I never stop feeling lonely, even when I'm surrounded by people. Sometimes though, the feeling goes beyond loneliness to something else. It doesn't happen often, but I've been feeling it most of this week, as I've worked to try to make a lot of important decisions about my future. I feel like Ryan's abandoned me.
I think the first time I noticed I was feeling this way, it was my Mom who brought it to my attention. I can't remember now what triggered it then, but when she said that she thought I might be feeling abandoned, I recoiled. I thought that was ridiculous at first- how could I be feeling abandoned? That sounds like it's placing blame on Ryan, and he didn't do anything wrong. His life was taken from him, way too young, and he never would have left on purpose. But when I thought about it, I realized she was right- that's exactly what I was feeling, and it's what I've felt periodically ever since. When I say it out loud, or write it, or sometimes even when I think it, I still feel ashamed. It wasn't his fault. But I do feel left behind, and I'm angry about it, and sometimes I'm angry at him for leaving. This is mostly when I'm thinking about how difficult life can be. Ryan doesn't have to experience those difficulties anymore, and he can't help me with them either.
In the past week, I've been dealing with a lot of issues regarding our house and my future, and I'm working on making a lot of decisions alone that I would have had help with before. I've been dealing with this all along of course, but the closer it comes to my due date, the more pressure I feel about it. It sort of feels like I'm on a deadline. Making the big life choices without my partner is incredibly stressful. I was never good at the big decisions to begin with, and having Ryan by my side always helped me to know that we were doing the right thing. Now I just don't know. What's the right thing? I am facing selling our house, finding a new place to live for myself and the baby, figuring out the finances, and raising a baby alone. In some of my worst times, I ask how Ryan could have left me behind with all of this. Or, I ask God how he could have done this to me.
It's the little things too. Ryan made me a lot of promises over time. When we started trying to have a baby, I gave him a long speech one night about how once we had kids, he'd have to help more around the house. He promised he would. When we started talking about moving to a new house, I told him that I wanted nothing to do with packing up and moving his vintage 1980's toy collection. He promised I wouldn't have to touch a single one of them. Of course, now both of those things are on me.
A lot of people want to help me. I'm lucky to have that, I know many single mothers don't. However, and I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but it's just not what I want. I'm an independent person, and I've never wanted to have to rely on too many people. It's always been important to me that I could take care of myself, and be on my own. Relying on Ryan was okay, because he relied on me too in a lot of ways. Each of us had strengths that we brought to the relationship, and with him I could do more than I would have taken on by myself. We'd formed a strong partnership. Losing it feels like losing half of myself. I've lost the ability to stand on my own, but I desperately want to.
The feeling of abandonment isn't just about the responsibilities of life of course, it's about the joys of life too. I was a happy person with Ryan. Even though I wasn't happy about every part of my life, I always felt good knowing that I had him, if nothing else. Lift him out of the equation, and it feels like my anchor is gone. I've been left behind without the person who brought me joy. To have Ryan hold my hand, or wrap his arms around me, or to hear his voice saying that he loves me, those thing brought me such happiness and strength before. Now I don't have those things anymore, and making through a difficult day is impossible. When I have a bad day at work, I have nothing to look forward to at home- nothing that would make the stress melt away the way Ryan could. When the pregnancy gives me a backache, Ryan cant be here to rub my back. When I just need a break, Ryan can't be here to suggest that we just order a pizza and watch a movie. I'm left alone to find ways to relax, and nothing compares to what I had, so real relaxation never seems to come.
When a loved one dies, we often comfort ourselves by recognizing that they are in a better place. They are happy. When I get to thinking about this, and I feel selfish and guilty admitting this, I feel even more left behind. If Heaven exists, and Ryan is there, then he's in paradise. He is happier than he's ever been. On my worst nights, I still beg for him to come back- I beg God to let him come back and to let everything go back to normal. If Ryan is in a better place though, and he's happier than he's ever been, then I shouldn't be asking for that. Sometimes, when I think about the afterlife, it feels as though he's left me for something better.
