Landslide

I’ve had a few pretty good days in a row. I’m feeling better after getting the right meds, and spending time with friends and family has helped tremendously. It’s so easy to fall backwards on this grief rollercoaster though. Remember in my first post I said it would be a wild ride? Well I am hanging on for dear life by the hour because those drops can be very steep.

The hardest thing to tackle right now is not feeling guilty about living, smiling, laughing, and having a good time. My brain tells me it’s okay. I know it’s what Joe would want for me. But my heart breaks a little when I’m enjoying something, and I can’t share it with him or realize I hadn’t thought about him for a little bit. That’s when the guilt creeps in.

I’m also learning so much about myself. Like how much I relied on Joe. Not in a bad way, but just in the way we worked as a couple. For example, he was the driver whenever we went out, but only on the way there. I always drove us home because he drank and typically I didn’t.

I learned just how dependent I was on him going to a friend’s house the other night. I never really paid that much attention how to get there, because Joe always got us there just fine. But I took the wrong exit, ended up having to pull over and look up their address on my GPS. Felt a little silly, but I made it.

The lyrics to this song speak to me so much. Stevie Nicks wrote this song staring at the beautiful mountains in Aspen, Colorado, as she reflected on the thought that everything in her life she’d been building could come crashing down at any time.

Everything in my life did come crashing down the day I lost my Joe. And now it’s up to me to find a way to build a new one.

I’m getting stronger every day. I know those steep drops will come. Sometimes I won’t be ready for them, but I’m hopeful the landslides are few and far between.