Life Hurts

Last week was a huge struggle. Lots of sleepless nights…mornings where I regretted waking up at all…tears…

On Wednesday I saw someone at work that had been in Florida over the winter and she popped her head in my office and asked me how I was doing. When I replied “hanging in there”….she commented “that’s what you told me last time. I thought you’d be doing better than that by now”. Nope…sorry to disappoint you…”hanging in there” is exactly the best that I am able to do…still.

The truth is that there is always going to be this huge hole inside of me…this huge weight on my shoulders. Thoughts of Jason are always going to be right at the forefront of my mind. I am getting better at carrying the weight…disguising the hole…so I can function (sometimes better than others)…but those things are now a permanent part of me.

I spend a lot of time feeling very lonely…and this week during one of those lonely times I started looking back at pictures of the last year and a half. I only let myself go back that far…and in those pictures I found my Tribe. My people who have sat with me in dark times…listened to me cry…who didn’t offer solutions or try to fix me…who check in with me and ask me how I’m doing. And those are also the people who have shared good times and who I have made good memories with in the past year and a half…because I can be real with them. And I printed some of those pictures out and put them in frames….to remind myself that there is still life. It’s not the life I wanted…or dreamt about…or planned for…and it hurts a lot of the time…but it is life.

I got to spend yesterday afternoon with some of my Tribe. Jason’s nephew and his wife are expecting a baby. This little boy would have made Jason a Great Uncle! He would’ve gotten a kick out of that!