Often, before falling asleep next to each other, I'd hug him tight and say "I don't know what I'd ever do without you". He'd reply "Don't worry, you'll never have to find out". A promise made, and unintentionally not kept. And now here i am, going through the most difficult time in my life, when I could use him the most, and he can't be here to help.
Sunday, September 22, 2013
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
Travel Journal - San Francisco
One of the things that drew Ryan and I together was our shared love of travel. One of the things that kept us together was that we actually became very complimentary travel companions. We liked doing a lot of the same things on vacations, hoped to go to similar places, vacationed at a similar pace, and both liked to travel at a respectable budget. We wanted to go everywhere together; our list kept growing and growing. Ryan had done so much travel on his own that he was going to have to make a lot of duplicate trips in order to satisfy me, but he didn't mind. Thinking about our trips together makes me ache. I can't believe we won't be going on any more of them. A memory, even a happy one, feels very different when you know that it's totally in the past, and there's no chance of getting it back. Even more, the person I shared these memories with is now gone, so there's no one else who I can reminisce with. I find myself trapped in memories sometimes. Over time, I'd like to write down the memories of some of our trips as a way of sharing some of my happiest times.
The very first vacation the two of us took together was to San Francisco. It was in March 2007, and Ryan had decided to take me on a trip for my birthday. He gave me two choices - either we could go to Miami or San Francisco. Being more of a city person than a beach person, I eagerly accepted the trip to San Francisco. For the only time in our relationship, Ryan planned everything. He got the flight, the hotel, and the rental car. It was, by far, the nicest birthday present I'd ever received from a boyfriend.
We flew into Los Angeles, and spent a day with a cousin of his who I hadn't met before then. Ryan has a very large family, and I come from a very small one. I was always nervous to meet his relatives, but I never had any reason to be - I was always pleasantly surprised by how great they all were and she was no exception. After the brief stay in L.A., we drove up the Pacific Coast Highway towards San Francisco, stopping at Hearst Castle along the way. Ryan had sprung for a convertible at the rental car facility, something that seemed like a great idea in L.A., but the farther north we went the less it seemed so. Along the way we stopped to enjoy local cuisine. By this, I mean In and Out Burger. Ryan marveled at the efficiency of a fast food restaurant that only had four menu items. Even though he didn't really like burgers, he went on and on about how great the place was.
When we got to San Francisco, we found that our hotel was a little off the beaten track. Luckily, we both liked to walk a lot. Unluckily, I found out on this trip that I had fallen pretty out of shape. One of the first places we wanted to go was to the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park, and based on the location of our hotel, it looked as though it wouldn't be too far of a walk. So we set out on foot. It was really about double the distance that I thought, through the rolling hills of the Presidio park. I got winded and had to stop so many times, that I was afraid of what Ryan must be thinking. He later told me that he was surprised how out of shape I was. In hindsight though, I was probably having a hard time keeping up with Ryan - one way we didn't travel well together was that he walked about double my natural pace, and was not easily slowed down. Either way though, my embarrassment from the trek is part of what inspired me to start running.
There are a lot of stories I could tell from this trip, and it's hard to pick just a few of them. If I made a generic list of things we did in San Francisco, leaving out the specific names of the places we went, it could probably be applied to any other vacation we took afterwards. We saw historical sites, I indulged Ryan by going into a military museum, we window shopped, we went to an art museum, we went to tourist traps, and we got lost at least once. We talked for hours on end. We created inside jokes. We had one very nice dinner out.
The nice dinner out was one of my favorite parts of this trip. Since Ryan had decided to pay for the entire trip, I made him promise me that I could take him out for one very nice dinner. We found in our guidebook a place called the Tadich Grill, which claims to be the oldest restaurant in the city. Ryan was sold on it right away for the historical value. It was a very long, narrow restaurant with a three-sided bar that ran the length of the place. We had to wait for a table for I think over an hour and waited at the bar - I think it's the longest I ever got Ryan to wait for a table. The bartenders all wore white coats, adding to the turn of the century feel of the place. The place was pricey, the wait was long, and the food was not memorable. But Ryan loved it for the atmosphere and the history. He talked about it for years afterwards, and I always thought that some day we'd go back there.
