Emotional Despair

Another night with broken sleep, a sense of dissatisfaction, and complete despair. If you ask me to pinpoint the things that are causing so much of these feelings, I can only relate it back to my profound loss. And as a result, I feel lost. I am struggling to find my footing in my personal life and that continues to highlight how much I compartmentalize and that has been my greatest offense. The loss is all consuming. And my therapist keeps reminding me that I need to connect my head and heart. Right now, I don’t really know where to put these feelings outside of really focusing on my work, my time with my kids, and enjoying the aspects of life that are bringing me some level of fulfillment. But the parts that feel incomplete seem to be fighting for the spotlight and I am struggling to keep them at bay. I am struggling and I am tired of feeling this way. It takes everything out of me at times to put one foot in front of the other and with the demands I put on myself, I don’t know how much longer I can inflict this on myself.

I woke up today thinking how much I need to stop ruminating on life’s unanswered questions. That my focus right now should not be on figuring out the meaning of my life or its purpose but rather to live my life one day at time and the answers will reveal themselves. Perhaps even as if each day will be my last because you never know. And even that seems like too much pressure. If anyone really understood what is going on in my head and heart, they would see the profound sadness. But would they care is the question. Or perhaps that is my biggest problem, needing someone to care. Do I really need anyone to understand how I am feeling? Do I really need to highlight this weakness?

Social media is destructive for me right now. It is damaging and while I have known that, I continue to punish myself with it. I do try really hard to avoid it but sometimes I get caught up in the wormhole that it is, and I see these memes that I can so deeply relate too, and I want to share. I want to share in those subtle ways my despair, my sadness, my loss and even times my humor and the joys of life. But sometimes when I am not paying attention, I get sucker punched in the gut and the pain is tremendous. It is unbearable and it destroys me over and over again. It’s a reminder that catches me off guard letting me know that I am not where I want to be and what’s worse is that I believe I stand alone in that feeling and that is devastating.

I am really trying hard to put the broken pieces of my heart together. This undoing has been so hard to recover from. I write to help construct a story that brings meaning to my experience, to the relationship and in many ways, it is helping me heal. But then there is a week like this one and I feel completely torn apart and back at square one and I don’t always know what to do with that. Maybe, I don’t do anything with it. Maybe I just let it happen and experience whatever feelings come up for me. Perhaps that is the answer and has been all this time.

I have been working hard to reclaim my self-concept. Reestablishing myself outside of the relationship, outside of the narratives that I have lived by for most of my life. I am in serious recovery, and it is hard and uncomfortable and lonely. And I can handle those things or at least I think that I can. Maybe I have been avoiding grief this whole time. And as we know when you avoid grief and the feelings that come out of that you get stuck. Stuck in feelings that cause loneliness, shame, guilt, and a whole slew of other emotions. And as I write this, I am realizing that this is the exact issue. I am stuck and to get unstuck I must allow myself the opportunity to grieve. So maybe today I will take a break from analyzing and just sit with my feelings. Allow myself to be sad and to not hide that I am missing a part of me. That part of me may never return and it will truly just be a collection of memories. And while that is very difficult to square, I am realizing that it’s ok. It’s ok for two people to be in two different places no matter what feelings they may have. That doesn’t have to change the feeling. All that does is stop the actions, the acting on the feelings. It stunts their ability to grow and eventually they fade. At least, that is what I am told and while my past experiences do confirm that feelings eventually fade, this is not one of those experiences. I don't want memories without future experiences.

I have spent nights wishing that things could be different, and I do believe that they could be. I have never lost hope that the outcome has not been revealed yet. I have not given up hope and that is either a curse or a blessing, I am not sure yet. There are nights where I feel like I can feel her and that she is simultaneously feeling me. That somehow are energy still finds its way to one another. And then I quickly snap into reality. Does it matter if she feels me and I her? Does that change anything? No, no it doesn’t. All it does is remind me that we are in the outcome. I can’t foresee the future. I can’t predict what will happen, but I do know that as time goes by, I don’t feel better about the loss. I feel better about who I am becoming, the work that I am doing, the evolution that is happening, but I am not feeling better about the loss. I am not finding the silver lining nor am I able to ignore the nagging feeling that is in my heart and my gut that I am missing a key component here. That I am bypassing a detail that needs further exploration. Maybe that is the feeling, that I should be doing something different, or I should be listening to my knowing and not questioning it.

Nothing about us was an accident. Nothing about us was bad or good. It was a lesson, a series of experiences, a series of decisions. It was beautiful and ugly. It was pain and pleasure, life, and death. It was cosmic and earthly. It was everything to me and my greatest loss. It was serendipitous and I miss it all. I miss all she is. But it's time for me to get on with it. Doesn't matter if I hope or wish or even think that the outcome is not revealed. She doesn't feel the same. I am her greatest mistake, the thing to look out for, the thing she can miss but not want again.