It Wasn't Supposed to Be This Hard...

Source can be found here...

This is the hardest thing I have ever done.  And by this, I mean today, and yesterday, and the day before....  Don't get me wrong - finding my husband dead was hard.  Saying goodbye may have been ever harder.  But in those earliest days I was carried, swept unwillingly along by a tide of adrenaline, numbness, and community support.

Its as that tide receded and people returned to their lives, as the adrenalin and numbness wore off and the real emotions set in that things got really tough.  When the people I could lean on got caught up in their own lives, or collapsed from being leaned on for too long.  When I started expecting more of myself then I could physically offer.  When I was forced to do this alone.

My days start the same.  While those around me are reaching for their glasses, their dentures, or their snooze buttons, I am reaching for my mask.  Its the one I wear throughout the day.  The one that keeps me from breaking down every time something reminds me of him... which is often.  Every time I think of him... which is even more often.  The one that allows me to step into the bathroom in which he died.  The Walmart we used to frequent together.  The one that allows me to answer our son when he asks about his dad.  Deal with the depressed look in his dog's eyes.  Speak to his mom.  The one which allows me to function at work - although there are many days I wonder just how well.  To go to the grocery store.  To pay the bills.

The mask that allows me to go about life, doing what needs to be done.  The mask that tells others I'm coping, doing okay.  Doing better.  The mask that even, on some days, shields my real emotions from myself.

Its a lot like living in a pit of quicksand, really.  The more you struggle against it, the deeper it sucks you down.  So you trudge slowly and painfully forward, hoping you have the strength to put one foot in front of the other.  And in the next breaths, secretly wishing that you would just sink.  All the while dragging behind you, like a ball and chain, your emotions.  Your memories.  Your sadness.  The things you cannot say.  The things you have no words to say.  And the things that no one, frankly, wants to hear.

Maybe someday you'll find the end.  Maybe someday you'll stop and sink.  Or maybe this quicksand road just stretches on forever.....

As the day draws to a close - once Gavin has been tucked in tight and the nightly chores done, I take off this mask.  On the outside its fine.  The same pasted smile I saw that morning, and the night before.  The inside, however is damp from my tears.  Caked with perspiration from the effort exerted that day.  That's the side of the mask only I see....

Without the mask on, I don't recognize myself any more.  I don't like the face I see.  It shows deep worry lines, carved from wondering whether you have enough money to pay the sitter, how you will get from point A to point B with stops at C, D, and E before nap time.  Whether the downward spiral you have been on is the result of your medication, or because the medication is not working.  Whether anyone will notice your boy hasn't had a bath in days because you don't want to get near the tub.  Whether you will be the next to die.  Or your son.  Or someone else, and when.  The eyes are glazed from tears, void of joy.  The face has prematurely aged, from innocence lost.  From the harsh realizations that so many around you are protected from knowing.  That you wouldn't tell them if you could.

As you go to bed, you prepare for another restless night full of nightmares and memories.  You long to pray for something more, but no longer have anyone to pray to....

During the day, you walk the streets alone - your true self hidden in self preservation from the outside world.  Because the outside world cannot understand, and has no time for you.  At night, you are a stranger even to yourself, unable to share.  Unable to find the answers.

Even in this sea of people, in this mass of humanity, you feel you are struggling to survive.  Alone.

And that, my friends, day in and day out, is hard.  Harder than anything I could have imagined.  No workout can train you for it.

Living - existing - both inside and outside my head.  Without a road map, or set of instructions.  Feeling dead in the world of the living.  Trying to hide me, understand me, and express me at the same time.

It really is the hardest thing I have ever done....