I thought this about a lot of places we'd been. It's always seemed to me to be a romantic idea to return to places that were a part of our story. Most of the time, we never did. We kept wanting to go to new places, and, of course, we thought we still had decades together to get to return to these places,and to go everywhere else we wanted to. I can't believe that we won't get to. While writing this entire post, I've been thinking about the things we won't get to do. We never did get to Miami together. We always talked about driving the rest of the Pacific Coast Highway one day - we never did that either. I can't believe that I've lost my travel partner. I've loved to travel for many, many years, since long before I knew Ryan. Somehow now though, the idea of travel seems pretty empty, knowing that I won't get to do it with him. This trip to San Francisco was the beginning of a lifetime of travel experiences together that was cut way too short.
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| Our view of San Francisco from the ferry to Alcatraz. |
We flew into Los Angeles, and spent a day with a cousin of his who I hadn't met before then. Ryan has a very large family, and I come from a very small one. I was always nervous to meet his relatives, but I never had any reason to be - I was always pleasantly surprised by how great they all were and she was no exception. After the brief stay in L.A., we drove up the Pacific Coast Highway towards San Francisco, stopping at Hearst Castle along the way. Ryan had sprung for a convertible at the rental car facility, something that seemed like a great idea in L.A., but the farther north we went the less it seemed so. Along the way we stopped to enjoy local cuisine. By this, I mean In and Out Burger. Ryan marveled at the efficiency of a fast food restaurant that only had four menu items. Even though he didn't really like burgers, he went on and on about how great the place was.
 |
| Ryan at the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park. I have no pictures of the two of us together on this trip, as we had yet to master the art of asking strangers to take our picture.. |
There are a lot of stories I could tell from this trip, and it's hard to pick just a few of them. If I made a generic list of things we did in San Francisco, leaving out the specific names of the places we went, it could probably be applied to any other vacation we took afterwards. We saw historical sites, I indulged Ryan by going into a military museum, we window shopped, we went to an art museum, we went to tourist traps, and we got lost at least once. We talked for hours on end. We created inside jokes. We had one very nice dinner out.
The nice dinner out was one of my favorite parts of this trip. Since Ryan had decided to pay for the entire trip, I made him promise me that I could take him out for one very nice dinner. We found in our guidebook a place called the Tadich Grill, which claims to be the oldest restaurant in the city. Ryan was sold on it right away for the historical value. It was a very long, narrow restaurant with a three-sided bar that ran the length of the place. We had to wait for a table for I think over an hour and waited at the bar - I think it's the longest I ever got Ryan to wait for a table. The bartenders all wore white coats, adding to the turn of the century feel of the place. The place was pricey, the wait was long, and the food was not memorable. But Ryan loved it for the atmosphere and the history. He talked about it for years afterwards, and I always thought that some day we'd go back there.
I thought this about a lot of places we'd been. It's always seemed to me to be a romantic idea to return to places that were a part of our story. Most of the time, we never did. We kept wanting to go to new places, and, of course, we thought we still had decades together to get to return to these places,and to go everywhere else we wanted to. I can't believe that we won't get to. While writing this entire post, I've been thinking about the things we won't get to do. We never did get to Miami together. We always talked about driving the rest of the Pacific Coast Highway one day - we never did that either. I can't believe that I've lost my travel partner. I've loved to travel for many, many years, since long before I knew Ryan. Somehow now though, the idea of travel seems pretty empty, knowing that I won't get to do it with him. This trip to San Francisco was the beginning of a lifetime of travel experiences together that was cut way too short.
Saturday, September 14, 2013
Fatigue
Getting out of bed is getting harder and harder for me. I've never in my life been this tired for this long.
Yes, pregnancy is tiring. Almost any mother will tell you this- sometimes over and over again. But my fatigue is something different. I am dealing with the fatigue of pregnancy plus the fatigue of grief. And the fatigue of extreme grief is like nothing else- not just a physical lethargy, but a mental, spiritual, and emotional exhaustion that doesn't go away.
