Contradictions

Well, I may no longer be on the roller coaster of earlier months but I’m learning that, within this new existence where I now find myself, there are still ups and downs, it’s just they seem to be a little bit gentler. There are many shades of grey! If truth be told, I find this reassuring. I wasn’t ready to not miss B.

I now find that I sometimes talk with B, mostly in my head but sometimes out loud. When he first died, the fact that others did this seemed strange to me, but it’s happened without me thinking about it. I guess, it’s part of maintaining the relationship we had (acknowledged by experts as a normal part of grieving) and it seems more natural to me now. It’s that head and heart thing again. My head knows it’s not logical, but my heart needs to express itself.

The other evening, I was sitting on our bed when I started to have a (one-sided, tearful) conversation with B that went something like this:

“I still can’t hear your voice, but what upsets me most is that you no longer seem real. I suppose you aren’t real anymore, but you were real and I can’t grasp the reality that once was. Our life together doesn’t seem real – it feels intangible. I can remember particular occasions, special times, holidays we shared. I can look at photos and remember you. I can remember things about you, but it’s the being together that has slipped away, things such as simply chatting together; sleeping together; eating together; sitting on the settee together watching television; knowing you are reading in the next room. All those things we just did together; all those things that just were and no longer are. The daily stuff of life that doesn’t generate memories and is so hard to recall. The things that are too general to remember, except for the fact of them and that I know they happened. I know we did all these things but it is these things that I can no longer grasp. Our togetherness has gone, and I can’t recapture it. I suppose that’s what death is, emptiness. You are gone and I can’t ever fill that hole. 

Why didn’t you tell me what it was like? You’ve been through it! As my life becomes a little fuller, you seem further away and I don’t like it. You are becoming less real and it hurts. And, I've just realised, that’s why I couldn’t work out why it all feels wrong at the moment. It’s easier, it’s calmer, it’s a little less painful, but it’s not better as you are getting further away! 

Sometimes, it feels as though I didn’t know you! I try to imagine what you would say to me and I can and I can’t, and that makes me think I didn’t know you. Although, of course, I did. I knew you better than anyone else. It’s just, how can I possibly imagine what you would say to me, when saying it would mean you were here after all and, if you were here, I wouldn’t be feeling like this.

In the darker moments, I try to block out those wretched regrets and doubts that keep rearing their heads, those ‘what ifs’ that keep haunting me. I know they are silly and not helpful, to say the least. I don’t know why I even think them, and I know you wouldn’t want me to, or even understand why I do (!), but it’s that Jester inside me, making me question myself, and sometimes you. I know that you always had my best interests at heart, that you loved me, and that you knew that I would do my best for you. I trusted you implicitly when you were alive. Perhaps, it’s myself I have to learn to trust again… I am different now and I suppose I have to learn to live with a different me…”. 

Probably, what B would say to me is ‘stop being so sensitive’ but, sadly, it’s not that easy. That’s where we were different – he was the thinker and I was the feeler.

On the whole, I don’t wake up with that pit in my stomach any more, but I still hold the grief and live with all that it means, it’s just that its manifestation seems to have changed somewhat. I couldn’t understand until I had this 'conversation' why this plateau that I seem to have reached felt strange or wrong, but now I think I do. Right now, my life feels full of contradictions: B is not here, but I talk to him; I’m glad I feel less sad (!), but the fact I feel less sad makes me feel sad (!!); and, probably most importantly, our life was so real, but a lot of the time it now feels unreal. I've also realised that that is why I like to talk about B. For a short while, it makes him real again. I’m beginning to learn that my grief and my happiness can co-exist, neither at the expense of the other, and that this is not duplicitous. Life is not getting back to normal, rather I’m trying to live with the new me, or at least the me I am at the moment…