How do you move forward with your life when a big part of you refuses to even acknowledge something?

I know grieving takes a long time. I’ve been through it before but never on this level. I’ve lost a lot of people I loved dearly, but they all died after prolong illnesses. By the time they died it was a relief that they were no longer suffering. Gary was my soul mate and his death was so sudden that the shock still hasn’t quite set in.  I get annoyed with people who seem to think that I should be over this by now and yet its not even quite five months. My doctor reminded me that Jewish tradition allows a widow to grieve for a full year. He didn’t say what they do to someone after a year if they are still moping about. I suspect harsh comments and slap up side the head.  I’ve avoided posting here because the last thing anyone wants to read is my endless agony over loosing Gary. Trust me when I say I’m sick of hearing it myself.  Still, there’s little I can do to quell my heart in pain. It refuses to budge and refuses to believe that Gary isn’t going to walk in the door any moment.

Gary has a desk that I always considered his private space. This cabin is small so having a drawer to call your own is important. I’m not the kind of person who minds people knowing my stuff. Even so, there’s a few things only Gary knew of and I’m sure if I had a secret drawer he would have been caught digging in it many times. Just calling it “my” drawer would have been enough to drive him crazy. I can see him in the middle of the night thinking, “What’s in it? Should I sneak a peek?”  He wouldn’t be able to resist it so its best to just not hide anything to start with.  Gary, however, needed privacy and that is why the desk was important to him. He told me many times that I could go into it if I wanted. There were times he’d put something in a drawer and ask me later to retrieve it for him, just to prod me to go into his desk. I would refuse and it would always dissolve into a laugh fest for us, but I never in 14 years ever opened that desk.  It was his and it was private.  Now I’m in a place where I need to open the desk and sort though the contents to see what I need to save and what I don’t. I still haven’t found the money he was saving for our HDTV.  I suspect it’s in his savings account, which I still haven’t managed to get the lawyer to do anything about yet.  I tried to open the desk the other day and it was just too weird. It felt like such an invasion of his privacy and it tells me that I’m still not at a stage of acceptance of his death. I still feel that I’m invading his privacy and it’s as if I don’t go through the desk, then maybe he can come home. I’m bargaining. Its such a split in your personality, a loss like this. The line between your head and your heart are in stark contrast. My head knows that he’s gone and I can’t have him back, and yet my heart refuses to believe it ever happened. As long as the desk stays unopened, my heart reasons, then he isn’t really gone. Opening that desk means accepting the fact that he’s gone. There’s finality to opening those drawers that I’m avoiding.

I thought I’d clean some things up to day. This cabin is unbearably cluttered. Gary was a bit of a pack rat so his pack rat combined with mine created a monster of clutter.  This part of me that refuses to accept his death is also preventing me from removing a lot of clutter that was his for the same reason I can’t open the desk.  I managed to get rid of the wine bottle corks he’d collected because they always bugged the shit out of me. Its the things he cherished that I can’t move, and so the clutter remains. At least for a little while.

Being home is forcing me to face some things I was avoiding by staying in Tucson. I’m glad to be home but this cabin is awfully quiet without Gary in it.  The dogs are suffering for a lack of a playmate. Gary played with them all day long and they got used to that. I’m a reader so I’m either reading or on the computer or involved in some quiet activity.  These poor dogs aren’t sure how to adjust any more than I am sure how to adjust.

I started this post with the idea that I’d sort of get everyone up to date on whats going on, and once again I’ve dissolved into my struggle with Gary’s passing. I’m sure this will occupy my mind for the year ahead. I hope that being here will help me heal a little faster. I did have some things I wanted to address when I started this but I’ll be damned if I can think of them now.

I’ve opened the comment section of my website if you wish to make a post. I just ask you create an account to do so to avoid spammers. The last time I opened comments and left them open to the world I wound up with over 9,000 comments from spammers in a few months. What on earth makes them think we want to read that crap?  Then again, they wouldn’t do it if there weren’t money in it… which means some ignorant sap out there is buying that crap and encouraging them. I say we track him down and stop him so we can have some peace and quiet in cyber space.

Now… does anyone know how to use this damn Comcast DVR?  Man, this thing sucks. I’m going back to my TiVo once I figure out how to make it work with Comcast cable.

Peace