I was tired going in. Two weeks before Ryan died, I had been asked to work out of Trenton, NJ for a few days a week, which, in rush hour traffic, is about an hour and a half away from my house. The weekend before I started doing this trek, I found out that I was pregnant. The combination of the first trimester of pregnancy and three hours in the car each day was incredibly tiring. Plus, of course, I had cut coffee out of my morning routine. Then, two days before Ryan died, his family and I threw him a graduation party, which I worked all weekend on. By February 18th, my birthday and the day before Ryan died in the early morning hours, I was wiped out. That night, we watched the season finale of Downton Abbey together, and I fell asleep on the couch. Then I ate my birthday cupcake and Ryan and I went to bed- I'm sure I dozed off within a few minutes.
But that tiredness I felt before that night was nothing compared to what I would experience over the next few months, and what I am still experiencing now. For the first few nights after Ryan's death, I didn't sleep well at all. I couldn't bring myself to sleep in a bed, so I spent about a week sleeping on my parents' couch. It wasn't comfortable, but my sleep was worse off because of the dreams I was having and the anxiety I was experiencing. I could hear my Dad snoring down the hall, and it would wake me up in a cold sweat, because of how similar it sounded to the noises Ryan made while in seizure. Every time I closed my eyes I would see flashes of things that had happened that night, like the way Ryan's face looked at different times. It was terrible. Between the lack of sleep and the fact that I couldn't eat well, I was making myself more and more physically tired.
The emotional and mental exhaustion increased more gradually over time. Getting through things like telling all of Ryan's friends what had happened, planning a funeral, going through the funeral and accepting condolences from an endless line of people, meeting with an estate lawyer...it was all very tiring. Once I was through all of that and life started to calm back down, the reality started to set in that Ryan wasn't coming back. I had gone through all of this, and now that it was over, the truth was that it wasn't really over. It never will be.
Every morning I wake up, I wake up without Ryan next to me, and have to remember everything all over again. It's not the same as before- it's not the first thing I think about anymore because I don't really forget about it overnight anymore. But, I do spend the entire morning thinking about things- different things, but always Ryan things. By the time I'm out of the shower, I'm already emotionally worn out. As my pregnancy has progressed and I've started carrying more and more weight, I also find that I'm physically exhausted by the time I'm dressed too. That's all before I go to work. It gets worse over time, because I feel like the longer I'm without him, the more real it gets, and realizing the reality of it is part of what's tiring. The more I know that Ryan's not coming back, and that part of my life is over, the sadder I am. Knowing that I will never see my soul mate again in this life drains my spirit. I feel like I could get so much strength and energy back if he could just put his arms around me and hold me for a while. Then, knowing that he of course can't do that drains me even more.
People don't get it. I know that I can't expect them to, but I do expect them to try to understand that they can't understand. While I was in my second trimester, I had a coworker ask me how I was feeling. When I answered that I was tired, she was confused as to why I hadn't gotten a burst of energy in my second trimester like most pregnant women do. I explained that I am always tired, that I had been since my husband died. I could tell that she still didn't get it, and I wasn't sure what to do then. I'm too tired to try to pretend that I'm not tired.
For a while I thought it would get better once the baby is born. I won't be pregnant anymore, so even though the fatigue of grief will still be here, the physical pains of pregnancy won't be. Then one day I realized that I'll be trading the physical strain of pregnancy for the exhaustion that comes with being the mother of a newborn- midnight feedings and the like. At least right now I'm sleeping well enough, but that won't last. It feels a little like there's no end in sight. I'm not sure how long the emotional exhaustion will last, though I'm sure it can't last forever. It's all a part of getting used to a new normal, which is not as good as the old one. Missing my old life and regretting the future that I'd planned and lost is part of what makes me so tired, and I don't see that changing any time soon.
