January 25, 2025
Dear David.
Is it still January? It has only been three weeks, and it feels like three decades since you have been gone. A friend asked me if I wanted to go to dinner with her and her husband and I said no thanks. What sort of company would I be? The sad third wheel. No one wants to be around that person. I don’t want to be around that person and I AM THAT person. I felt like I was going to crawl out of my skin the past few days, so I decided to go down to Macon to return something I bought online but mainly to just put on regular clothes and get out of the house. It was a cold day today, but it was sunny. I was going to listen to an audiobook but ended up listening to all kinds of music we use to listen to from when we were dating to more current stuff. I feel numb recently though. Just a nothingness. Empty. I cannot cry lately or be angry or be sad or even think of better times. There is always loneliness. It never leaves. It never dulls. It feels like you have just gone someplace and will be back at some point though. I still don’t know when this will hit me. Am I in some sort of self-protecting emotional shut down? You know what a planner I am? Not anymore. I find I cannot even think past the moment I am in and sometimes not even then. The day just continues to happen and I just exist around it. Even driving today, it was like I was floating outside of myself. Like I was not a part of traffic on the road. I did not notice anyone. I feel invisible to others and to myself. And alone. Always alone. But I realize there is a different in alone and loneliness. You aren’t talking to me or telling me interesting things about what you read recently or things you want to do or where you want to eat dinner. No one to give me opinions on something I may want to buy. No one cares how the pants make my ass look or if the sweater is too clingy or too baggy. The cold seems extra worse, so I do feel that sensation I suppose. It feels like ice. Just a shaky, icy feeling inside all the time. A just cannot get warm feeling. And to be honest, it feels ok in the cold to at least feel a physical sensation.
I stopped at the one store to return the jeans and realized too late that I had brought the wrong thing to return. That is what I mean. I cannot think clearly. Everything is foggy and blurred and hazy. Senses are just dulled.
I ended up going inside Hobby Lobby just to prolong the having to drive back home in silence and ran immediately into the Valentines stuff. I sort of froze just standing there as I realized all the pinks and reds and the hearts and The Be My Valentine and I Love You More stuff is irrelevant. I am THAT person now. The widowed person. The single person. The one that stuff like that doesn’t apply to. I just turned around and walked out. I am not strong and brave like you thought I was. I am nothing like you were. I am not a fighter now with you gone. I am a giver upper. I am intimidated and lost. Any self-confidence in my own abilities to do things alone has been shaken. I didn’t just lose my spouse. I lost my best friend. My ride or die best friend. No matter what marital challenges we faced, we always had the friendship. My person doesn’t exist anymore. I cannot make simple decisions. I knew how much we talked about things. I realized how much I relied on you. That is how I knew this would be so difficult. Your company. Your always being there. I thought I did at times, but I truly had no idea what actual loneliness felt like down in the deepest recesses of the pit of my stomach. The ache I can sometimes physically feel in my chest. I never thought that feeling was real. It sounded dramatic whenever I read about those feelings. Not the crippling part of it. Not to the point of sitting in a parking lot at a store explaining to myself that I drove there alone, and I can certainly point the car in the opposite direction and drive home. I can do things alone. I always had your support. I can hear you saying “You can do it. I believe in you”. And that helps me with doing things alone. People do things alone all of the time, but there is an almost paralysis that comes over me with the loneliness. Anxiety like nothing I have experienced before knowing you won’t be at home when I get there.
Mother Teresa often said loneliness is the greatest suffering. She wasn’t wrong. I know there are support groups and people to reach out to. I am trying therapy. It isn’t as simple as I need to be around more people. I was lonely in a crowd of people today and these feelings have nothing to do with how many people you are around or not.
It is that this relationship I had, needed, wanted…the life we shared for better or for worse is just gone, I miss our life. I miss you. So, I guess I am not as numb as I thought I was.
On the way home thought, I chased a sunset. I haven’t seen one of those in a while.
