Avoidance

I don’t think this is going to help. Writing. Draining off all the ache with tears welling up in my eyes, dripping off my cheeks and splattering on my shirt. Thirteen months. Two days. Barely into the second year of living without Rob and today I’m down.

There’s no reason to call anyone. There’s nothing they can do. Or say. I’m just terribly sad. I don’t want questions about how I got here because I don’t know the answers. The questions make me feel like I could have avoided this if I’d been paying more attention—the way you could have avoided dog doo if you’d been watching where you walk.

I’ve been walking in memories. But I don’t take myself down that path. I just find myself there with no warning. Like a few minutes ago while I scrolled through etsy looking for floating shelves. Suddenly the screen was filled with football team logos instead of barnwood creations and I was transported to the Gators Man Cave wall hanging I ordered for Rob’s birthday five years ago. I haven’t seen it since we moved to the mountains a year and a half ago. But I will. Just as soon as my new house is completed and I finally have to face all the boxed up, bubble wrapped photos and wall art and décor that represent all the happy times when I created a refuge for Rob and I that looked like us.

Now I’m creating a respite for myself devoid of my husband. There’s no man cave. There’s no us. There are three storage units filled with memories I haven’t seen in over a year, and I fear them all. Friends are already offering to help me move everything out of those air-conditioned units and bring them to my new home, but I don’t know if that’s what I will need.

Some people think when you’re thrown into a pit of grief as I’ve been, that the best thing to do is get your mind off your sorrows. You can’t change anything by staring at it. It’s done. Rob’s gone. He’s not coming back. Get on with life. Deal with it. Unpack those boxes and set up your house. Get back to the business of living. Keep the noise going in your mind and all around and those sneaky little memories won’t be able to compete with the commotion. Eventually, they’ll all fade away into what once was while you stay busy creating the new what is. There’s just one problem.

It doesn’t work.

Some people love me so much they suffer watching me do the same. Some people love me so much they want desperately to help me find joy again. Some people love me so much they’d do just about anything to rescue me. But it’s impossible. They can’t rescue me. I can’t even rescue me. The only way through grief is straight through. “There are no shortcuts,” my counselor reminds me from time to time. Grief is a voice of honesty that won’t let me off the hook. It won’t let me ignore its presence forever. Grief is another kind of wisdom that demands to be heard; actually, it deserves to be heard. Grief tells the truth, holds wide its arms, and beckons the heartbroken into its safe embrace where validation of the pain allows its full expression. Grief isn’t trying to destroy me. It’s not trying to imprison me. It’s trying to heal my broken heart so I can find my way back to the living we all want for me.

So. Those boxes. I have to face them soon. I have to open them in front of other people because there are too many of them for me to move or sort through alone. I have to allow the emotion to surface because I don’t have the space in my soul to shove all of that down. This feels so scary. It makes me feel vulnerable. It lays open my pain again to the observation and possible scrutiny of others, even though they love me. There’s no way around it. The only path to recovery is the one that goes through the suffering.

So, I’ll go through it. I’ll admit my humanity. I’ll probably weep at the opening of all those Pandora’s Boxes overflowing from a lifetime of love with a man I desperately miss. And perhaps, maybe, hopefully, after I baptize all of those precious possessions with these honest tears, I’ll find peace.

It’s worth trying. And honestly, I have no other choice.