Yes, pregnancy is tiring. Almost any mother will tell you this- sometimes over and over again. But my fatigue is something different. I am dealing with the fatigue of pregnancy plus the fatigue of grief. And the fatigue of extreme grief is like nothing else- not just a physical lethargy, but a mental, spiritual, and emotional exhaustion that doesn't go away.
I was tired going in. Two weeks before Ryan died, I had been asked to work out of Trenton, NJ for a few days a week, which, in rush hour traffic, is about an hour and a half away from my house. The weekend before I started doing this trek, I found out that I was pregnant. The combination of the first trimester of pregnancy and three hours in the car each day was incredibly tiring. Plus, of course, I had cut coffee out of my morning routine. Then, two days before Ryan died, his family and I threw him a graduation party, which I worked all weekend on. By February 18th, my birthday and the day before Ryan died in the early morning hours, I was wiped out. That night, we watched the season finale of Downton Abbey together, and I fell asleep on the couch. Then I ate my birthday cupcake and Ryan and I went to bed- I'm sure I dozed off within a few minutes.
But that tiredness I felt before that night was nothing compared to what I would experience over the next few months, and what I am still experiencing now. For the first few nights after Ryan's death, I didn't sleep well at all. I couldn't bring myself to sleep in a bed, so I spent about a week sleeping on my parents' couch. It wasn't comfortable, but my sleep was worse off because of the dreams I was having and the anxiety I was experiencing. I could hear my Dad snoring down the hall, and it would wake me up in a cold sweat, because of how similar it sounded to the noises Ryan made while in seizure. Every time I closed my eyes I would see flashes of things that had happened that night, like the way Ryan's face looked at different times. It was terrible. Between the lack of sleep and the fact that I couldn't eat well, I was making myself more and more physically tired.
The emotional and mental exhaustion increased more gradually over time. Getting through things like telling all of Ryan's friends what had happened, planning a funeral, going through the funeral and accepting condolences from an endless line of people, meeting with an estate lawyer...it was all very tiring. Once I was through all of that and life started to calm back down, the reality started to set in that Ryan wasn't coming back. I had gone through all of this, and now that it was over, the truth was that it wasn't really over. It never will be.
Every morning I wake up, I wake up without Ryan next to me, and have to remember everything all over again. It's not the same as before- it's not the first thing I think about anymore because I don't really forget about it overnight anymore. But, I do spend the entire morning thinking about things- different things, but always Ryan things. By the time I'm out of the shower, I'm already emotionally worn out. As my pregnancy has progressed and I've started carrying more and more weight, I also find that I'm physically exhausted by the time I'm dressed too. That's all before I go to work. It gets worse over time, because I feel like the longer I'm without him, the more real it gets, and realizing the reality of it is part of what's tiring. The more I know that Ryan's not coming back, and that part of my life is over, the sadder I am. Knowing that I will never see my soul mate again in this life drains my spirit. I feel like I could get so much strength and energy back if he could just put his arms around me and hold me for a while. Then, knowing that he of course can't do that drains me even more.
People don't get it. I know that I can't expect them to, but I do expect them to try to understand that they can't understand. While I was in my second trimester, I had a coworker ask me how I was feeling. When I answered that I was tired, she was confused as to why I hadn't gotten a burst of energy in my second trimester like most pregnant women do. I explained that I am always tired, that I had been since my husband died. I could tell that she still didn't get it, and I wasn't sure what to do then. I'm too tired to try to pretend that I'm not tired.
For a while I thought it would get better once the baby is born. I won't be pregnant anymore, so even though the fatigue of grief will still be here, the physical pains of pregnancy won't be. Then one day I realized that I'll be trading the physical strain of pregnancy for the exhaustion that comes with being the mother of a newborn- midnight feedings and the like. At least right now I'm sleeping well enough, but that won't last. It feels a little like there's no end in sight. I'm not sure how long the emotional exhaustion will last, though I'm sure it can't last forever. It's all a part of getting used to a new normal, which is not as good as the old one. Missing my old life and regretting the future that I'd planned and lost is part of what makes me so tired, and I don't see that changing any time soon.
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