now who I owe my “happily ever after.” Just because neither of us knows what we want from a happily ever after– because we thought we had one before we even met– both of us are scared, tired, emotionally exhausted and don’t want to have to do it all over again. That doesn’t change the reality of the fact we married each other because we hoped we could have another happily ever after. The reality is we have to build that ourselves. Just like before, it doesn’t come without a lot of hard work, tears and uncomfortable conversations.
Sometimes I feel like God must see me as the most petulant reluctant teenager with a trust fund he’s anxious to give me if I can just stop getting in my own way.

I’m slowly coming to accept the “reality.” I’m working on it, and that’s really all I can tell you this week. I don’t know if it helps anyone, it certainly doesn’t make me feel any better about it, but I’m starting to feel a little better about myself being in the situation. Other than that, I don’t know what to tell you.

Again, please visit my etsy store and see if there’s anything you like: https://www.etsy.com/shop/2ndLifeDolls